Date of Award

Spring 2013

Document Type

Doctoral Project

Degree Name

Doctor of Engineering (D Eng)

Department

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering

Committee Director

Rafael Landaeta

Committee Member

Pilar Pazos-Lagos

Committee Member

Cesar Pinto

Committee Member

Jeffery Temple

Abstract

Computer facilitated Social Networking (SN) is becoming more prevalent in our society, both in our personal and professional lives. As its use grows, there is a desire to determine how it will impact an organization. If it can positively impact an organization then it is an initiative that could be embraced and leveraged for any number of business related activities from marketing to engineering. This project develops and implements a social networking treatment for an engineering organization in order to determine how it impacts the responsiveness and performance of the organization. The treatment includes an online tool, a training package, and organizational support throughout the study. The analysis of the data showed that, within the scope of this study, when an organization is provided with a social networking program and associated training and resource allocation there is no apparent impact on the organization. The tool was not used enough to itself have a significant impact on the organization however, subtle changes in the organization as a result of the overall treatment process are noticeable. Some factors that may have impacted the results were a lack of usefulness of the SN tool, the adequacy of the training was insufficient, and participants didn't see the instilled benefit in using the SN tool. This paper presents the methodology, results, conclusions, and courses of action for follow up research.

DOI

10.25777/f92y-mh93

ISBN

9781303219566

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