Professional Social Network Site Participation: A Longitudinal Examination

Abstract

Online professional social networks have become a noteworthy tool to help professionals create, strengthen, and maintain valuable business connections. However, the question remains as to who is actually using online professional social networks and how the diffusion of the social network has occurred. Looking at diffusion and usage through innovation diffusion theory, critical mass and a network effects lens, this paper seeks to examine the diffusion of an online professional social network LinkedIn for a specific population of university business schools. Using longitudinal analysis 2008 compared to 2011 our findings advocate network dynamics of homogeneous populations display consistent patterns of participation and non-participation. The authors' findings suggest LinkedIn diffusion is not consistent across all business schools examined. A greater critical mass and network effect appears to have been achieved across larger research universities when compared to smaller university populations. An analysis of the results and future research directions are presented.