Poster presentatio at 1st Internet Science, Brussels, April 2013. http://internet-science.eu/ poster anand sheombar - so me4d

1. Research Design for the Study of Social Media Use by Dutch Development Organizations
Anand Sheombar
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School (UK) & Utrecht University of Applied Sciences (NL)
e-mail anand.sheombar@gmail.com or Twitter @anandstweets
Introduction Results Relationship between emerging themes
Background for this research is the idea that ICT may have • Five Dutch Development organizations active with RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ‘IDENTIFYING BARRIERS/RISKS OF SOCIAL
MEDIA’ & ‘CHARACTERIZING SOCIAL MEDIA’
potential; benefits for socio-economic development. This social media have been analyzed for this pilot study.
research area is called ICT for development (ICT4D). A sub- • The data collection time period November 2010 till
area of interest in this research is the use of social media. A October 2012.
definition for social media is "a group of Internet-based • All interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed &
applications that build on the ideological and technological manually coded.
foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and
• The interviews were in Dutch and coded using English
exchange of user-generated content“ (Kaplan and Haenlein, RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ‘CHARACTERIZING SOCIAL MEDIA’ AND ‘SOCIAL
terms. MEDIA PRACTICE’
2010).
• Next to the interviews additional data was collected as
Objectives complementary secondary sources.
For this qualitative study the research is focussed on the CONTEXT AND CHARACTERISTICS OF ANALYZED
question: ORGANIZATIONS
What (issues and opportunities) do the major Dutch
development organizations encounter when using social RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ‘IDENTIFYING BARRIERS/RISKS OF SOCIAL
media to engage their stakeholders with their projects? MEDIA’ AND ‘SOCIAL MEDIA PRACTICE’
By stakeholders I mean the donors, fellow non-profit
organizations, the organizations own staff, the local
organizations in developing regions and the aid receiving
communities in developing countries.
Methods
THREE EMERGING THEMES
The main purpose of the Grounded Theory method is theory The selective codes (i.e. categories) were identified after PRELIMINARY DIAGRAM WITH RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THEMES
building. The transcripts of the interviews of the cases were grouping the 80 open codes and finding close conceptual
subjected to open coding. This is done by coding for as many relation among the open codes that were clustered. Three
categories as possible without a predetermined set of codes. selective codes emerged from the occurrences of the open
codes:
• ‘Perception of social media’: means the respondents’
notion of what social media is. It does not necessarily
define social media, but it tells how the respondents in the
context of their work and organization perceive what
social media means to them.
• ‘Applying to social media practice’ shows the social Conclusion
media activities undertaken by the examined organization. The Grounded Theory analysis has produced some
• ‘Identifying barriers/risks of social media’ reveals the constructs around which further literature reviewing can be
Source: Urquhart et al. (2010), after barriers or risks that respondents mentioned and recognize done and from where the PhD research question can be
Lehmann (2001) and Fernández (2003). further refined.
while using social media for their organization.