Working together in Organizations Using Social Network Sites: A Laboratory Experiment on Microblog Use for Problem-Solving

We can observe nowadays a proliferation of social network sites and tools. Faced with this increasing availability of opportunities, it is crucial for organizations to understand how to use them and for what purposes . In this paper we investigate whether an SNS can be used as a tool for teamwork in organizations. Could microblogging tools be preferred to traditional communication tools for individual and group problem-solving? To answer this research question, we focused on Twitter, a well known SNS for microblogging, and Skype, a standard communication platform. The laboratory experiment method was selected in order to conduct a rigorous comparison with well defined measurements. Different teams of the same size carry out a problem-solving task communicating via Twitter or Skype. Comparative group performance is measured in terms of task completion time. Our results show that the lower volume of information exchanged via Twitter does not negatively affect group performance: Twitter teams are just as effective as Skype teams. These results can be only partly explained in terms of learning effects, but more interestingly they may be related to the different group dynamics within teams using different systems, disclosing new paths for further research.