Title: Unfriending on Facebook: factors affecting online relationship termination in social networks and its impact on business

Authors: Christopher Sibona; Steven Walczak

Addresses: The Business School, University of Colorado Denver, Campus Box 165, P.O. Box 173364, Denver, CO 80217-3364, USA ' The Business School, University of Colorado Denver, Campus Box 165, P.O. Box 173364, Denver, CO 80217-3364, USA

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.

Keywords: Facebook; online relationships; relationship termination; social networking sites; SNS; social capital; unfriending; virtual business relationships.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBE.2014.060237

International Journal of Business Environment, 2014 Vol.6 No.2, pp.199 - 221

Received: 08 Apr 2013
Accepted: 08 Apr 2013
Published online: 21 Jun 2014 *

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