Social media-enabled individual dynamic capabilities: The boundary spanning perspective

Abstract

Individuals perform various activities such as information acquisition, sharing, coordination and collaboration on social media more easily and frequently than ever before, which indeed enables them to become more adaptable and competent in changing environments. However, there are limited research and empirical evidence regarding the use of social media on the development of users’ individual capabilities. Drawing upon media system dependency, boundary spanning and dynamic capabilities literature, this study proposes the concept of individual dynamic capabilities and argues that diverse use of social media can help developing an individual’s dynamic capabilities through two important mechanisms: information processing and external representation. By unfolding whether and how social media use is beneficial to individual dynamic capabilities, this study contributes to several streams of IS research.