Business Research Sample Solution (Impact of Social media)

BUSINESS RESEARCH - ASSESSMENT 1

Table of Contents

List of articles. 3

Introduction. 3

Brief Summary. 4

Common findings across the Four Articles. 4

Different findings across the Four Articles. 5

Study limitations. 5

Future scope. 6

References. 7

List of articles

Introduction

In the understated assignment, a brief description evaluation of impact of social media on the business operations has been represented. An organisation has reached new heights of success by implementing social; media in its business activities or operations. The performance of the organisation is commendable increased due to the increase in sales and customer satisfaction that the social media has provided to the organisation. The four articles represent the diverse dimensions related to social media and impact when an organisation adopts it. The study is sub divided into different sub sections that would help in depth critical analysis of the selected four articles

Brief Summary

The theories related to the impact of social media on business operations clearly depicted that the social media platforms brought a transformational change in the traditional working style of the current organisation. In addition to this, it even predicted the need of the organisation to use social media for various operational activities. According to theory represented by Aral et al. (2013) social media has provided the business organisation a brand new method to practice business functions that would ultimately help in the growth and development of the organisation. It has thereby come as an evolutionary phenomenon for the organisations of the existing time. Over a dozen empirical studies depicted that social media has provided a new framework to the firms to conduct their business operations. In the article represented by Smits and Mogos, (2013) social media has become the key aspect behind the improvisation of business performances. Advancement in the performances of an organisation could be observed because of the implications of the social media in its business operations. The companies that have embraced the social media to operate certain activities have an ever-growing advantage over those that are still working under the traditional business. The article constructed by Agnihotri et al. (2016) portrayed that social media has largely influenced the customer satisfaction especially in terms of B2B sales. Customer satisfaction plays a significant role in the ultimate growth of a company. Therefore, by imbibing social media techniques the organisation could see a large improvement in its sales since the customers were highly satisfied. In accordance to Rowley et al. (2014) that the social media has greatly affected the integrated business system of today’s organisation. The implementations of the social media had influenced the diverse section of business sectors in different ways.

Common findings across the Four Articles

The potential impact of adopting social media in the functional activities of the business was clearly demonstrated by all the four articles. The selected four articles clearly demonstrated the reason of high increases in the number of organisation that have moved on to using social media platforms for various functional activities. Every department of an organization utilizes social media for some reason or the other. The articles represented the advantages the organisation gained on embracing social media. For every organisation, social media has become an asset. It has become a source, through which the organisation could easily access to a wider range of market. All the four theories depicted the key advantages that an organisation would avail to by implementing social media and its techniques into functioning diverse operations of the business. The articles represented that the potential impact of social media enforced the conservative organisation to undergo a change management system in order to gain the diverse benefits of the phenomenon. The evolutionary phenomenon of social media has influenced the organisation to undertake its implications into account for successive growth in every department.

Different findings across the Four Articles

The impact of social media was demonstrated differently by each of the articles selected for the study Aral et al. portrayed social media as transformational concept for the organisations that imbibed the phenomenon in its diverse activities. According to this article the social media and its impact is considered a sudden change that has gained the organisation’s diverse advantages. While in respect to other articles Smits and Mogos, in their article specified the impact on social media on the performances of the business. Progressive performance is the key aspect for a successful business. However, social media helped in improving the performance of the organisation by providing diverse opportunities through its techniques. Agnihotri et al. in their article showed the influence social media had in B2B sales in terms of customer satisfaction. Due to its vast reach to large number of consumer and easy access to data about the varying demand of the customers the social media could easily create a beneficial influence in the customer satisfaction of the organisation and increases the sales in terms of B2B. Lastly, the article by Rowley et al. among all the other articles not only represented the beneficial aspects of embracing social media in business operation. However demonstrated the issue or disadvantages that are related to the social media and its adoption.

Study limitations

The qualitative article of Aral et al. due to being open ended in nature. The verification of the data in the article could not be not executed properly. Since, the content of the article largely depended on its participants. In addition to this analysis of the data in the article is a time consuming process.

While the quantitative article of Smits and Mogos, provided limitation in small sample size. There was no proper presentation of the specified target market. A cluster sampling method was applied on a group different business associate, managers and administrators. This resulted in producing fewer representatives in comparison to other probability sampling design. While the article by Agnihotri et al. showed a limited outcome due to the inappropriate questionnaires that were designed. The article by Rowley et al. due to the lack of variables could not specify the association between the social media and its impact on business operations.

Future scope

The researchers of all the articles would try to mitigate all the limitation that arose in their research study and conduct an even more specific study on the related topic. Aral et al. would try to verify the data by using effective verification tools. While Smits and Mogos, would try to take larger sample size to curb down the limitation and get better results. Instead of using cluster, sampling method Agnihotri et al. would try to use random sampling technique for productive outcomes. Rowley et al. would try to investigate more variables to establish a proper association.

References

Agnihotri, R., Dingus, R., Hu, M.Y. and Krush, M.T., 2016. Social media: Influencing customer satisfaction in B2B sales. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, pp.172-180.

Aral, S., Dellarocas, C. and Godes, D., 2013. Introduction to the special issue—social media and business transformation: a framework for research. Information Systems Research, 24(1), pp.3-13.

Rowley, J., Ashworth, C.J. and McCarthy, J., 2014. Social Media: The Issues, Benefits, and. Integrating Social Media into Business Practice, Applications, Management, and Models, p.98.

Smits, M. and Mogos, S., 2013. The Impact Of Social Media On Business Performance. In ECIS (p. 125).