Resumo

BELO, Ana; CASTELA, Guilherme  e  FERNANDES, Sílvia. Collaborative Virtual Environments: potential of social networks. The case of companies in the Algarve. RISTI [online]. 2013, n.12, pp.65-79. ISSN 1646-9895.  https://doi.org/10.4304/risti.12.65-79.

The aim of present work is to analyse the potential of social networks in the performance of small and medium enterprises in Algarve region, having developed a questionnaire for this purpose. The empirical study reveals that the collected data (from 70 enterprises) have good psico-metric qualities. Then, a categorical principal component analysis was performed, which identified two main typologies of goals in using social networks: those for product-client interaction and search or knowledge; and those with potential for marketing. A supplementary analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis (using Ward's grouping method), identified three patterns of enterprises according to their level of social networks' involvement: cluster Social Tec Level 1; cluster Social Tec Level 2 and cluster Social Tec Level 3. These analyses validate a sustainable methodology for this kind of approach.

Palavras-chave : social networks; Internet; patterns; performance.

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