Business Horizons (2020) 63, 73e84

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirectwww.journals.elsevier.com/business-hor izons

Exploring social media use in B2B supplychain operations

Bongsug (Kevin) Chae*,^, Roger McHaney ^, Chwen Sheu ^

College of Business Administration, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, U.S.A.

KEYWORDSSupply chain;B2B social media;B2B;Social mediaaffordance;B2B marketing;Supply chain operations

* Corresponding authorE-mail address: bchae@ksu.edu (B

^ Authors listed alphabetically. All tequally to this article.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2010007-6813/ª 2019 Kelley School of Bu

Abstract This research examines current applications and potential capabilitiesof a wide array of social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,and others within the context of B2B supply chain operations. Specifically, weuse social media affordances (SMA) as a framework to explore how social mediais used in B2B supply chain settings. We report findings based on a survey of 209 pro-fessionals in supply chain areas. These findings include the extent to which socialmedia and different social media tools are used in B2B supply chain operations,the impact of company size on social media use, the areas in which social mediais used, the perceptions of social media, and other relevant issues such as socialmedia policy and security. Based on these findings, this study provides a discussionregarding the current and future use of social media in B2B supply chain operations.ª 2019 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Published by Elsevier Inc. Allrights reserved.

1. Social media for enterprises

The social media revolution has touched nearlyall areas of business and, in many instances, haschanged fundamental interactions betweencompanies and their customers (Kaplan &Haenlein, 2010). Outside the business realm, in-dividuals have rapidly embraced and adoptedsocial media. According to the Pew ResearchCenter (2018), between February 2005 andFebruary 2018, the percentage of American

.K. Chae)hree authors contributed

9.09.008siness, Indiana University. Pub

adults using social networking sites jumped from5% to 69%. Specific platforms added users at un-precedented rates, with Facebook hitting 50million users just 1 year after its commercialintroduction (Statista, 2015a) and Twitter doingthe same in under 9 months (Statista, 2015b).Recognition of social media value is present inmost business settings; however, many industryinsiders believe much remains to be done. This isparticularly true in the area of supply chain.While there is little doubt that social media isstarting to have a big impact on supply chainactivities (O’Leary, 2011), researchers point outthe shortcomings. As one McKinsey & Companyreport stated: “[Companies] have adopted [so-cial] technologies but have generated only a

lished by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

74 B.K. Chae et al.

small fraction of the potential value they cancreate” (Bughin, Chui, & Manyika, 2012). Thesame study stated that “social platforms canunlock $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in value inthose sectors alone” and “[t]wo-thirds of thisvalue creation opportunity lies in improvingcommunication and collaboration within andacross enterprises” (Bughin et al., 2012). It is theacross enterprises portion of that statement thatmotivates our current study.

Supply chains are large, amorphous, looselycoupled organizations that may contain a widerange of vendors, buyers, suppliers,manufacturing facilities, distribution and consol-idation centers, and logistics partners. It standsto reason that embedding social media intovarious aspects of a supply chain will changecommunication patterns, permit additional in-formation to be gathered and analyzed to betterunderstand newly evolving trends, and ultimatelyenhance decision making. One of the primaryproblems within a supply chain has been infor-mation dispersion and sharing. According to Chen(2003, p. 341): “The performance of a supplychain depends critically on how its members co-ordinate their decisions. And it is hard to imaginecoordination without some form of informationsharing.” Information yields advantages and, withsocial media, new information can be gatheredfrom sources that were previously outside ofexisting communication infrastructures.

Researchers and industry thought leaders havesuggested a variety of ways in which social mediacan benefit the supply chain and enable informa-tion collection. Most of these ideas have been B2C-related functions and include:

� Enhancement of communication with cus-tomers, particularly regarding shipping, service,and feedback issues;

� Use of social media to generate demand forgoods and services;

� Increased market intelligence and a better un-derstanding of performance via data analyticoperations (Lee, 2018; O’Leary, 2011; Singh,Shukla, & Mishra, 2017); and

� A newly developed sense of connection with thecompany (Ramanathan, Subramanian, &Parrott, 2017).

With the vast number of people using social media,it becomes nearly as important for an organizationto have a social media presence as it has been to

have a web presence. If companies do not usesocial media, they can quickly lose competitiveadvantage and be left out of a world inhabited bytheir customers, suppliers, partners, and compet-itors (Cui, Gallino, Moreno, & Zhang, 2018;Paniagua & Sapena, 2014). In addition toenhancing connections, social media channels helporganizations generate ideas for improving thesupply chain process and detect/solve problemsthrough an awareness of supply chain partners’collective insights.

In 2004, Gunasekaran and Ngai (2004, p. 289)stated: “[A] dense networking infrastructure tosupport digital communications is the obviousbackbone of any information society. New broad-band and wireless technologies are being fundedand developed so that eventually all citizens andbusinesses will be connected.” Although socialmedia had yet to take off, this statement waspredictive of the changes beginning to occur. Asthe network infrastructure did become available,social media found its way into the fabric ofbusiness and is unlikely to disappear.

Many of the advantages that quickly appearedwere focused on B2C improvements provided byorganizations tapping into social media venues(O’Leary, 2011), and they included items relatedto forging deeper connections with data providedby consumers, mining customer comments forinsight, and enhancing customer service. Most ofthese changes appeared because data were pro-vided via consumer initiatives in locations such asretail sites, discussion forums, blogs, and threadeddiscussions. It was not until later that B2C socialmedia practices started to become institutional-ized (e.g., using delivery notifications, collectingcomments on services).

B2C social media interactions have evolvedsince that time (Chae, 2015). Supply chain com-panies use social media data to better understandcustomer behavior and to innovate products andservices (Chan, Lacka, Yee, & Lim, 2017; Lee,2018). Also, there are several areas in supplychain management in which social media can beutilized to increase environmental scanning,customer satisfaction, sales, communication, andengagement (see Table 1).

The lessons learned from B2C social media ap-plications can be used to inform applications in theB2B space. In essence, these applications areabout creating social interactions and derivingbusiness value. The technologies involved and theoverarching goals are similar in B2B areas. Theseinclude increasing communication, informationsharing, and market sensing through interactiveweb-based technologies. The success of social

Table 1. B2C social media supply chain examples

Area Application Examples

Logistics & delivery � Shipment departure, status, and arrivalnotifications

� Shipment performance messages to letcustomers know about delivery timeliness

� Shipment notifications by Four Soft, Con-way, and other companies (O’Leary, 2011)

Sales & demand shaping � Streaming new product and serviceinformation

� Sending out promotional materials (e.g.,coupons, discounts) to customers

� Sales through social media

� Like2Buy (Lindsey-Mullikin & Borin, 2017)

� PEEL’s use of Facebook video ads for sales

� Wayfair’s use of Instagram for sales

Supply demand synchronization � Detecting and evaluating customer senti-ments on products and services

� Estimating future customer demands

� Use of Facebook posts and comments topredict sales in the fashion industry (Cuiet al., 2018)

New product development � Asking for customer feedback on existingproducts and services

� Asking for customer ideas for new prod-ucts and services

� Starbucks’ submit your idea

� Twitter Tees by Threadless (Conley, 2017)

Communication & stakeholderengagement

� Promoting success stories and releasingreports on corporate social responsibility(CSR)

� Providing user tutorials, hints, andinstructions

� Use of Twitter and Facebook by Fortune500 companies for communicating CSRreports (Reilly & Hynan, 2014)

Exp

lorin

gsocia

lmedia

use

inB2B

supply

chain

operatio

ns

75

76 B.K. Chae et al.

technology-enabled business platforms (e.g., Ali-baba, Salesforce) provides an example of howconcepts derived from B2C that combine socialtechnology with business transactions can be suc-cessful. Some of the key concepts include: con-necting users across systems, lower barriers tocommunication, and fostering the development ofcommunities. Social technologies breed trust be-tween businesses and their partners, which willultimately improve business practices in B2Boperations.

Several differences also exist for B2C and B2B inthis area. In B2C, much emphasis is on social mediaas an enabler for engaging with customers toimprove sales and operational performances andon supporting a company’s downstream supplychain. In contrast, social media in B2B is forinteracting with partners in one’s upstream supplychain to increase operational efficiency. Whilesocial media in B2C is often used to increase in-formation diffusion (e.g., promotion), B2B socialmedia is about sharing proprietary informationwith partners more efficiently than with tradi-tional channels. Thus, security can be an impor-tant consideration in adopting and using socialmedia in a B2B supply chain.

Another difference between B2C and B2B istechnology related. Many B2B systems rely on rigidtechnologic infrastructures that tie the internalprocesses of an organizationdvia formalprotocolsdto its supplier and vendor partners. Inother circumstances, no connection between B2Bentities exists, making personal-level communica-tion difficult if not impossible. To fill this gap, newcloud-based software products and servicesemerged to leverage social media capabilities be-tween partner entities (Demirkan, Cheng, &Bandyopadhyay, 2010; Jhang-Li & Chang, 2017).

The purpose of our research was to understandthe current use of social media technologies in B2Bsupply chains and to provide managerial implica-tions with respect to social media deployment inB2B settings. We introduce a framework based onsocial media affordances (SMA; Treem & Leonardi,2012) to organize areas in which the B2B supplychain can be influenced. We conducted a survey of209 professionals in supply chain areas and presentfindings useful to academics and professionals inutilizing social media to improve supply chain-related operations.

2. The growth of social media

Social media refers primarily to technologies thatallow generation of user-created information and

support user interaction. Social media can facili-tate one-to-one relationships between users butits strength resides in its capability to easily enablemany-to-many interactions (Reiter, McHaney, &Connell, 2017). Social media allows the develop-ment of virtual relationships that enable people toconnect on many levels. Most social media appli-cations utilize cloud technologies and are consid-ered Web 2.0 (McHaney & Sachs, 2016; O’Reilly,2007). The era of social computing emergedlargely due to social media applications and hasled to levels of replacement in prior modes ofcommunication such as telephone, mail, email,radio, and television (Parameswaran & Whinston,2007).

In less than 10 years, social media technologieshave infiltrated and revolutionized the way busi-nesses interact with stakeholders (Reiter et al.,2017). As a result, social media applications havedramatically altered how people connect,interact, share, communicate, and even think(McHaney, 2011). The speed with which socialmedia permeated social and business practiceswas relatively unforeseen by many futurists(Aburdene, 2005). Measures of social media useindicate continued growth. According to the Niel-sen Company: “Social media is one of the biggestopportunities that companies across industrieshave to connect directly to consumers” (Casey,2017). For example, in 2016, adults spent 36%more time on social media than they did in 2015;more recently, it was found that adults spend anaverage of 5.5 hours per week on social media(Casey, 2017).

Organizations have reacted to social media andsought ways to integrate its advantages into theirbusiness practices. In spite of the fact that manysocial media tools were developed to targetindividual-level communications, many businessesnow use tools provided by Facebook, LinkedIn,Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and others tointeract with customers, potential customers, andother stakeholders. Social media is the most pop-ular online activity, accessed by more than 66% ofall internet users. Fortune 500 companies wereusing social media tools as early as 2009 at rela-tively high levels, including Facebook, Twitter,blogs, and YouTube: 64% of them for internal use,56% for B2C, and 40% for B2B (Culnan, McHugh, &Zubillaga, 2010).

In general, social media permits the develop-ment of meaningful relationships with current andfuture customers (Rapp, Beitelspacher, Grewal, &Hughes, 2013). It enables the discovery of newcustomers, continued relationships with existingcustomers, and the collection of valuable and

Exploring social media use in B2B supply chain operations 77

relevant information (Kietzmann, Hermkens,McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). In B2C, socialmedia has become a resource in business activitiessuch as sales (Bocconcelli, Cioppi, & Pagano,2017). New venues for business interaction arealso available (e.g., creating a fan base). Busi-nesses can mine unstructured social media data asa means to acquire and fine-tune business intelli-gence (Lee, 2018). Since much of social media datais public, information about competitors andcompeting products is readily available (Reiteret al., 2017).

3. SMA for B2B supply chain operations

We believe social media can be integrated intosupply chain transaction processing systems toprovide new data that benefits business partnerson both sides of the relationship. Social media canprovide context and add details to supply chainevents. Sharing this information with interestedpartners is consistent with social media concepts,although information-sharing may not be in afirm’s best interests (Chen, 2003). We believe re-lationships are constructed between extendedsupply chain partners. A corporate strategy couldencourage employees and representatives ofpartner firms to use social media to develop closerrelationships. In addition, social media in a B2Bsetting will necessarily seek to change the funda-mental nature of communication from a one-waymessage to a more interactive and lively ex-change. This gives the B2B relationship a humanelement. We also believe social media informationis related to business value in B2B supply chains.Social media data is contextually rich and consid-ered big data (Chae, 2015; Chan et al., 2017).Gathering information and transforming it intoknowledge with data analytics ultimately en-hances organizational reputations, improves pro-cesses, or provides access to more cost-effectivetransactions (Tan, Ji, Lim, & Tseng, 2017). Finally,social media can be a digital platform for com-panies to collaborate with upstream and down-stream firms not normally accessible throughtraditional, integrated information systems. Forexample, supply chain risk assessment, productdevelopment, demand and supply planning, andcoordinated responses to potential supply chaindisruptions can be implemented with digital plat-forms such as Twitter.

We introduce social media affordance as aconceptual framework to investigate the potentialutility of social media in B2B supply chain opera-tions. The term affordance, originally coined by

James Gibson (1966), focuses on “not what anobject is, but rather what kinds of uses it affords”(Treem & Leonardi, 2012, p. 145). The term hasbeen adopted in communication studies and in-formation systems literature to study the role anduse of social media in organizations for internalcommunications (Treem & Leonardi, 2012). Inorganizational communication contexts, Treemand Leonardi (2012) identified four social mediaaffordance types:

� Visibility of knowledge, behaviors, andconnections;

� Content editability;

� Persistence of communication; and

� Association.

These social media affordances, identified inintraorganizational contexts, are adapted in thisstudy to discuss potential interorganizationalusage of social media for B2B supply chains.

First, social media affords association (Treem& Leonardi, 2012). The key aspect of socialmedia is its social nature, supporting social con-nections between organizations and their mem-bers. This differentiates social media from extantinterorganizational information systems or tech-nologies. While traditional interorganizationalinformation systems are focused primarily ontransmitting proprietary information (Johnston &Vitale, 1988) between suppliers and customers,social media adds a social interaction element.Social media enables different types of associa-tions (e.g., LinkedIn connections, Twitter fol-lowers, members of a Facebook group) amongemployees of the companies in a B2B supplychain. Even social media algorithms are advancedenough to recommend new people for potentialassociation based on various commonalities (e.g.,job position).

In addition, social media can support associa-tions between people and material objects,including documents, posts, datasets, charts/graphs, videos, pictures, and hyperlinks. Becauseof this type of association, the data/informationshared through social media becomes identifiableby the contributor. Content gets individualownership, which comes with responsibility andrewards and, further, is editable. Therefore, in-formation quality can improve over time (Treem &Leonardi, 2012). This also differentiates socialmedia from traditional interorganizational infor-mation systems, in which such data are often

78 B.K. Chae et al.

aggregated, and person-to-content ties are notobvious or may even be removed.

Second, social media affords communicationamong people insidedand even outsidedthe as-sociations. Communication, especially in the formof information sharing among partners, has beenhighly regarded as a key enabling factor for suc-cessful B2B supply chains and is not entirely new inthe context of interorganizational informationsystems. Historically, B2B supply chain communi-cation has been periodic, asynchronous, and time-bound, involving only a few individuals fromvendor and customer organizations. Communica-tion between organizations can also be troublingfor an organization, particularly if knowledge andinformation assets leak out through informalchannels (Ahmad, Bosua, & Scheepers, 2014). So-cial media is considered richer than traditionalcommunication technologies used in B2B supplychainsdincluding emails and faxesdin the sensethat social networking sites and wikis (Majchrzak,Wagner, & Yates, 2013), for example, affordsharing and editing of diverse forms of content(Treem & Leonardi, 2012) through diverse modesof communication (e.g., videos) with few re-strictions on time or location.

Thus, social media potentially changes thelandscape of communication in the B2B supplychain. Social media allows more organizations andtheir members to participate in communicationand information sharing. Also, the contents theyshare are not only editable but also traceable and

Table 2. B2B social media supply chain examples

Supply Chain Affordances

Association � Association of people

� Association between pe

� Association between pe

� Improvement of informa

Communication � Continuous communicat

� Real-time information s

Big Data & intelligence � Collection of large amo

� Extraction of business in

� Data-driven supply chai

Collaboration � Real-time, large-scale c

� Coordinated efforts in d

� Coordinated product de

easy to follow at a later date. Thus, communica-tion is continuous and contents can be revisitedand reused for future communication. Socialmedia enables real-time communication amonglarge stakeholders. The shared contents are notonly limited to traditional supply chain data (e.g.,performance metrics, shipments, inventory level)but also include diverse external and contextualdata. For example, Intel used social media tocapture data to proactively monitor supply chaincompliance, social responsibility, and sustainabil-ity (Siegfried, 2014).

Third, social media affords accessibility to bigdata that can be used for supply chain networkoptimization. Social media users are real-timesensors or reporters (Sakaki, Okazaki, & Matsuo,2010). As social media becomes increasingly pop-ular, user-generated and machine data are ex-ploding and available in real time. Thus, socialmedia can be the source of large amounts ofcontextual data. In B2B supply chain settings,companies can pull relevant data from socialmedia and gain intelligence from big data for manysupply chain activities (e.g., risk management,supply planning) while, in a B2C supply chain,manufacturers and service providers take advan-tage of social media largely to push marketing anddeliver information to potential customers.

Unlike traditional structured and numericalsupply chain data in corporate databases (Olson,Chae, & Sheu, 2013), the data generated, stored,and/or processed in social media are largely

Description

ople and contents

ople and information/knowledge

tion quality

ion

haring

unts of contextual data

telligence

n optimization

oordinated efforts in response to supply chain disruptions

emand and supply planning

velopment

Exploring social media use in B2B supply chain operations 79

unstructured and highly enriched (Chae, 2015).They often not only carry users’ opinions or sen-timents about products, services, and brands butalso reveal demographic information. The amountof data (e.g., news) about markets, economy, so-ciopolitical environments, upstream suppliers, andcompetitors accessible through social media andweb services is also increasing. With the help ofanalytical techniques, these new types of data canbe used to extract business intelligence and enabledata-driven supply chain optimization.

Finally, social media can help supply chain part-ners to improve coordination. Supply chain coordi-nation or integration involves collaborativeplanning and joint decision making in supply chainactivities, including logistics, inventory manage-ment, demand forecasting, and risk management.Historically, there have been different coordinationmechanisms (e.g., contracts, EDI, VMI, CPFR) typi-cally used by key business partners in B2B supplychain settings (Arshinder, Kanda, & Deshmukh,2008). As complexity, uncertainty, and disruptionsin business environments increase, social media canenable supply chain coordination with large stake-holders, at lower costs, and in real time.

There are many areas in the B2B supply chain inwhich coordination is critical (Flynn, Huo, & Zhao,2010). Social media can coordinate efforts amongfield personnel who used to play a small role insupply chain decisions. These people include de-livery truck drivers,warehouseworkers, emergencyresponders, onsite maintenance technicians, andothers. Many have access to social media technol-ogies and can feed lively and important news intodecision making. Social media can support real-time, large-scale coordinated efforts (e.g., riskmanagement) involving these people in response tounpredictable supply chain disruptions (e.g., roadaccidents, factory fires, natural disasters). Table 2provides examples of social media affordances forB2B supply chain operations.

4. Social media usage in B2B supplychain

We conducted a survey to determine the level ofsocial media usage in B2B supply chain settings.While the survey consisted primarily of questionsabout the use of social media for B2B supply chainoperations, it included additional questions aboutperceptions of social media.1 Social media offers

1 The survey items regarding the perceptions of social mediaare borrowed from Siamagka, Christodoulides, and Michaelidou(2015).

openness that does not exist in traditional B2Bsupply chain systems but could raise securityconcerns. Therefore, we also included questionsabout organizational policies and information se-curity regarding social media use. We collected209 screened and valid responses from 119 malesand 90 females involved in their companies’ supplychain operations. The respondents’ average agewas 40 years and, on average, they had 9.5 yearsof working experience. About 60% of the re-spondents reported they currently work atmedium-sized or large companies, while 40% re-ported working at small companies of fewer than50 employees.

In spite of the fact that social media wasconceived of as a way for individuals to commu-nicate and interact online, organizations havediscovered how to move these familiar and widelypopular tools into daily business operations(Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). These tools alreadywidely impact B2C relationships (Hanna, Rohm, &Crittenden, 2011) and our study shows that orga-nizations are starting to recognize the valueafforded by social media tools at the B2B level.Regarding whether the individuals contactedbelieved their organizations used social media inthe B2B supply chain, 60% of the respondentsanswered “definitely does” and 23% answered“probably does.” Only 2% responded “definitelynot.” Further, people involved with B2B supplychain operations report that social media can helpwith supply chain performance, effectiveness,productivity, and problem-solving, and canimprove relationships with supply chain partners.They suggest the technological challenges are nottoo great and that cost, while a consideration, isnot prohibitive.

Looking at the affordances provided by socialmedia, we see four primary areas:

1. Association between people, contents, andinformation;

2. Enhancement of communication channels;

3. Collection, extraction, and data-based optimi-zation due to big data and business intelli-gence; and

4. Coordination and collaboration between en-tities to improve supply/demand planning andminimize disruption, in the short term, and toenhance long-term planning.

The survey showed that these affordances arealigned with particular tool sets. For instance,

80 B.K. Chae et al.

LinkedIn had the highest correlation with the as-sociation dimension. Facebook and Twitter werealso highly popular for association. These tools areuseful in creating relationships between in-dividuals, as well as providing connections tocontent and knowledge. Both Facebook andTwitter provide tools to create groups, which canthen be used for sending out specific messages,maintaining status updates, and quickly contactingpeople in the event of problems. Social mediaprovides mechanisms for connecting the rightpeople at the right time.

Considering the affordance of communication,Google Docs and LinkedIn had the highest corre-lation with the information-sharing dimension.Facebook did not appear to be a popular mediumfor communication/information sharing, whichcould be due to its perception as a family andfriends venue (Stutzman & Kramer-Duffield, 2010).Google Docs is configured to permit access in veryspecific ways that can enhance knowledge sharing(Gaal, Szabo, Obermayer-Kovacs, & Csepregi,2015) and LinkedIn is a business social medianetwork by intention (Skeels & Grudin, 2009).Again, the ability of social media to enhancecommunication between individuals within thebroader backdrop of B2B operations becomesapparent. In a description of supply chain disrup-tions, Stecke and Kumar (2009, p. 208) suggested:“Reliable and robust communication links can helpcontrol and coordinate operations of a dispersedsupply chain. With decentralized and global supplychains, the need and benefits of communicationlinks are significant.” The users of social mediaappear to recognize the value of the decentralizedcommunication capability provided by socialmedia tools for mitigating supply chaindisruptions.

In terms of the affordance of data and businessintelligence, users of social media in B2B supplychain settings appear to value Twitter, LinkedIn,and blogs as sources of data for analytics, whileFacebook was not popular for this use. Again,Twitter’s capacity as a data source is well-documented (Chae, 2015) and Twitter can offerquick insight into developing issues. In the sameway, Twitter and LinkedIn were popular for thecollaboration affordance. Twitter can offer a rapidinteraction in situations that require coordination,as can messages sent through LinkedIn.

In many settings, firm size is an importantfeature (Wu, Yeniyurt, Kim, & Cavusgil, 2006).However, with social media, firm size did notimpact the perception of social media’s value inB2B supply chain applications. This makes sensefrom several vantage points. First, most individuals

surveyed did not believe the cost of social mediaor the difficulty of its deployment were prohibitiveissues. Second, social media is an equalizer andprovides small and medium businesses advantagessimilar to those of large businesses (Schaupp &Belanger, 2013).

The survey findings also highlighted a lack ofawareness that social media can result in securitythreats and problems. Only 50% of the respondentsfelt social media could pose security risks. Thisindicates a need for management to educate andtrain people on how easily vital organizationalknowledge can inadvertently be released via socialmedia. Likewise, only 60% of the organizationsrepresented by this study had a social media usepolicy, again indicating that the potential for harmwas not being as widely considered as it should be.

5. Managerial implications

This study provides a number of managerial im-plications for those working in the B2B supplychain area. These implications for managers canbe summarized in a three-step process: (1) learnthe capabilities of social media for B2B operations,(2) begin to use social media tools, and (3) beproactive to new challenges.

5.1. Learn the capabilities of social mediafor B2B operations

Social media can be a valuable tool with its capa-bility to enhance operations in a variety of ways.Although customer-centric business operationshave embraced social media, B2B operations havelagged. While many survey respondents reportedthat they see the value of social media for B2Boperations, organizational knowledge and experi-ence with social media for B2B supply chains arenot readily available for managers compared tothose for B2C. We would advise managers of B2Boperations to learn the capabilities of social mediaplatforms and recognize the value these couldintroduce. With respect to this, the importance ofknowledge acquisition and strategic managementin using enterprise social media cannot be over-emphasized. Our findings support prior work in thisarea that described these aspects of enterprisesocial media use. Archer-Brown and Kietzmann(2018, p. 1300) pointed out that “the collabora-tive, ‘social’ creation of knowledge generates arange of internal benefits, such as improved team-working, opportunities for serendipitous discoveryand enhanced working relationships.”

Exploring social media use in B2B supply chain operations 81

Social media creates new communicationchannels that offer the potential to enhanceteamwork, identify best practices, analyze andimprove connectedness, and build tacit organiza-tional knowledge with both operational and stra-tegic value. Managers should focus on the valuesocial media can bring to B2B operations. Thefindings of this study indicate that social mediaprovides insight into networks along the supplychain, which extend both inside and outside of anorganization. This enhances the capabilities ofmanagers to identify unexpected opportunities forimprovement, form strategic partnerships, andenhance best practices for work and communica-tion. B2B social media provides an entirely newelement for organizational knowledge acquisition(Von Krogh, 2012). Over time, this can become acompetitive advantage and offer an organizationthe ability to recognize and understand improve-ment opportunities in new, innovative ways.

5.2. Begin to use social media tools

Although social media tools may grow and changeover time, their value remains in an organization’senhanced capability to provide association,communication, data collection/analysis, andcollaboration. Next, we recommend that an orga-nization begins using these tools for its B2B supplychain. The good news is that those surveyedperceived social media as easier to deploy thanother technologies and beneficial for businessesregardless of their size. Also, it will be easier tomove to a new tool after having acquired expertiseand knowledge by using what is availablecurrently. For an effective rollout of social mediatools, we advise organizations to deploy a businessunit or task force consisting of technology spe-cialists (e.g., web technology) and domain experts(e.g., logistics, supply chain planning). Each supplychain operates in a unique environment. This unitshould oversee the identification of best businesspractices for social media and B2B supply chain,education of supply chain personnel, and evendevelopment of organizational policies for socialmedia use (see Section 5.3.).

Specifically, managers and business units shouldfind the SMA framework useful for strategic socialmedia rollout. This study showed that various so-cial media tools align best with particular affor-dances. This should influence managerial decisionsabout the tools to enhance their B2B social mediause. For example, managers wishing for greaterlevels of association with business partners shouldfocus on tools such as LinkedIn, Twitter,and Facebook. If strategic improvement of

communication is desired, specifically in theinformation-sharing dimension, organizations fromthe current study indicated LinkedIn and GoogleDocs provided meaningful support in this area. Formanagers wishing to engage more with theaffordance of data and business intelligence,Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs all appear to be viabletools.

As a word of caution, we know many employeesare familiar with social media as a platform forbuilding associations and communicating withother individuals. Because of this, we expect thatassociation and communication affordances will beeasier to roll out than big data intelligence andcollaboration affordances. Since new tools areemerging and the capabilities of existing tools arechanging, managers and their business units canprovide employees with a survey of social mediatechnologies in B2B supply chain contexts and a setof guidelines about how best to take advantage ofthese technologies for association, informationsharing, big data intelligence, and collaborativeplanning.

5.3. Be proactive to new challenges

Although B2B social media offers many new ad-vantages and its use is probably inevitable, thereare also dark sides to social media, and severalcautions need to be mentioned (Baccarella,Wagner, Kietzmann, & McCarthy, 2018; O’Leary,2011; Richey, Morgan, Lindsey-Hall, & Adams,2016). First, B2B social media is often outside thecontrol of an organization. Many forms of socialmedia, either intentionally or unintentionally,become public. This brings many forms of worry tomanagement: statements could come from anuncontrolled company source; sensitive businessknowledge could be leaked to competitors or tothose wishing to sabotage an operation; inaccurateinformation could be sent to valued partners; orinaccurate, unofficial information could bereceived, leaving an organization unsure ofwhether or not to take action. The informal natureof social media has many disadvantages that couldharm an organization. Along this line, the surveyfindings indicate a lack of awareness about thedangers of social media use.

This suggests that managers need to work withthe social media business unit or task force to helpsupply chain personnel understand security issues.For this, they need to identify potential securitychallenges specifically related to social media in aB2B supply chain and develop necessary measuresand procedures to keep B2B communication andinformation sharing from creating security threats

82 B.K. Chae et al.

and potential harms. This effort can go beyondorganizational boundaries and managers, withpartner organizations collaboratively working ondeveloping security measures for their supplychain networks. It is important that such measuresand policies be communicated clearly with em-ployees and easily accessible by them (O’Connor,Schmidt, & Drouin, 2016).

Further, organizations need to implement so-cial media strategically and carefully in order toavoid mistakes of the past. Keinanen andKuivalainen (2015) suggested that managers inB2B settings using private social media are morelikely to use it in a business context. This impliesthat without careful training and organizationalmanagement, the problematic intermingling ofpersonal and business social media use couldoccur (Guesalaga, 2016). Aggarwal, Gopal, andSankaranarayanan (2012) cautioned that failureto develop policies to regulate personal versusbusiness social media use could result in unin-tended consequences. Chung, Andreev,Benyoucef, Duane, and O’Reilly (2017) describedthese consequences as embarrassment and dam-age to organizational reputation. We believethese cautions should be heeded in the area ofB2B social media implementation.

6. Summary and future research

Many organizations are using social media in B2Bsupply chain operations and this trend appears tobe increasing. Managers need to be aware of socialmedia’s value in B2B areas. Although originallyintended for individual collaboration and interac-tion, these social media can offer benefits to or-ganizations. We proposed the affordance conceptas a potential framework to understand socialmedia use in B2B supply chain operations and re-ported the findings from a survey on social mediause. The survey results highlight the generalextent of social media use and different socialmedia tools within B2B supply chain operations.The research provided managerial implications forrolling out social media in a supply chain.

Future research could employ causality analysisto understand the impact of social media use onB2B supply chain performance. Case research ofsocial media use in B2B supply chain operationscan be another venue for future research. Casestudies of companies with innovative applicationsof social media tools would enhance understandingof the strategic roles of social media in B2B supplychains.

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