Enterprise 2.0 and Hacker Ideals in the Workplace: Where Subculture and Emerging Technologies Collide

Organizations have started using social media to support activities such as team collaboration and knowledge sharing, yet few researchers have systematically investigated the context and culture within which these implementations occur, nor the perceived impact according to organizational users. Additionally, researchers have not yet considered the set of utopian cyber-culture values known as the "hacker ethic" as a lens for understanding social media use in organizations (Levy, 1984; Turner, 2006). This research used a mixed-methods, multiple case study to understand the ways work groups use social media to support or accomplish work, as well as challenges and positive organizational outcomes of workplace Web 2.0. This study also focused on how work groups that use social media categorize their organizational cultures overall, and the extent to which "hacker values" describe their cultures. Three organizations participated in a survey of social media use, ranked cultural descriptors using the Organizational Culture Profile (OCP) (O'Reilly, Chatman, & Caldwell, 1991), and gave feedback about the challenges and outcomes of using Web 2.0, supported with discussions from follow-up focus groups and interviews.;The three organizations in this study could be categorized by the early phases of Web 2.0 adoption, including "test adoption" and "focused adoption." In these phases, companies try social media by creating accounts and assign an employee to manage social media without integrating this position with other functions, or start to link social media to functions such as public relations or marketing (Blanchard, 2011). Hacker culture did not play a role in the successful integration of workplace social media for these companies. Employees mentioned the themes of external communication or marketing, and internal communication or information sharing most frequently as positive outcomes of Enterprise 2.0. Concerns with controlling access to information or issues with openness and privacy, along with resistance to social media or to new technologies generally, emerged as the most often cited challenge themes. Ultimately, organizations need to link social media to key business goals to create value. The larger organizational culture should be considered with any new technology implementation.