Unfriending on Facebook: Factors Affecting Online Relationship Termination in Social Networks and Its Impact on Business

Christopher Sibona, Steven Walczak

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Establishing and maintaining relationships online is becoming ever more important in the expanding global knowledge economy. This study examines factors underlying the termination of relationships in the social networking environment of Facebook and examines how this information may be used to promote virtual business relationships. The results indicate that people use a variety of reasons for terminating virtual relationships which may be broadly clustered into offline and online reasons.

Original languageAmerican English
JournalInternational Journal of Business Environment
Volume6
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2014

Keywords

  • Facebook
  • online relationships
  • relationship termination
  • social networking sites
  • SNS
  • social capital
  • unfriending
  • virtual business relationships

Disciplines

  • Business
  • Communication Technology and New Media
  • Interpersonal and Small Group Communication

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