Bise – State of the Art

Daniel Richter, Kai Riemer, Jan vom Brocke Internet Social Networking Research State of the Art andImplications for Enterprise 2.0 An overview of the literature on In-ternet social networking (ISN) is pre-sented. The authors identify four dom-inant streams of research and reviewthe key contributions to the field. Thereview reveals that the research fieldis fragmented and does not yet facil-itate a general understanding of thephenomenon. In particular research isverymuch skewed towards certain usergroups (e.g., students) and platforms(in particular Facebook). Further, im-plications for a corporate context arediscussed. In doing so, three contextsof application are differentiated: Socialnetwork sites (SNSs) for 1) recruitingand professional career development,2) relationship facilitation in distributedwork contexts, and 3) interactions withend customers. The authors discussSNS potentials, implications of existingISN research and future research op-portunities. In summary, they seek tocontribute to a better understandingof the phenomenon of ISN and to mak-ing available the current state of ISN re-search for thewider Enterprise 2.0 com-munity.