A path towards networked organisations – the push of digital natives or the pull of the needs?

Social networking and media reflects people’s need to be connected, to share, to be members of communities, and to collaborate. It supports social interaction and uses scalable web-based technologies. Although modern social media are new phenomenon, the same physical networks have always operated – only the tools are changed. It is also easy to see that the social communities operate in private life, whereas traditional networking is related to business – the direction of the adoption is undoubtedly from the private life to business. The adoption speed is accelerated by recruiting members of the younger generation to responsible positions in organisations. This paper opens up discussion on the use of social networking. The framework characterising the differences between the generations and the characteristics of modern enterprise are introduced. The purpose is to increase understanding of the changes in information and communication technology (ICT) intensive organisations and in society.