Business and Social Media: Collaboration and the Sixth Discipline

During the 21st century, businesses benefit from two key components of effective innovation: social media and collaboration. This chapter provides an in-depth analysis to study the interrelatedness of these components.  Featured in this chapter are classroom exercises to deepen the learning of students. By providing multiple recent social media examples, the reality of the integral ways in which social media permeates our lives is delivered. Introduced in the chapter is a sixth discipline, an extension of Senge’s five disciplines of collaboration. Through the presentation of a new leadership model based upon the six disciplines, the impact of social media is examined. The conclusion of the chapter contains definitions of the concepts introduced. The use of social media has been and still remains a strategically keen tool in business effectiveness.