IBM announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Kenexa, a social recruiting and HR solutions company. The price is $46 per share, or about $1.3 billion.

IBM says the acquisition will help it bolster its social business capabilities and gain “actionable insights” from “enormous” streams of data generated by social networks. Kenexa supports over 8,900 customers across the financial services, pharmaceuticals, retail and consumer industries, including over half of the Fortune 500. It has operations in 21 countries around the world.

Alistair Rennie, GM, social business at IBM said, “Every company, across every business operation, is looking to tap into the power of social networking to transform the way they work, collaborate and out innovate their competitors. IBM is uniquely positioned to help clients generate real returns from their social business investments, while helping them gain intelligence into the data being generated in these networks to be more competitive in their markets.”

“The customer is the big winner in all this because the combination of our two organizations will deliver more business outcomes than ever before,” said Kenexa CEO Rudy Karsan. “Together, Kenexa and IBM will be unmatched in the industry, offering solutions that extend from strategy to the technology platform to the delivery of services for clients.”

IBM expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter of this year. It has been approved by Kenexa’s Board, which is recommending that shareholders do the same.