The Impacts of Social Media on Job Satisfaction: Task-Oriented Use and Relationship-Oriented Use

Abstract

Employees are increasingly using social media in the workplace, and the literature has shown that social media use in the workplace can generate various positive outcomes such as enhanced performance. Because employees can use social media with different approaches, it is essential to understand how different types of social media use generate workplace outcomes and why employees engage in different types of social media use. In this study, we develop a model illustrating how employees’ perceived values of social media are related to their use of social media, which in turn affects their job satisfaction. We identify three types of perceived values in the workplace: utilitarian, hedonic, and social. We categorize the use of social media into task-oriented social media use and relationship-oriented use. We conducted surveys to collect data from American and Chinese employees who use social media in workplace. Our results show that the effects of task and relationship-oriented social media use were stronger for Chinese employees. In addition, utilitarian and social value are both positively related to task-oriented social media use, whereas hedonic and social value are both positively related to relationship-oriented social media use. Theoretically, our study expands the literature on social media use in the workplace through clarifying how different types of social media use are supported by various types of perceived values and by uncovering the role of culture in the process of social media use in the workplace. Practically, our study delivers insights for companies into how to support different types of social media use and how to enhance job satisfaction in the workplace.