Social Media in a Social Phenomenon: Social Media in the Entrainment of Contention to Innovation

In this inductive theory building paper, I examine the impact of social media on a social phenomenon. I particularly focus on a social phenomenon that concerns firms—the entrainment of contention to innovation. The entrainment of contention to innovation is defined as the alignment of the pace and/or timing of contention (e.g., opposition, petition, protest) with those of firms’ innovation. To examine the impact of social media on that entrainment, I first examine the entrainment of contention to innovation in general and then look into the innovation-contention entrainment by innovation type. Based on this, I finally examine the societal impact of social media. I focus on the energy sector and gather such qualitative data as patents, news releases, and the texts on social media. I perform a content analysis on those data and graphically analyze the outcomes of the content analysis. Preliminary findings will be presented at the conference.