Critical Review 1: Assessing the ease of Web 2.0 adoption by organizations

Source of the article

Saldanha, T.J.V & Krishnan, M.S. (2012). Organizational adoption of Web 2.0 technologies: An empirical analysis, Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, 22 (4), 301-333. Retrieved from CSU library database.

Introduction

Business enterprises’ adoption of Web 2.0 technologies was discussed as internet usage has become popular among consumers. Factors of organizational Web 2.0 usage were investigated by quantitative method: surveys testing hypotheses. Results were analyzed by statistical methods to find Web 2.0 usage is either positively or not correlated with factors investigated: openness of standards of working inside companies; intensity of knowledge used when business is carried out; company size; and the intensity of industries’ competitive environment.

Important issues

Quantitative research methodology was used: author first reviewed literature introducing Web 2.0. Then, four hypotheses were proposed; quantitative data of business firms’ response were collected, computed with statistical methods like chi-test and tabulated. Hypotheses (H1 to H4) and testing results are shown:

H1 tested for whether open standards of organization are adopted in greater extent result in more usage in Web 2.0 technologies. The result shows the condition of H1 is highly correlated to the results, meaning that when companies’ interface allow employees accessing information technology more easily, Web 2.0 is more used by employees for practicing work. For example, when companies that do not filter software to ban employees from assessing social media sites and open-sources like pdf, employees without consequences, are less refrained from using Web 2.0.

H2 tested for whether larger sized companies allow more Web 2.0 application. The result shows the condition of H2 is correlated to the results: Web 2.0 technologies are more favorable in large firms’ environment. The finding is reasonable due to economies of scale (Hutter et. al, 2013 ,p.19): larger firms have more resources to provide accessories facilitating Web 2.0 usage in companies. For example, larger firms have relatively low cost in mass-purchasing of web-hosting spaces for intranet, internet service packages, social networking sites and services educating employees (Burke, 2013, p.42). In contrast, it is less probable for smaller firms to get discounted services, thus require employees to pay themselves to  purchase or learn about Web 2.0.

H3 tested for whether business-usages of Web 2.0 increase with knowledge intensity. The result shows the condition of H2 is moderately correlated to the results, meaning that Web 2.0 usages increase with knowledge intensity. It is reasonable as professionals are more adapted in assessing and evaluating information while non-professionals’ (e.g. manufacturing) works tend to be under instructions, with less demand of interactive tools to exchange information.

H4 tested for relationship between fierceness of firms’ competition with Web 2.0 development. As p factor is larger, no appreciable correlation was found. Explanations include: firm types have different effects - encourage, discourage or do not affect employee usage of Web 2.0. When benefits of technology development overcome time consumed which can be used for production otherwise, companies have interest to promote Web 2.0. On the other hand, some competitions involve price competition only, without involving necessity of information interactions. Web 2.0 merely adds extra time and money cost, reducing productivity.

Shortcomings

Although statistical method is objective, testing hypotheses reliably, it is difficult for ordinary readers to recognize the implications given in numerical analysis, such as standard deviation and p-value. Qualitative methods, which is absent in the article, should be employed so as to find out opinions of companies about Web 2.0. Interviews should be carried out and dialogues should be recorded, so that experiences of companies in practice dealing with digital environments are mentioned, giving a clearer picture about each hypothesis. Extensive literature reviews may provide plenty of background information, but the literature cited, written in between 2007 to 2011,  is easily to become obsolete and is less suitable to explain the most recent situation. For example, recent development of digital environment related to Web 2.0 and 3.0 are not included in the article, so companies’ recent response facing newest trend may change so fast that deviate from finding of previous document. As earliest age of Web 2.0 is different from recent Web 2.0 or even web 3.0, the reaction of companies towards them can, in the worst case, be the opposite. It is arguable that for the rapidly changing topic of digital environment, online research produced recently may be of more value for librarians to plan for future library development.

Furthermore, firm “size” may be sometimes irrelevant when smaller firms cooperate together in some matters, and large firms like governments are separated into various small departments probably with minimal inter-departmental cooperation. Research of each firms’ detailed structure must be done so that flaws of H2 can be eliminated.

Further hypotheses completing investigation include: First, large number of companies’ stockholders has positive impacts on Web 2.0 development, for example solely owned companies encourage Web 2.0 in less extent than partnership and listed company; government and large listed company mostly encourage on-job Web 2.0. Second, companies in freer / developed society put more effort on Web 2.0 development. This involves cross-country investigation, which is absent in the article. Inter-countries Web 2.0 cooperation of libraries require the understanding of that relation. Third, open standards,  promoted by government regulations (Ghosh, 2011, p. 21), enhances Web 2.0 usage.

Conclusion

Factors affecting companies’ Web 2.0 utilization were investigated with 4 proposed hypotheses. Open standards, large size and information-intensive nature favors Web 2.0 development, while company competition status has ambiguous effect on Web 2.0. More hypotheses and interviews should be done (as mixed research method) to cross-check the validity of article’s conclusions.