Digital Transformation of Human Resource Management: Social Media’s Performance Effect

Abstract

Growing importance of technology and digitalization, leaded by globalization, has changed the nature of competition. Innovation becomes evident in that competitive environment, and firms began to transform their human resource capabilities and functions in that direction. It is commonly accepted that the competitive advantage depends on mostly efficient and effective utilization of human resources. Thanks to the communication technologies, social media evolved into the most-preferred method to reach high qualified human resource. Although firms have been active in social media networks for a long time, they have started to use this medium for human resource management purposes, such as internal communication, career management and recruiting process, recently. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are primarily addressed social media tools which are used frequently in human resource management processes. In this respect, this study aims to examine the social media tools used in human resources management processes and the effects of social media use in human resource management processes on the human resources management performance and firm’s overall performance. The survey was conducted on human resource managers of 122 firms operating in manufacturing and service industry in Turkey. Data obtained from 122 human resource management managers were analyzed through the SPSS 21.00 statistical packet program. Descriptive analyzes, factor analysis, reliability analysis and correlation analysis have been conducted. Proposed relations were tested through regression analyzes utilizing Hayes’ PROCESS Macro. Research findings displayed that human resources management managers use social media tools frequently for recruitment and employee branding processes, and prefer mostly LinkedIn in all processes of human resources management. Furthermore, regression analyzes results revealed that human resources management performance mediates the effect of social media use at human resources management, on firm’s overall performance. The issue of social media use at human resources management have been examined in recent years and there is a limited number of research on that issue. Thus, this study examining social media use at human resources management and its performance effect is expected to contribute to literature.