The economics of social computing: Some preliminary findings on healthcare organizations

Large-scale organizations have used social computing platforms for various purposes. This research focuses on how hospitals utilize these platforms to attract potential customers (which represents the “extensivity” of a social computing platform) and generate interests in specific topics (which represents the “intensivity” of a platform). Specifically, we examine the effects of size of a hospital (or “size”) and the time that the social computing platform has been in existence (or “time”) on extensivity and intensivity. Our findings show that time is a significant variable on both dimensions; whereas size affects intensivity under certain conditions. We discuss the implications of these findings, and set the stage for future research.

► We examine hospitals in Missouri using Facebook pages as social computing platforms.
► We study size and time as predictors on the amount of subscribers and discussions.
► Both predictors are statistically significant, and produce an interactive effect.
► Additionally, smaller hospitals utilize Facebook more effectively than bigger ones.
► These organizations might have designed more desirable social computing platforms.