Who are the players? Finding and characterizing stakeholders in social networks Cristina Chuva Costa ISEC, Department of Systems and Informatics Engineering, Polytechnic of Coimbra CISUC, Department of Informatics Engineering, University of Coimbra chuva@isec.pt Paulo Rupino da Cunha CISUC, Department of Informatics Engineering, University of Coimbra rupino@dei.uc.pt Abstract Technological advances and the generalized use of the Internet provide the necessary conditions to exploit social networks. These inter-organizational systems involve several players, with different influences, roles and interests. To design social networks it is critical to identify its stakeholders. Neglecting their presence can hide network threats that can compromise its success, as well as the development or acceptance of its supporting information system. We present an approach for carrying out stakeholder identification considering the specific demands of social networks. We sought inspiration in stakeholder identification criteria for inter-organizational environments, in social network analysis, in business model theories, and in social theories. The result was an iterative approach that systematically helps refining the stakeholder set, their roles, and the social network context. We illustrate the use of our proposal through its application to Facebook. 1. Introduction The proliferation of the internet has been steadily transforming the way companies conduct business. The unprecedented ubiquitous connectivity provided at negligible costs allows stakeholders to come together in virtual networks. They have the chance to create innovative business models that would be unfeasible in the physical world. The new configurations of these models entangled significant power shifts. For instance, Amazon displaced established booksellers; Priceline.com gives its users the possibility to name their own price when shopping for flights, hotels, and car rentals. The business models mentioned above afford the chance to create original value proposals, which embrace broader concepts than the traditional financial revenues, such as: data exchange, access to new markets, research cooperation, promote common interests, minimize costs and obtain prestige, which reflect the potentialities provided by the new configurations. Similarly to what happens in the business world, Internet’s ability to connect millions of users also offers a privileged environment to exploit social networks. Nowadays, those sites attract millions of users, many of whom use their facilities in their daily practices. For instance, in the 2008 United States Presidential Elections, Facebook was intensively used to spread political messages and to find sponsors and supporters. The rich and complex interactions among social network users, similarly to inter-organizational configurations, can create innovative forms of collaboration, which in turn can enable new value proposals. However, to design appellative, functional, sustainable, and in some cases profitable social networks, their supporting business models cannot be handled based on intuition and hints. We developed a novel approach to aid analyzing, designing, and tuning inter-organizational business models, ensuring that all required stakeholders have an enticing reason to participate [1], [2]. The approach is organized in three phases: the first identifies and characterizes the network’s stakeholders, as well as the structural aspects that influence their behavior. The second studies the network and suggests eventual adjustments to ensure the alignment of the stakeholders’ interests. In the third phase, the stability of the resulting scenario is evaluated. We consider the identification of stakeholders as a crucial factor in the design of social networks. The more radical the departure from the established models of value creation, as it happens in these environments, the bigger the complexity in ensuring their sustained interest and the stability of the network bonds. It is important to regard what motivates the users’ presence in the network, as well as what drives their 1 Proceedings of the 43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2010 978-0-7695-3869-3/10 $26.00 © 2010 IEEE