Determining the Suitable Research Strategy in Social Media’s Stages of Growth

Considering the organizations’ increasing use of social media, many studies are being conducted in this area. Researchers are faced with a variety of research strategies depending on the nature of the research problem and data. If the right research strategy is not employed, the researcher will lose focus, and the time and effort spent will not necessarily serve the research objectives. When choosing a research strategy, the organization’s characteristics should be taken into consideration; otherwise, it may lead to confounding interpretations of the findings. In this regard, the present study aims to introduce an appropriate research strategy for each maturity stage of the organization under study. To this end, using systematic mapping methodology, about 256 articles published within 2011- 2021 were investigated, and the relationship between the types of research strategy used and the different stages of an organization’s maturity in using social media was reported. Specifically, by synthesizing the social sciences research methodology framework and the social media stage of the growth model, a mapping was developed between the research strategies and maturity stages. Based on this mapping, it is expected that the appropriate strategy for research at the first maturity stage is exploratory, and for the second and third stages are observational and descriptive, respectively. When the organization moves to the fourth and fifth levels, archival and causal strategies are recommended for research. Using the results of this research, researchers will be able to identify the right research strategy for the maturity stage of the organization under study and develop the appropriate research design accordingly.