Social Media and Organizational Culture

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Communications - Public Relations Advertising Marketing Social Media grade: 10 University of Duisburg-Essen (Wirtschaftswissenschaften) language: English abstract: For many organizations the alignment between social media and organizational culture is a massive challenge because these two concepts do not match in general. The integration of social media in organizations demands preliminary change-oriented cultures which however often have inflexible structures that prevent changes. In this thesis there will be an investigation on the effect of social media integration on the organizational culture by use of literature review with a special focus on the internal communication within organizations. This thesis first defines the term of social media which are very up-to-date but which are used in many cases so that a differentiated point of view has to be taken. In almost the same manner the term organizational culture is described. This concept however is underestimated because the majority of people do not think of an organizational culture when looking at an organization but they are rather profit-oriented. Thus it is crucial to consider this social aspect of an organization. The thesis investigates this concept critically. One of the concerned elements in consequence of the combination between social media and organizational culture is the communication within an organization. An integration of social media technologies has influence on both the internal and external communication. To that effect changes consequences and opportunities of social media integration the context of organizational culture are analyzed and discussed in this thesis. Therefore the critical analysis of the subject provides an assessment and serves as a basis for the consideration of the effect of social media integration on the organizational culture.Social media may have beneficial outcomes for the organizational culture.