Influence of social media practices on the fusion of strategies within organisations

Abstract

Contemporary information technologies such as social media have brought into question the usefulness of the alignment perspective in understanding the role and influence of technology in organisational strategy. This has prompted some scholars to argue for a fusion view of Information Systems (IS) which sees IS as integral to business strategy. Despite the suggestion of the fusion view, there is little empirical evidence of how the fusion of strategy is realised. For instance, literature suggests that executives are struggling with how to implement social media strategy within an organisation. This paper uses the strategy as practice lens guided by the interpretivist philosophy to explore the influence of social media practices on the fusion of strategies within an organisation. The paper uses empirical evidence from the case study of a telecom organisation in Tanzania to gain theoretical insight into the role of social media in organisational strategy. This research contributes to the management literature by arguing that the fusion of strategy is achieved by the intertwinement of historical background, context, technological advances and social intent. Also, it contributes to IS literature by showing how social media extends the IS scope within an organisation while minimizing the need for organisational IT infrastructure. In practice, this research highlights the significance of informal social media practices such as WhatsApp communication in organisational processes such as knowledge sharing and customer service.