Speakers: Pavel Bogolyubov The use of social media in organizations implies a paradigm shift in user behavior from a one-way mode to more proactive, collaborative way of working with much more dynamism and openness than before. Our research shows that such shift does not necessarily fit equally well the behavioral traits exhibited in different countries, and such cultural factors as collectivism (propensity to work in well established groups), relationship with power and hierarchy, and so on, can have a significant impact on how well social systems are adopted. I would like to address the Connections community with an overview of the national culture concept and to describe our research findings to date concerning the implementation cases in a variety of countries. I would envisage that it will be of relevance to those engaged in the Connections deployment in different countries directly on in consultancy capacity.

1. The impact of the national
culture on the adoption and
use of social media in
organizations
Pavel Bogolyubov, MBA
Management and Business Development Fellow,
Lancaster University Management School
Dublin, June 2012

3. E2.0/Web 2.0 vs. culture.
Why?
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
Top ten languages on Wikipedia, by
thousands of articles

4. Contd…
60.0
50.0
40.0
30.0
20.0
10.0
0.0
Dutch Italian Polish Finnish
Number of Wikipedia articles per capita by
language (thousand articles per million
people)

5. National Culture
• The central premise the concept is that
people in a country would share a
number of
commonalities, e.g., values, attitudes, b
eliefs, rituals and so on;
• The field is quite mature and there have
been a number of attempts to create a
framework describing country-bound
differences between cultures.

6. Online Behaviour And
National Culture
There is a number of publications dedicated to
culture-bound differences in online behaviour
including Web 2.0, frequently pointing out
collectivism as an important factor (Li and
Kirkup, 2007; Herold, 2009; Shin, 2010; Liu and
Porter, 2010) or providing a general overview
(Chau, 2008; Ribiere, Haddad et al., 2010).

7. Geert Hofstede‟s Cultural
Dimensions
• A study done in IBM 1960s and then
expanded;
• Behavioural differences between
countries in the same company and the
same functions;
• A multidimensional framework
describing cultural differences.

8. Hofstede‟s dimensions
• The „Original Four‟:
– Power Distance (PDI);
– Collectivism/Individualism (IDV);
– Masculinity (MAS);
– Uncertainty Avoidance (AUI);
• Two more were added later:
– Long-term orientation (LTO);
– Indulgence vs. restraint (IVR).

9. Hofstede‟s Cultural
Dimensions
• Hofstede suggested describing national cultures via
six indices (Hofstede, Hofstede et al., 2010):
– Power Distance (PDI) describes the degree to which
inequality is accepted in social settings such as
work, school, family and so on;
– Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI), is an indicator of how
tolerant towards uncertainty a culture is;
– Individualism/Collectivism (IDV) is the degree to which an
individual perceives themselves as part of a group, and how
strong their social ties are;

10. Hofstede‟s Cultural
Dimensions – contd.
– Masculinity (MAS) shows whether achievement is more
valued in a culture than caring for others;
– Long-Term Orientation (LTO) shows whether cultures are
oriented towards the future and thus valuing persistence and
adapting to change, or – conversely - look at past and
present, respecting national pride and history, tradition and
social obligations;
– Indulgence vs. Restraint (IVR) describes how much fun
one is allowed to have in life.

11. What‟s So Cultural About It
PDI IDV MAS UAI LTOWS IVR
Linkedin -0.41 0.52 -0.32 -0.24 -0.17 0.31
Wikipedia -0.33 0.29 0.11 0.20 0.05 0.18
Wikihow -0.29 0.38 0.07 -0.45 -0.28 0.33
eHow -0.26 0.41 0.11 -0.47 -0.24 0.28
Wiktionary -0.24 0.24 -0.01 0.38 0.18 -0.08

12. The Exploration Idea
Could the cultural dimensions be
superimposed onto a technology
acceptance model to create an integrative
framework to be tested on companies
using E2.0 systems?

13. The Unified Theory of Use and
Acceptance of Technology (UTAUT)
(Source: Venkatesh, Morris et al., 2003).

14. UTAUT‟s Adaptation
• We have made some amendments to the methodology:
– Qualitative data rather than a questionnaire, in order to get a
deeper understanding of the reasons for why the determinants
play a role and how exactly it is happening;
– Some elements of UTAUT were deliberately left out:
• Behavioural intention: in all cases the implementation has already
happened;
• The voluntariness was broadly similar in all cases;
• The demographic factors, i.e., gender, age and experience, would
not make much sense given the low number of respondents.
– In other words, we concentrated on performance
expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating
conditions.

15. Results
In total, representatives of 12 knowledge-
intensive companies using social
platforms were interviewed.

16. Findings Summary
Organization Industry Country Interview Findings
Company A Banking Russia Portals, many difficulties - silos and high level of dependency on the boss
Company B Banking Russia As above
Software
Company C Development Russia Portals, failed- silos
Company D Higher Education Russia Portals, successful - heavy promotion from above and group homogenuity
Mobile content
development and
Company E sales Russia Various systems, success - Google'esque free-form culture
Navigation products Project management-based system, success - procedural requirements (clear
Company F development Russia benefits) and heavy promotion
Software
Company G Development Ukraine A wiki, success after some coercion
Environmental In-house interactive portal with many 2.0 features, success - "open and non-
Company H Services UK oppressive culture", high levels of engagement, heavy promotion
FMCG
Company I manufacturing UK Portals, failed - taylorist organizational structures and practices
Heavy maichinery
Company J manufacturing UK A wiki-style system, success - clear practical benefits
Company K Software consulting Germany Hybrid wikis, successful in general, some trends highlighted
Software
consulting/Call
Company L center India A wiki, success - competitions and career opportunities

17. Findings Summary
• In most cases (A, B, C, G, H, J, K, L
and D to a degree) the trends and
issues identified by the respondents
were in line with Hofstede‟s framework.
• Superimposing the UTAUT
determinants onto Hofstede‟s
dimensions creates a correlational
matrix (see next slide).

18. Integrative Matrix
PDI IDV MAS
High Low High Low High Low
Performance Strong reliance on A pragmatic view: Knowledge The idea of wide Making oneself Little importance
expectancy the pressure from if there is a exchange based knowledge sharing visible to the of the personal
the management – problem it solves, largely on perceived very management for performance and
anything that is not it gets used. reciprocity and negatively and the sake of career overall “hard”
promoted as pragmatism. knowledge prospects. benefits.
useful is not “leakage” as
getting done. harmful.
Effort expectancy N/A Engaged N/A N/A N/A N/A
approach towards
architecture
development – the
higher the degree
of involvement at
the design stage,
the easier to use it
is perceived to be.
Social influence As with PE, but The Low importance in Very high – in/out Systems can be N/A
also unwillingness implementation led general, although group sharing used as a means
to be seen as a “from within” – by there are signs of issue and of making oneself
“show off” by the super-users and the network effect. knowledge stand out from the
peers. champions. hoarding. group.
Facilitating Didn‟t come across as a culture-bound factor, although the ability to customize IT solutions to the business requirements and
conditions their ease of use was frequently cited as an important factor in the choice of a system.

19. Two Questions, However…
• Is it social software or ICT in general?
• And what about the remaining cases
that disagree with Hofstede?

20. Generic ICT vs. 2.0
• Every single company relies on advanced ICT:
banking systems, bug trackers or process control
software;
• Even the relatively low-tech Company I is using
various ERP and engineering management
programs, Intranet, XP-based shared drives system
and so on;
• In comparison with 2.0, their implementation and
adoption went in an unproblematic way.

21. Non-conformant Cases
• Social software adoption remains a highly contextual matter;
• In cases with no other influence, the dynamic defaults to the national
averages;
• In on organizational context, however, a number of other factors come
to play:
– demographical homogeneity (Company D) leading to lower PDI dynamic;
– organizational culture conducive to Web 2.0‟s ideology or otherwise (Google-esque
in Company E or mechanistic, formal and hierarchical in Company I);
– or even procedural requirements (Company F);
• The data shows that any of those can overpower the national
dimensions and create an overall environment stimulating or inhibiting
Web 2.0‟s adoption.

22. Practical Implications
• If the appropriate measures are taken, it can still be deployed
and used effectively in culturally unfavourable conditions;
• The degree of formality in the organizational structure as well as
its openness need to be taken into account:
– the mode of deployment – top-down with constant drive and support from
the management vs. engaged and participative, with more emphasis on
facilitation and super-users or change catalysts.
• Furthermore, breaking down internal barriers and building trust
between user groups need to be taken care of.

23. Limitations and Further
Research
• Further expansion to build a more
complete international picture;
• UTAUT is a quantitative model, and our
findings could benefit from supporting
statistical data.

24. Well, it‟s not a plug, but…
e-mail: p.bogolyubov1@lancaster.ac.uk
Or find me on LinkedIn, Facebook or
Google+

25. Any Questions?