Business management with social media: 2 relevant theories

Based on my brief Internet search exercise, I am able to find a few articles on how social media can strengthen business management, including one written by Bengtson (re: http://www.bme.eu.com/article/Social-media-strengthen-companies/). In this article, Bengtson identified a number of business management activities that social media can provide useful support, namely, in (i) sharing knowledge, (ii) solving problems, (iii) assisting change, and in (iv) recruiting. I have noticed that there are also discussions on how CEOs can use social media to strengthen their leadership roles (see, for example, http://www.webershandwick.com/resources/ws/flash/Socializing_Your_CEO_FINAL.pdf). There are also quite a lot of writings on social media-based marketing practice (more commonly called social media marketing), see, for example, Hanna, et al. (2011) and Singh et al. (2008).

I think the discussion of business management in a social media ecosystem can be fruitfully informed by the writing on "images of organization", especially on "organizations as brains". The brain metaphor tells us that, the numerous cells in our brain, by interacting with each others in a dense web, can generate much higher level of intelligence. To quote from Morgan (1986): "The pattern of rich connectivity between neurons allows simulateous processing of information in different parts of the brain, a receptivity to different kinds of information at one and the same time, and an amazing capacity to be aware of what is going on elsewhere..... it facilitates the process of self-organization whereby internal structure and functioning can evolve along with changing circumstances."  Organizational design guidelines from the brain metaphor endorse a holographic design. In this case, it is useful to examine how social media can strengthen business management based on holographic design principles. The social media ecosystem can also be considered as a digital platform to host the 4 types of 'ba' for corporate knowledge management (re: http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/thonglipfei/ba_concept.html).

I encourage more business research on "business management in a social media ecosystem" using the two management theories of "Ba" and "Organizations as brains".


References

1. Hanna, R., Rohm, A. and Crittenden, V. (2011) "We'r all connected: the power of the social media ecosystem", Business Horizons 54, pp. 265-273.
2. Morgan, G. (1986) Images of Organization, Sage.
3. Singh, T., Veron-Jackson, L. and Cullinane, J. (2008) "Blogging: A new play in your marketing plan", Business  Horizon 51, pp. 281-292.
4. Social media marketing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_marketing