Abstract
As demonstrated by the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Internet-based social networks have become an important part of daily life, and many businesses are now involved in such networks either as service providers or as participants. Furthermore, inter-organizational networks are becoming an increasingly common feature of many industries, not only on the Internet. However, despite the growing importance of networks for businesses, there is little theoretical study on the social responsibilities of businesses in such networks, and how these responsibilities are affected by different types of networks. This article explores how social network analysis, which has been developed from studies of social networks of individuals, can be used to shed light on corporate responsibilities in social networks.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Alam, M.S.: 1989, ‘Anatomy of Corruption: An Approach to the Political Economy of Underdevelopment’, American Journal of Economics and Sociology 48 (4), 441-456.
Amaeshi, K.M., O.K. Osuji and P.Nnodim: 2008, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in Supply Chains of Global Brands: A Boundaryless Responsibility? Clarification, Exceptions and Implications’, Journal of Business Ethics 81, 223-234.
Arquilla, J. and D. Ronfeldt: 2001, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy, (RAND: National Defense Research Institute).
Arthur, W. B.: 1996, ‘Increasing Returns and the New World of Business’, Harvard Business Review July/August, 100–109.
Baum, J.A., A.V. Shipilov and T.J. Rowley: 2002, ‘Where Do Small Worlds Come From?’, Industrial and Corporate Change 12, 697-725.
Begley, T. M., N. Khatri and E. Tsang: 2010, ‘Networks and Cronyism: A Social Exchange Analysis’, Asia Pacific Journal of Management 27, 281–297.
Blois, K.: 2003, ‘Is it Commercially Irresponsible to Trust?’, Journal of Business Ethics 45, 183-193.
Borgatti, S.P. and P.C. Foster: 2003, ‘The Network Paradigm in Organizational Research: A Review and Typology’, Journal of Management 29, 991-1013.
Bourdieu, P.: 1980, ‘Le Capital Social’, Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 31, 2-3.
Brands, H.W.: 1997, TR: The Last Romantic, (Basic Books, New York).
Brass, D. J. and M.E. Burkhart: 1993, ‘Potential Power and Power Use: An Investigation of Structure and Behavior’, Academy of Management Journal 36, 441-470.
Brass, D., K. Butterfield and B. Skaggs: 1998, ‘Relationships and Unethical Behavior: A Social Network Perspective’, Academy of Management Review 23, 14-31.
Brenkert, G.G.: 2009, ‘Google, Human Rights, and Moral Compromise’, Journal of Business Ethics 85, 453-478.
Burt, R.S.: 1992, Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition, (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA).
Carroll, A.B.: 1999, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility: Evolution of a Definitional Construct’, Business and Society 38, 268-295.
Carty, V. and J. Onyett: 2006, ‘Protest, Cyberactivism and New Social Movements: The Reemergence of the Peace Movement Post 9/11’, Social Movement Studies 5(3), 229-249.
Chen, S. and M. Ronowski: 2006, ‘The Changing Importance of Structural Holes and Social Capital in an Emerging Industry: Evidence from Internet Firms’, in Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research (Babson College, Babson Park, MA). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1336728.
Coleman, J.: 1990, ‘Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital’, American Journal of Sociology 9, S95-S120.
Cook, K.S.: 1977, ‘Exchange and Power in Networks of Interorganizational Relations’, Sociological Quarterly 18(1), 62-82.
Cook, K.S. and J.M. Whitmeyer: 2001, ‘Two Approaches to Social Structure: Exchange Theory and Network Analysis’, Annual Review of Sociology 18, 109-127.
Cowan, R. and N. Jonard: 2004, ‘Network Structure and the Diffusion of Knowledge’, Journal of Economic Dynamics & Control 28, 1557-1575.
Dann, G.E. and N. Haddow: 2007, ‘Just Doing Business or Doing Just Business: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and the Business of Censoring China’s Internet’, Journal of Business Ethics 79, 219-234.
Emmelhainz, M.A. and R.J. Adams: 1999, ‘The Apparel Industry Response to “Sweatshop” Concerns: A Review and Analysis of Codes of Conduct’, Journal of Supply Chain Management 35(3), 51-57.
Ferrell, O. C., J. Fraedrich, and L. Ferrell: 2000, Business Ethics, 4th Ed., (Houghton Mifflin, Boston).
Fetscherin, M: 2005, ‘Movie Piracy on Peer-to-Peer Networks—the Case of KaZaA’, Telematics and Informatics 22(1-2), 57-70.
Fisher, J.: 2004, ‘Social Responsibility and Ethics: Clarifying the Concepts’, Journal of Business Ethics 52, 391-400.
Freeman, L.C.: 2004, The Development of Social Network Analysis: A Study In The Sociology of Science, (Book Surge, North Charleston, SC).
Friedkin, N.E. and E.C. Johnsen: 1997, ‘Social Positions in Influence Networks’, Social Networks 19, 209-222.
Friedman, M.: 1970, ‘The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits’, New York Times.
Fulk, J. and Boyd, B.: 1991, ‘Emerging Theories of Communication in Organizations’, Journal of Management 17, 407-446.
Galaskiewicz, J.: 1979, Exchange Networks and Community Politics (Sage, Beverly Hills, CA).
Goodpaster, K.E; 1983, ‘The Concept of Corporate Responsibility’, Journal of Business Ethics 2, 1-22.
Granovetter M (1973) The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology 78(6): 1360-1380.
Gulati, R. and M. Gargiulo: 1999, ‘Where Do Inter-organizational Networks Come From?’, American Journal of Sociology 105, 107-231.
Hardy, C., N. Phillips and T.B. Lawrence: 2003, ‘Resources, Knowledge and Influence: The Organizational Effects of Interorganizational Collaboration’, Journal of Management Studies 40, 321-347.
Hayward, C: 2006, ‘On Power and Responsibility’, Political Studies Review 4(2), 156-163.
Hendler, J. and J. Golbeck: 2008, ‘Metcalfe’s law, Web 2.0, and the Semantic Web’, Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web, 6 (1), 14-20.
Hopkins, J.: 2003, ‘Wal-Mart’s Influence Grows’, USA Today January 29, http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2003-01-28-walmartnation_x.htm. Accessed 27 Dec 2009.
Kastanek, A.: 2004, ‘From Hit Man to a Military Takeover of New York City: the Evolving Effects of Rice v. Paladin Enterprises on Internet Censorship’, Northwestern University Law Review 99(1), 383-436.
Lantos, G.P.: 2001, ‘The Boundaries of Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility’, Journal of Consumer Marketing 18 (7), 595-630.
Lee, E.: 2005, ‘The Ethics of Innovation: p2p Software Developers and Designing Substantial Noninfringing Uses Under the Sony Doctrine’, Journal of Business Ethics 62, 147-162.
Lu, X.: 2006, ‘On P2P File-Sharing: A Major Problem – A Chinese Perspective’, Journal of Business Ethics 63, 63-73.
Maloni, M.J. and Brown, M.E.: 2006, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in the Supply Chain: An Application in the Food Industry’, Journal of Business Ethics 68, 35-52.
Marsden, P.V. and N.E. Friedkin: 1994, ‘Network Studies of Social Influence,’ in S. Wasserman and J. Galaskiewicz (eds.), Advances in Social Network Analysis (Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA), pp. 3-52.
McCarthy, J.D. and M.N. Zald: 1977, ‘Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory’, American Journal of Sociology 82(6), 1212-41.
McEvily, B. and A. Zaheer: 1999, ‘Bridging Ties: A Source of Firm Heterogeneity in Competitive Capabilities’, Strategic Management Journal 20, 1133-1156.
Milgram S.: 1967, ‘The Small-World Problem’, Psychology Today, 1, 62-67.
Misol, L: 2004, ‘Weapons and War Crimes: The Complicity of Arms Suppliers’, in World Report 2004 (Human Rights Watch).
Nohria, N. and C. Garcia-Pont: 1991, ‘Global Strategic Linkages and Industry Structure’, Strategic Management Journal, Summer Special Issue 12, 105-124.
Pagallo, U. and G. Ruffo: 2009, The Paradox of Elegance – a Very Short Introduction to the Topology of Complex Social Systems and the “Small World”-Paradigm in the Realm of Law. Proceedings of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour Convention 2009. Available at http://www.aisb.org.uk/convention/aisb09/Proceedings/SNAMAS09/FILES/RuffoG.pdf.
Parkinson, J: 2002, Corporate Power and Responsibility: Issues in the Theory of Company Law, (Oxford University Press, Oxford).
Parsons, C: 2009, ‘From Madoff to Merrill Lynch, Where was the Ethics Officer?’, New York Times February 9.
Pasha, S.: 2006, ‘Enron’s Defense Could be Brilliant… or Crazy’, CNN Money.com February 14.
Paulson, S. K.: 1985, ‘A Paradigm for the Analysis of Interorganizational Networks’, Social Networks 7, 105-12.
Pink, T.: 2009, ‘Power and Moral Responsibility’, Philosophical Explorations 12(2), 127-149.
Posner, R.: 1972, ‘A Theory of Negligence’, Journal of Legal Studies 1(1), 29-96.
Pryke, S.D.: 2006, ‘Legal Issues Associated with Emergent Actor Roles in Innovative U.K. Procurement: Prime Contracting Case Study’, Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice 132(1), 67-76.
Ratner, S.R.: 2001, ‘Corporations and Human Rights: A Theory of Legal Responsibility’, Yale Law Journal 111, 443-545.
Rowley, T.J.: 1997, ‘Moving beyond Dyadic Ties: A Network Theory of Stakeholder Influences’, Academy of Management Review 22(4), 887-910.
Sama, L.M. and Shoaf, V.: 2002, ‘Ethics on the Web: Applying Moral Decision-Making to the New Media’, Journal of Business Ethics 36(1/2), 93-103.
Schwartz, M.S. and A.B Carroll: 2003, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility: A Three-Domain Approach’, Business Ethics Quarterly 13(4), 503-530.
Smith, N. C.: 1995, ‘Marketing Strategies for the Ethics Era’, Sloan Management Review 36(Summer), 85–97.
Stanton, J.: 2009, ‘The Man Behind Obama’s Online Election Campaign’, http://www.digitalcommunitiesblogs.com/web_20_convergence/2009/04/the-man-behind-obamas-online-e.php.
Tichy, N. M. and C. Fombrun: 1979, ‘Network Analysis in Organizational Settings’, Human Relations 32, 923-965.
Valente, T.W.: 1996, ‘Social Network Thresholds in the Diffusion of Innovations’, Social Networks 18, 69-89.
Warhurst, A.: 2005, ‘Future Roles of Business in Society: The Expanding Boundaries of Corporate Responsibility and a Compelling Case for Partnership’, Futures 37, 151-168.
Wellman, B.: 1997, ‘An Electronic Group Is Virtually a Social Network’, in S. Kiesler (ed.), Culture of the Internet, (Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ), pp.179-206.
Williams, T.: 2005, ‘Cooperation by Design: Structure and Cooperation in Interorganizational Networks’, Journal of Business Research 58, 223-231.
Wright, R.W.: 1988, ‘Causation, Responsibility, Risk, Probability, Naked Statistics, and Proof: Pruning the Bramble Bush by Clarifying the Concepts’, Iowa Law Review 73, 1001-1077.
Wright, R.W.: 2001, ‘Once More into the Bramble Bush: Duty, Causal Contribution, and the Extent of Legal Responsibility’, Vanderbilt Law Review 53(3), 1071-1132.
Zapeda, L. M.: 2002, ‘A&(and)M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.’ (Intellectual Property – Copyright Case Note), Berkeley Technology Law Journal 17, 71–90.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chen, S. Corporate Responsibilities in Internet-Enabled Social Networks. J Bus Ethics 90 (Suppl 4), 523–536 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0604-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0604-0