The Introduction of the Internet in the 1990s

The introduction of the internet in the 1990s, comprising near-instant messaging solutions (email), instant messaging solutions (IM) and the World Wide Web, changed the nature of both commercial and social interactions. The invention of Web 2.0 (McAfee 2006) technology, which allows for two way method of communi-cation, interoperability and user generated contents (UGC), has enabled enterprises to create virtual communities and a collaborative environment to host web-based communities as a foundation for value creation. Social networking sites (SNS), like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, are just few examples; such sites provide space both for better collaboration and for a large amount of user generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010), which empower the user to become the real owner of data and information. ‘Social networks in the workplace provide employees with new ways of interacting with their co-employees and offer a platform for infor-mation sharing’ (Leftheriotis & Giannakos 2014, p. ).
Email has become a major tool for all business communication; and based on re-search, a significant amount of employee time is spent on organising and managing emails. Due to an increasing level of using email within the workplace, a substantial amount of company knowledge is stored inside individual email accounts and in-boxes that are not easily shareable with and accessible to other employees. This is an expected outcome, as employees get paid to produce rather than to browse the information (McAfee 2006), hence they use channels and mediums that allow them to generate new information – such as email. Research by Davenport into corporate email users shows that 100% of knowledge workers use email as a channel of communication, in compari...

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...vis, Bagozzi et al. 1989, p. ), on the assumption that successful implementation of ESN systems is dependent on two factors – initial acceptance and continuous us-age. We are using the information systems (IS) success model, as proposed by DeLone (1988) and DeLone and McLean (2003), as the overarching and base theo-retical model to measure the success of the IS system, i.e. ENS; and we are specifi-cally measuring factors impacting acceptance of such technology and continuance of use. We are using current technology acceptance models, e.g. (TAM) (Davis 1989), and factors that impact the continuous technology usage, e.g. technology continuance theory (TCT) (Liao, Palvia et al. 2009), as well as other relevant theories to evaluate and identify a construct that can be used by enterprises to accelerate initial adoption, acceptance and continuous usage of such technology