Analyzing Social Network Site Use in Brazilian Companies: A Case Study

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This case study investigates the utilization of Social Network Sites (SNS) within Brazilian companies to achieve corporate strategic objectives. The research classifies companies into three groups: knowledge creation, corporate branding, and administrative control, based on their approach to SNS usage. It examines the reasons employees use SNS during work hours, the benefits derived from social capital formation, and the associated risks, including privacy concerns. The study highlights the importance of aligning SNS use with overall corporate goals, emphasizing the need for clear policies and strategic decisions regarding internal and external SNS access. The findings contribute to understanding the impact of SNS on workplace dynamics, employee engagement, and communication strategies in the Brazilian business context, offering insights into how companies can leverage these tools effectively while mitigating potential drawbacks. The study also reviews relevant literature around organizational context, reasons for using SNS, social capital increase, and privacy and disclosure.
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v.11, n.2
Vitória-ES, Mar.-Apr. 2014
p. 87 - 114 ISSN 1808-2386 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15728/bbr.2014.11.2.4
The Use of Social Network Sites in the Workplace: a Case Study in Brazilian
Companies
Marcos Hideyuki Yokoyama
Osaka University
Tomoki SekiguchiΩ
Osaka University
ABSTRACT
People are increasingly using Social Network Sites (SNS) through corporate platforms or
open websites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. As a recent phenomenon, the
potential benefits and risks of such tools are still not properly addressed in organizations. The
purpose of this paper is to analyze how Brazilian companies are using this tool to achieve
their corporate strategic objectives. We conducted a qualitative case study and proposed a
framework that classified the companies into three groups according to their position about
SNS use in the workplace. The knowledge creation group benefits the social and intellectual
capital generated by online discussion, while the corporate branding group seeks to strengthen
the corporate image with customers. The administrative control group is more concerned
about productivity, procrastination and data confidentiality. We also highlight the reasons for
employees to use SNS during working time, the benefits and risks caused by formation of
social capital and concerns about privacy.
Keywords: Social network site. Workplace. Social capital. Privacy.
Received on June 13, 2012; reviewed on September 5, 2012 ; accepted on May 10, 2013; disclosed on May 7, 2014.
*Author for correspondence:
. Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Economics
of Osaka University
Address: 1-7 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka
Japan
E-mail: ngm807yh@student.econ.osaka-u.ac.jp
Ph.D. from the Michael G. Foster School of Business at the University of
Washington
Institution: Professor at Osaka University
Address: 1-7 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka Japan
E-mail: tomoki@econ.osaka-u.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-6-6850-5229
Note from the Editor: This article was accepted by Emerson Mainardes.
This article has a Creative Commons License - Attribution 3.0 Not Adapted.
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1 INTRODUCTION
ocial Network Sites (SNS) are web-based services that allow users to construct
an individual profile to interact with contacts and also to enable visualization of
friends’ network within the system. These sites allow users to learn detailed
information about contacts, share it with specific or unspecific people and build
online human-relationships (BOYD; ELLISON, 2008; KWON; WEN, 2010;
VALENZUELA et al., 2009).
The use of SNS has been widely studied in the university population, especially
because Facebook was primarily developed to serve this community. However, ordinary
people are increasingly accessing SNS through open websites such as Twitter, LinkedIn,
MySpace and Facebook. Regarding the use of SNS, the Brazilian population is recognized for
its active participation on these websites. Orkut had been the market leader in Brazil for seven
years, reaching 29 million unique users, or 64% of Brazilian Internet users. In September
2011, Facebook surpassed Orkut and became the widest used SNS, with 30.9 million unique
users, or 68.2% of Internet users (GEROMEL, 2011). Additionally, Brazilian users present
the highest rates of sociability on SNS, as they usually achieve up to 360 friends, while users
around the world have 195 friends on average (ALE, 2010).
Much of the existing academic research on SNS has focused on the reason for using it,
creation of social capital, privacy and disclosure and personal factors affecting its use. There
is a lack of studies in the organizational context. Dimicco et al. (2008) and Steinfield et al.
(2009) presented the benefits generated by a SNS that was designed exclusively for IBM
employees, with no possibility to interact with consumers, customers, suppliers or personal
friends, for example. In the same way, Costa et al. (2008) and Costa et al. (2009) presented
results from the development of an internal SNS to support knowledge management in a
Brazilian company. Skeels and Grudin (2009) discussed the use of open SNS by Microsoft
employees, examining the influence on productivity, its utilities and issues. We also found
studies in Brazil about SNS use for business communication and marketing campaigns
(SOUSA; AZEVEDO, 2010; BARCELOS, 2011).
In Brazil, 98% of the companies with more than 10 employees have Internet access.
Among these companies, 36% have a policy of restriction to personal e-mails, 39% do not
allow access to websites of news, sports or entertainment and 56% restrict the access to SNS
(CETIC, 2012). According to Li (2010), it is crucial that companies decide whether to use
SNS following their overall corporate strategic goals. More than that, companies should use a
S
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common process whereby clear decisions about SNS use may be made. With this background,
we set out to address the following question: “How do Brazilian companies use SNS to
achieve their corporate strategic objectives?” The overarching purpose of this study is to
classify Brazilian companies according to their position about SNS use in the workplace to
achieve their corporate strategic objectives. Also, we intend to analyze how Brazilians who
participate in SNS use this tool within the workplace and what the benefits and risks from its
utilization are.
2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Most Social Network Sites (SNS) are structured around a profile and a display of
connections, but they may vary to the extent that they support additional services such as
blogging (LiveJournal), audio-visual content sharing (Flicker, Last.FM, Youtube) or status
updates and mobile connectivity (Twitter). Also, they can be directed to a specific audience,
such as work-related connections (LinkedIn), exclusive membership (ASmallWorld),
romantic relationship initiation (the original goal of Friendster.com) or ethnic, religious,
sexual orientation or particular content genres (ELLISON et al., 2007; PAPACHARISSI;
MENDELSON, 2011).
The current popularity of Facebook can be noticed by the constant announcements
about the increase in the number of users and time spent on the website all over the world. It
was originally created as a site for college students in 2004 and an official university email
address was needed to ensure that all users were members of the campus community. In 2006
it was opened to everyone with a valid email address (MAYER; PULLER, 2008; TONG et
al., 2008).
Facebook provides both the technical and the social infrastructure for social interaction.
For example, the tool provides technical support for communication through applications
(wall posts, messages, comments) and information about users' contacts. The identity
information serves as a social lubricant, providing clues about the profile owner’s social
status, physical attractiveness, credibility, cultural tastes and political affiliation, besides other
personal aspects (STEINFIELD et al., 2008; TONG et al., 2008; ELLISON et al., 2011). The
size of one’s apparent friends’ network on a SNS can easily become much larger than
traditional offline networks, because friendship is in some cases superficial, technology
facilitates greater connection, and social norms inhibit refusals to friend requests (TONG et
al., 2008).
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SNS complement the network of relationships present in the offline world by providing
a platform that permits active communication between friends and also engages in a form of
passive observation of social news. This observation allows users to track the activities of a
wide set of possible connections and might lower the barriers to initiating communication,
both because potential commonalities are revealed and because crucial information about
others is provided (STEINFIELD et al., 2008, BURKE et al., 2010, VITAK et al., 2011).
The literature addressing SNS presents different theoretical backgrounds. In order to
structure the description of case studies, we introduce the main studies according to four
topics: organizational context, reasons for using it, social capital increase and privacy and
disclosure.
2.1 ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT
The existing studies about SNS present many advantages of its utilization, but many
companies prohibit its use during working time by blocking employees’ access to websites
(BOYD; ELLISON, 2008). On this matter, Garrett and Danziger (2008) concluded that
employees are surfing the web or sending personal e-mails during working time because these
activities are considered to be similar to other everyday activities in the workplace, such as
calling home or chatting with a coworker about any subject.
Skeels and Grudin (2009) showed that the use of LinkedIn and Facebook is widely
accepted at Microsoft and is seen as providing benefits, such as creation and strengthening of
ties. At the same time, it has caused some tensions from mixing personal and professional
connections, from spanning organizational levels and also over disclosing confidential
information. Besides this, some employees reported that it is a waste of productive time.
DiMicco et al. (2008) performed a study involving a SNS especially designed for IBM’s
employees and found that they were using it to reach out across team and division boundaries
to connect with people with similar interests. Likewise, Steinfield et al. (2009) showed that
when employees use SNS for keeping up with known colleagues, they report having closer
ties with their immediate network.
In Brazil, Costa et al. (2008) and Costa et al. (2009) reported the implementation of an
internal SNS in a private innovation institute, with the objective of supporting employees for
creation, management and sharing of knowledge. The implementation of such tool resulted in
a better relationship among coworkers through mutual cooperation, better communication and
exchange of knowledge from any location.
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Internal SNS can also provide a good source of information for human resources
departments through profiles with up-to-date, relevant and dynamic data. The associated
information relating to the connections, interests and activities of employees are instantly
available and storable by the company, providing new information sources and new
possibilities for understanding the workforce (DIMICCO et al., 2008).
Barcellos (2010) and Souza & Azevedo (2010) present the challenges that Brazilian
companies are facing to communicate with consumers through SNS. They discuss the new
methods to measure communication efficiency and how to structure actions to manage brand
image, reputation and credibility in these dynamic environments.
Still about the organizational context, Li (2010) affirms that companies can use SNS to
achieve the following four goals: learn, dialog, support and innovate. The first goal is about
using SNS to know more about employees, customers and partners. The second goal is to
dialog and transform a relationship from that of shouting out one-way messages to
communication between equals. Support is about helping people from inside and outside the
organization at different times and innovate is about fostering creativity. Companies should
define their goals according to the corporate strategic objectives and, based on that, make
decisions about implementation of internal SNS, access to external SNS and development of a
specific policy for its use.
2.2 REASONS FOR USING SNS
About the reasons to use SNS, Subrahmanyam et al. (2008) performed a survey with
college students and concluded they were primarily using SNS for social motives that
involved people from their offline lives rather than looking for new friends, new music, or
finding groups to talk about specific issues. Thus, students do not use SNS to meet and form
connections with strangers and prefer to strengthen existing offline connections.
The reasons to use SNS vary according to demographical characteristics. Sheldon
(2009) used gender differences and concluded that females were using SNS to maintain
existing relationships, while males tended to use it as a dating tool and to establish
relationships in general. Pfeil et al. (2009), on the other hand, explored differences between
older people (over 60 years of age) and teenagers. They found that teens have larger networks
of friends, tend to make more use of different media and use more self-references and
negative emotions when describing themselves on profiles when compared to older people.
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Lin and Lu (2011) used previous studies that relate motivation theory and information
technology acceptance to propose two factors affecting individuals’ motivation for SNS use:
extrinsic benefits (usefulness) and intrinsic benefits (enjoyment). In the organizational
context, people benefit from the use of SNS by the creation and strengthening of ties
(SKEELS; GRUDIN, 2009). Employees use SNS to connect with coworkers on a personal
level, apart from enhancing their careers through self-promotion and strategic connections.
They also report SNS use as a means to move forward with their ideas, that is, to gather
support for their plans and drive traffic to their project webpages (DIMICCO et al., 2008).
Lin and Lu (2011) found in their study in Taiwan that enjoyment was the most
important factor affecting Facebook users’ behavior. Thus, activities on Facebook such as
posting photos and films, sharing links and applications and playing games appear to be a
source of pleasurable experience. Also, the number of connections and perceived
complementarity reinforce the usefulness and enjoyment of SNS, suggesting that with
increased peer connections and complementary tools, SNS interaction becomes more
interesting.
2.3 SOCIAL CAPITAL
The term social capital has been adopted by sociologists and economists to designate
the benefits created by the relationship among individuals. Coleman (1988) affirms that social
capital consists of a variety of entities that form a social structure and facilitates actions by
actors within this structure. Like other forms of capital, it is productive and makes it possible
for the achievement of certain ends that in its absence would not be possible. From a business
strategy perspective, Burt (2005) states that social capital refers to the advantage created by a
person’s location in a structure of relationships. Thus, the connections, trust, support and
dependence resulting from the diverse exchanges among people may form an asset to the
organization.
Putnam (2000) delineated two basic forms of social capital: bonding and bridging.
Bonding social capital describes benefits from dense relationships, which may comprise
reciprocity, solidarity, social and psychological support, reliable labor for local entrepreneurs
or other close benefits. Bridging social capital consists of more sparse relationships, with
benefits derived from distant acquaintances and connections, like linkage to external assets
and information diffusion. Bridging social capital is linked to what network researchers call
weak ties”, by referring to individuals that are more likely to move in different circles of
connections and thus have access to useful information. Access to individuals outside one’s
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close circle provides access to non-redundant information, resulting in benefits such as
employment connections, new opportunities and perspectives (GRANOVETTER, 1973,
1982).
Williams (2006) developed and validated the Internet Social Capital Scales (ISCS) – a
series of scale to measure bridging and bonding social capital in Internet contexts. Using this
scale, a positive relationship between Facebook use with the maintenance and creation of
bridging social capital was found among college students in the United States. The social and
technical tools provided by Facebook can encourage the conversion of latent ties into weak
ties, but not necessarily create the close kinds of relationships that are associated with bonding
social capital. Also, people reporting Facebook use to connect with ‘total strangers’ did not
have an impact on their social capital, probably because connecting with strangers is not the
norm on the site and users may be less receptive to these advances (ELLISON et al., 2007,
2011).
In addition to these studies, we can also find literature that includes psychological
variables to better understand the consequences of SNS utilization. Steinfield et al. (2008)
found that college students with lower self-esteem gained more from the use of Facebook,
since they may face more difficulties in approaching people in their classes or dormitories.
Therefore, Facebook might contribute to the formation of bridging social capital by mitigating
fears of rejection and facilitating communication in initial social interactions. Valenzuela et
al. (2009) found a positive relationship between the intensity of Facebook use and personal
contentment, trust and participation in civic and political activities. Burke et al. (2010) also
found that the greater use of SNS (text exchanges, non-text feedback such as the “like” button
or photo tagging) may be associated with increased social capital and lower loneliness.
The constructs of bonding and bridging social capital are equally relevant within an
organizational setting. Bonding social capital in an organization implies there is trust and a
sense of obligation that encourages reciprocity and willingness to contribute to the company.
Bridging social capital is associated with the kinds of weak ties that facilitate access to non-
redundant information, greater interest in connecting globally, and greater ability to access
expertise within the company (STEINFIELD, et al., 2009).
2.4 PRIVACY AND DISCLOSURE
Another topic that is commonly discussed in the SNS literature is privacy and
disclosure. SNS removes the privacy barriers that people keep between different aspects of
their lives as it makes one’s connections visible to all the others. Disclosed information may
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be available to the entire network of friends and it can bring privacy concerns, because the
way that one user interacts with a potential mate is different from the way one interacts with
one’s niece, mother-in-law or boss, for example (DONATH; BOYD, 2004; MCCLARD;
ANDERSON, 2008).
Privacy concerns were already addressed when Facebook was still restricted to
university communities. Gross and Acquisti (2005) showed that personal data was generously
provided by students and they hardly used privacy controls. At that time, the authors were
concerned about users’ exposition, physical and cyber risks, and the possibility for third
parties to create digital dossiers of their behavior. Still about the university community,
Stutzman et al. (2011) explored students’ attitudes and behaviors and found that the more an
individual is concerned about privacy, the less likely the individual will be to increase
disclosure.
About common Facebook users, Nosko et al. (2010) collected information from Canada
and found that age was an important factor in determining disclosure behaviors, which means
that as age increases, the amount of personal information in profiles decreases. The privacy
concern can reach the stage in which users delete a friend or block someone from their profile.
SNS users have indicated reasons for deleting a friend that ranges from losing contact,
wanting privacy, and protecting one’s safety from a “crazy stalker” or a “crazy ex-girlfriend”
(SUBRAHMANYAM et al., 2008) .
In this sense, it is necessary to develop programs and interventions to caution SNS users
about the risk of personal information disclosure. SNS developers should simplify privacy
policies to help users understand the implications of their disclosures and, besides that, create
easier privacy controls or enable users to produce their own rules within the system (NOSKO
et al., 2010; STUTZMAN et al., 2011).
In the organizational context, in which employees mix connections from professional
and personal circles, there is a concern about people posting content that is offensive,
alienating, needlessly provocative, irrelevant, or otherwise out of line with the goals of the
organization (MCAFEE, 2009). In this respect, Li (2010) states that every company needs to
develop and put in place a policy for SNS to create structure, process and discipline around
openness. Organizations typically have two types of policy: social media guidelines for
employees and customer-interaction guidelines, such as community participation or comment
guidelines. The benefit of having a code of conduct and disclosure policy is the clarity on how
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the company expects employees to behave in such environments, taking into consideration
aspects of identity transparency, responsibility, confidentiality and common sense.
3 METHOD
The present paper adopts a qualitative approach since it studies a phenomenon
involving human beings and their social relations, with no interest to enumerate and measure
the events analyzed or employ statistical analysis (GODOY, 1995). Due to the lack of
previous studies about the use of SNS within the workplace, we performed an exploratory
case-based study. The case study method is considered appropriate to study emergent
practices, factors or situations (MEREDITH, 1998) and it is considered exploratory because
the preliminary investigations are intended to generate ideas and hypotheses for rigorous
empirical testing at a later stage (SCAPENS, 1990).
In the first round of interviews, we collected data from six interviews with managers of
different companies. We chose to interview people involved with the human resource
department in an attempt to extract the company’s position about the use of SNS by
employees. Participants were asked to describe their experiences and the company policy in
relation to SNS use within the workplace. These in-depth interviews were conducted face-to-
face lasting 40-60 minutes, digitally recorded and transcribed. We develop a semi-structured
questionnaire based on the literature review and the interviews were conducted in Portuguese
in December 2011. These open-ended questions were designed to allow participants to discuss
any aspects related to their personal experience, professional attitude or explanations for
employees’ behavior.
To increase the reliability of these interviews, we conducted a second round of
interviews with different people from the same companies. Lewis and Ritchie (2003) state
that reliability in qualitative studies can be achieved by internal checks on the quality of the
data and interpretations and by providing accurate information about the research process.
Thus, in August 2012 we interviewed employees from different work positions to confirm the
first analysis and add new findings. This triangulation method is a means of testing out
arguments from different angles. Being open to different ways of seeing, constructing
meanings and acknowledging divergence enables researchers to pursue interpretations further
and deepen understanding to portray a valid picture (SIMONS, 2009).
The second round of interviews was conducted via telephone or Internet calls, in
Portuguese, lasting 20-40 minutes, also digitally recorded and transcribed. These interviews
lasted less time because the questions were more specific, based on previous findings.
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According to Simons (2009), as the researcher goes from interview to interview and observes
more situations in the field, he or she can change the questions, decide if there are further
issues to investigate or refine the interpretative asides. At the end of the interview, we asked
the respondents whether they agreed with the framework proposed in this paper.
Data analysis was performed qualitatively, in which procedures adopted by the
companies were compared with the literature. Yin (2005) states that the construction of an
explanation should be the result of an iterative process in which the final result may not have
been stated from the beginning. Consequently, the interpretation of the previous theory can be
revised to reach the appropriate explanation. As requested by the interviewees, the names of
the companies have been kept anonymous. Companies A, B, C, D, E and F represent the
study population. To complement the results, we used secondary data from newspapers,
magazines and corporate websites. This information is used to enhance the proposed
framework, but the references are not described to maintain the confidentiality of the
companies.
3.1 RESEARCH CONTEXT
As previously stated, we performed twelve interviews in six companies from different
industries. We conducted case studies in two consulting firms and one in each industry, as
follows: human resource service provision, retailing, general trading company1 and pay-tv.
The companies vary in their size from 80 to 8,000 employees in Brazil and company F counts
on 10,000 outsourced employees, including call center attendants, sellers and technicians.
Company D is the only domestic corporation, while the others are multinational companies of
foreign origin. In the first round of interviews, we talked with people who had experience
with SNS and were able to define the company position about its use within the workplace. In
the second round of interviews, we talked to employees who have worked for the organization
for more than one year, so that they could confirm the policy on SNS use. Table 1 presents
some general characteristics.
1 General trading company (sogo shosha in Japanese) is a term designating a unique Japanese business entity that
trades a wide range of products. In addition to trading, they have historically acted as investment banks and
private equities. Sogo shosha may be better described as a business philosophy based on three dimensions: large
number of commodities, geographical spread and economic power (Kunio, 1982).
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Table 1 - Presentation of the companies
Company Industry Number of
employees 1st round of interview 2nd round of interview
A HR Service
Provider
World: 8,000
Brazil: 240 Managing Director Consultant (since 2006)
B Consulting World: 23,600
Brazil: 8,000
Talent & Organization
Manager
Senior Manager
(since 2000)
C Consulting World: 430,000
Brazil:17,400
Change Management
Consultant Consultant (since 2008)
D Retail Brazil: 15,000 HR Specialist Consultant Service Provider
(since 2011)
E General Trading
Company
World: 5,000
Brazil: 80 HR Specialist Business Analyst (since
2007)
F Pay-tv via
Satellite
World: 23,000
Brazil: 2,000
Social Network Site
Supervisor Intern (since 2011)
The first round of interviews at company A was conducted with the managing director,
holding the highest management position in Brazil. Company B was represented by an
experienced project manager who had already worked for the company’s HR department. The
consultant from company C served the corporation for five years and was recently hired by
company D as a HR specialist – same position of company E’s respondent. Company F is the
only one that has a specific department for SNS and we managed to interview its supervisor.
In the second round of interviews, companies A and C were represented by functional
consultants, who demonstrated how they utilize SNS in their daily work. As a senior manager,
the employee of company B was able to show how internal SNS can help her in decision
making. Since she had provided consulting services at company D for more than 15 months,
we also asked her to talk about the practices adopted by this company. We interviewed a
business analyst from company E and an intern from company F, who had been working there
for exactly one year.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
To facilitate understanding of the results, we present the outcomes in topics, reproduce
excerpts from interviews, establish the proper relationship with the literature and discuss the
consequences of each decision.
4.1 SNS USE WITHIN THE WORKPLACE
As the aim of this paper is to classify the companies according to the use made of SNS,
we present quotes from both rounds of interviews to increase the explanatory power of our
results (PRATT, 2009). At the end of each quote, we indicate whether the respondent is from
the first or second round of interviews. Besides the excerpts from interviews, Table 2 also
represents symbolically how the studied companies use SNS within the workplace. We
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decided to develop this framework to better visualize the situation of each company in respect
to access to external SNS, development of internal SNS and existence of a specific policy for
SNS use. The symbols “O” and “X” indicate the extreme cases where companies permit or do
not allow free access to external SNS, have or do not have internal SNS and have or do not
have a specific policy for SNS. The symbol “∆” represents intermediate cases.
Table 2 - SNS use within the companies
External SNS Internal SNS Specific Policy for SNS
A
In Brazil, we block employees’
access to Facebook. Our
consultants are paid by the hour, so
they have to be aware that
customers can notice on Facebook
that they are not working while
posting contents (Interviewee A1).
X
We created internal tools but these
projects failed because employees
continued using Facebook or Orkut.
Eventually, a large corporation with
50 or 60 thousand employees could
achieve success (Interviewee A1).
X
Upon being hired, we receive an
internal policy checklist about the
correct use of Internet. This
checklist contains restrictions on
SNS such as Orkut and Facebook
(Interviewee A2).

B
Blocking access would make us
unable to respond to some clients’
requests. The company also uses
SNS to be in evidence (Interviewee
B2).
O
Our company encourages the use of
internal tools. We were asked to
avoid the use of external tools when
addressing issues related to work
(Interviewee B1).
O
There are global and local policies
on ethics and information security.
The training is part of employees’
evaluation (Interviewee B2).

C
We have free access. I usually
consult forums where I can find
topics about work-related problems
and check what has been discussed
about it (Interviewee C2).
O
Internal SNS are used for knowledge
exchange. There are communities
divided by topics: professional,
technical, project management,
certifications, etc. It consists of
online spaces for forums, blogs and
document archiving. (Interviewee
C2).
O
Every employee must annually be
certified about the general internal
policy. We get an electronic address
to access and answer a
questionnaire to commit that we will
follow the rules (Interviewee C1).

D
If you visit a website for the first
time, the address and the
employee’s name is recorded
(Interviewee D2).
X
We have informational portals
without interaction among users,
just passive reading of information
(Interviewee D2).
X
There is an internal policy available
in the intranet banning the use of
Internet during working hours
(Interviewee D1).

E
Internet use should be strictly
professional. However, we know
that employees are accessing SNS
during working hours. The company
is aware of this situation, but so far
has not taken any harsher action
(Interviewee E1).
O
The internal SNS is already
working. In the system, you can fill
out a profile, upload pictures, join
discussion forums, download books
and take online courses
(Interviewee E2).
O
The day I was hired, I signed an
agreement saying that Internet use
is only for business purposes,
excluding personal use (Interviewee
E2).

F
The financial department, for
example, doesn’t need to access
SNS. Someone that checks his/her
Facebook many times along the day
is losing productive time
(Interviewee F1).

I usually receive information
broadcast through email
(Interviewee F2).
X
I received internal training on the
use of SNS, which mentioned
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. I
have access to much confidential
information, so I have to be aware
of the risks of using SNS
(Interviewee F2).
O
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