Rebuttal +++

The opposition’s arguments contain flaws on several levels, and we stand by our original proposition that by the year 2025, social networks will be the main indicator of organizational success.  In its argumentation, the opposition lays out three major points to debunk this proposition. 

In the following lines we are going to demonstrate how those arguments are invalid. Let us dissect each point in turn:

1)    First, according to our opponents’ own definition, an organization is “structured with the aim of achieving a specific goal”.  Yet to refute that social networks do not indicate something about success, they provide the example of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, which they say has no specific goals despite being composed of a social network of individuals.  By their own description and definition then, OWS could not be characterized as an organization for the very reason that it lacks a specific goal.
Their argument is founded on the assumption - which is incorrect - that social networks are in and of themselves organizations. While this may be true in some cases, this is not the question at debate here. Social networks serve as a tool for success, facilitating organizations’ functions leading to it.

Nonetheless, let us assume that OWS is an “organization”.  If it were, we would argue that in fact it is the nature of OWS’s social network that explains the very fact that it does not have a coherent direction or well-defined goals.  After all, a social network analysis of OWS would probably reveal a jumbled and erratic series of connections, a lot of weak ties or no ties between most members, disparate cliques of people focused on different issues, no well-defined organizational structure, and a lack of clear leadership.  These observations of their social network would, therefore, be very effective in allowing us to predict that the OWS will not be successful at working towards a coherent and well-defined set of objectives, at least not in its current state.  While its network is not well suited to effectively defining goals at the moment, it is indeed quite effective at gathering people across the world for protests. We are now witnessing the ripple effect of OWS and its impact is yet to be seen.

2)   The second point of the opposing team, is that neither “organizational networks” nor “success” can be quantified in such a way as would prove a causal relation between the two.  Of course, this is not true at all, and we are going to explain why.

Many studies done by social scientists and statisticians have proven that there are ways to measure the impacts of organizational networks on success.  We know that social networks affect and can reflect employee engagement in an organization: in reality, social networks can increase the employee engagement rate by allowing them to establish ties with colleagues that for instance specialize on similar focus areas or work in the same location. These personal networks actually contribute in bridging information gaps. In fact, numbers presented by Aberdeen Group indicate that 52% of organizations using Web 2.0 achieved Best- in-Class performance and companies using Web 2.0 tools achieved 18% increase in engagement.‏

We also know through studies done by Kotter and Heskett, that employee engagement affects customer satisfaction.  Therefore, we can use employee engagement and customer satisfaction as proxies to represent good social networks.  According to Gallup, the companies with employee engagement and customer satisfaction rankings in the top 25% have been proven to outperform their peers by 200% (in terms of return on investment). This finding is supported by another study done by Guide Star Research, which found that at Sears Roebuck a 5% increase in employee attitudes (as measured by survey data) resulted in a 1.3% rise in customer satisfaction, which in turn increased revenues by .5%.

3)    The final major point our opponents make is that, rather than the social network being the more important factor in determining organizational success, it is in fact the leader or a small group of leaders who define organizational success.  However, there are several problems with this argument.  First, according Jim Collins’ conclusions in his book Getting from Good to Great, which are based on substantial empirical and academic research, while leadership is in fact very important, the data has shown time and time again the failure of what he terms the “Genius and 1000 Helpers” model of organizational structure in which 1 brilliant person at the top leads an organization of mediocre individuals to great success.  

Collins find in fact that factors like “getting the right people on the bus” (getting the right people into the right positions) and corporate culture are critical in creating successful organizations that last the test of time and outlive any one gifted leader or group of leaders.  As social networks can give us insights about who is “on the bus”, how they interact with each other, and what the corporate culture might be like based on information flows, we can therefore say that Collins’ research refutes our opponents’ claims.  

In the same argument, our opponents cite some examples of great leaders to try to support the point that leadership is more important than social networks in indicating organizational success.  They cite Apple’s Steve Jobs, who of course was a spectacular leader.  However, as we know, Steve Jobs recently passed away, and in fact, since Steve Jobs’ death, the stock price of Apple has actually increased by 5%.  This means that even without Steve Jobs, investors are valuing other aspects of Apple, including its organization and its people at all levels of the company.  But perhaps investors are valuing the new leaders of Apple, one might argue.  However, as Adam Lashinsky describes in his book Inside Apple, Apple is not just a one man show.  Apple has a company policy of assigning a Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) to every task (one component of Apple’s organization network), which empowers employees across the company beyond just Jobs and his senior leadership and helps improve efficiency.  

A final flaw in our opponents’ argument is its citing of Michael Dell as proof that leadership is more important than an organization’s networks.  While it is true that Michael Dell did a spectacular job in his first stint at chief executive of Dell, since his return in 2009, Dell Corporation’s stock price has grown by a paltry 1.8% per year.  Clearly, there are many reasons for this, but the relative impact of those other reasons clearly outweighs whatever virtues Dell, as a leader, may possess.  We would maintain that one of the factors that did differ between Dell’s first stint as chief executive and his second was the corporate culture of the company.

Lastly, we wish to address 2 smaller peripheral arguments advanced by the opposition team. We never made the claim that Facebook or Twitter caused the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. As our group contains individuals who experienced the Egyptian and Tunisian Revolutions firsthand, we know that this was not true and that the frustrations and indignities caused by oppressive regimes were in fact the root cause.  However, there is no doubt that while such grievances caused the revolutions that social networks enabled them and greatly increased their chances of success by allowing people to coordinate massive gathering to demonstrate for their freedom.  

We also do not claim that having a good social network (by “good” we mean well-adapted to the objectives at hand) always ensures success, only that it increases the likelihood of success over what the situation would have been in their absence.  Although social media and social networks were used in Iran, it was the coercive apparatus of the state and that apparatus’s loyalty to the regime and not the people that ended up foiling the Green Movement.

In conclusion, after dissecting our opponents best arguments and rebutting every single one of them with ease, we not only maintain but reaffirm our initial resolution arguing that by 2025 social networks will indeed be the main drivers of organizational success. This resolution cannot be refuted.

Sources:

Robinson D, Perryman S, Hayday S (2004),The Drivers of Employee Engagement, Report 408, Institute for Employment Studies

Jim Collins (2001) Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, HarperCollins Publishers Inc

Kotter J and Heskett J (1992) Corporate Culture and Performance, The Free Press.

Adam Lashinsky (2012), Inside Apple How America's Most Admired--And Secretive--Company Really Works, Bussiness Plus
( http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/books_9781455512171_Description.htm )   

Octavia Nasr (2009), Tear gas and Twitter: Iranians take their protests online, CNN
(http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-14/world/iran.protests.twitter_1_facebook-president-mahmoud-ahmadinejad-supporters?_s=PM:WORLD)

Toby Ward (2009), Building Employee Engagement With Internal Social Networks,
( http://www.communitelligence.com/blps/article.cfm?page=693 )

Toby Ward (2008) Employee social networking - case study
( http://intranetblog.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2008/8/26/3856898.html )
           
Caterina C. Bulgarella (2005), Employee Satisfaction & Customer Satisfaction: Is There a Relationship? GuideStar Research
( http://meetingmetrics.com/research_papers/White_Papers.htm )