Abstract
The development of social media in the past decade has transformed the hospitality and tourism industry. There is, however, limited empirical research on how individual employees and groups of employees within organizations make sense of new technology, such as social media, over time. In this paper we focus on the individual and organizational level by exploring how hotel employees and managers make sense of organizational social media over a 4-year period. The perceived usefulness of social media is studied in an organizational setting by applying technological frames as a theoretical framework. The study is a longitudinal case study that includes time both during and after the implementation of social media in an international hotel chain in Europe. A total of 37 in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted at 14 hotels as well as additional observations on site and on social media platforms. The study contributes to existing literature by investigating organizational social media use over time.
Highlights
The development of social media in the past decade has transformed the hospitality and tourism industry
From the start in 2013, the management group consisted of a social media manager (Alan), and an e-commerce manager (Amanda), whose primary interpretation of social media in the hotel context was that it was a tool for engaging with customers online
The present study contributes to the literature on social media implementation and use in organizations, by identifying the technological frames of organizational groups
Summary
The development of social media in the past decade has transformed the hospitality and tourism industry. Hotel have been late adopters of social media. Social media has drastically challenged and changed the way hotel organizations produce, market and deliver their services, their internal and external communication (Sigala and Gretzel 2017). Social media have become ubiquitous in the workplace and have changed how organizations communicate and interact. Compared to other information technologies used in organizational contexts, social media were initially designed as online networks for individual, private use and not intended to function as organizational tools (Treem et al 2015). Due to external pressure and a worldwide adoption of social media, organizations are starting to use these social platforms in order to be competitive and to be close to customers
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