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Online
communication tools, such as Facebook,
develop important work skills
LONDON,
ON, July 2, 2009 - When the Ontario
government banned thousands of its
employees from using the social
networking site Facebook during work a
couple of years ago, opponents of the
move argued the workers were deprived of
a powerful tool.
Recent
research from Nicole Haggerty, an
assistant professor of information
systems at the Richard Ivey School of
Business, now shows that online
activities, such as communicating on
Facebook, result in skills that are
valuable in the workplace.
"Managers
should recognize that the capabilities
people develop using daily life
technologies are often transferable to
the workplace. The interesting,
collaborative, socially-oriented things
that people do in their personal lives
may actually create a foundational skill
set that's valuable at work," said
Haggerty. "When an organization bans
something for short-term productivity
reasons, it may be stifling the
development of capabilities that are
valuable in the long run."
Haggerty
and Yinglei Wang, an Ivey graduate, have
developed the concept "virtual
competence", which refers to the degree
of self-confidence in one's ability to
use the technologies and collaborative
tools now found in the workplace.
While
technology skills are important in the
workplace, their research shows virtual
competence also has a positive
correlation with job satisfaction and
job performance.
According
to Haggerty, as companies invest money
in technologies and collaborative tools,
they need to think about the kinds of
employees and skill sets that are best
suited for today's workplace.
Details of
Haggerty's research were released today
in the July edition of impact, an online
monthly publication featuring new
research from faculty at the Richard
Ivey School of Business. To read the
full article, click here:
http://www.ivey.uwo.ca/publications/impact/vol15no7-haggerty.htm
Mary Heisz, a lecturer in managerial
accounting and control at Ivey Business
School, also discusses the School's
accounting accreditation and the outlook
on accounting jobs in light of the
economic downturn, in the Faculty Focus
feature. For the full article, click
here:
http://www.ivey.uwo.ca/publications/impact/vol15no7-ff-heisz.htm
About the Richard Ivey School of
Business, The University of Western
Ontario
The Richard Ivey School of Business at
The University of Western Ontario (www.ivey.ca)
offers undergraduate (HBA)
and graduate degree programs (MBA,
Executive MBA and
PhD) in addition to non-degree
Executive Development programs. Ivey has
campuses in London (Ontario),
Toronto, and Hong Kong. Ivey
recently redesigned its curriculum to
focus on
Cross-Enterprise Leadership â€" a
holistic issues-based approach to
management education that meets the
demands of today's complex global
business world.
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For more
information, please contact:
For more information, please contact:
Dawn Milne, Richard Ivey School of
Business, 519-850-2536,
dmilne@ivey.ca
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