Organizational Use Of Social Media Research Articles

Examining the relationship between sociomaterial practices enacted in the organizational use of social media and the emerging role of organizational generativity

The growth of social media has enabled new operating methods and sparked organizational optimism in social technologies. We must broadly and distinctively identify the practices enacted in the organizational use of social technologies, understand how these practices influence each other, and the mechanisms driving their achievement. This paper deduces the sociomaterial practices enacted in the organizational use of social media and the augmenting generative capabilities. We surveyed seventy-three (73) organizations, collected 267 usable responses and applied structural equation modelling (SEM) techniques to analyze the data. The paper offers two contributions. First, we utilize the affordances-in-practice perspective to identify and categorize organizational practices enacted on social media, including functional, symbolic, and interactive practices. Then, we highlight the role of organizational generativity in facilitating these practices. Generativity represents the ability to revitalize, procreate, and introduce new ways of acting in dynamic or transient situations. Overall, our findings show how social media practices relate to organizational generativity and the mediating role of symbolic-driven practices.

Organizational Social Media Use and Community Social Capital: Disparities by Poverty and Racial Composition

ABSTRACT Organizations play an essential role in solving community problems and social media facilitates their efforts. This paper illustrates an approach to using the social media data of organizations to observe community-level social capital unobtrusively by comparing communities that differ by racial composition and poverty. Data from the IRS, US Census Bureau, and social media platforms revealed that most nonprofit organizations in a mid-sized city in the South have a social media presence, with Facebook substantially more prevalent than Instagram or Twitter. Disparities based on community poverty and race emerged. Exceptions and implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Conceptualization and validation of brand social capital construct by analyzing the role of social media capital

PurposeResearchers, with the widespread acceptance of Web-based technologies by companies, have recently discovered a new type of social capital through these mass communication tools, but there is still limited knowledge about its formation. Therefore, this study specifically aims to conceptualize and validate brand social capital (BSC) by analyzing the role of the online brand community’s social media capital (OBCSC).Design/methodology/approachResearch data was collected using a questionnaire with 39 closed-ended questions. Participants, among the 220 questionnaires distributed, only returned 140 acceptable questionnaires, indicating a response rate of 64%. The statistical population of the study included managers and employees of e-commerce companies active in social media in the field of B2C who introduce and sell their products and services on various types of social networking websites. This study performed data analysis using structural equation modeling with partial least squares.FindingsThe results showed that OBCSC has a positive and significant effect on the integration of brand knowledge, branding co-creation and sense of belonging to the brand community, and in addition, using the mediating role of these three variables, it also has a positive effect on BSC. This study rejects only hypothesis 8 among all the hypotheses formulated, which shows that the sense of belonging to the brand community has no significant effect on branding co-creation.Originality/valueBy conceptualizing a new phenomenon called BSC and how its conversion mechanism is, this research defines a specific and formulated path to better identify the results of the organizational use of social media. In addition, it significantly contributes to increasing managers’ understanding of the importance of online brand community activities in internalizing customer brand knowledge within the company and turning it into wealth.

The Quest for Legitimacy: Strategies for Tension Management in Organizational Social Media Use

Despite the great utility of social media for improving organizational legitimacy, empirical evidence has revealed that organizations generally do a poor job adopting or using social media. Such seeming irrationality may be explored from a tension perspective, which posits that the dynamic interplay between the social construction of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and organizational tensions drives resistance to the adoption and use of ICTs. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 51 leaders of Chinese social ventures and two field experts, this research seeks to understand the dialectical tensions in social ventures’ social media use and how they manage such tensions. The findings highlight that social venture leaders perceive four key tensions: (1) entry vs. maintenance, (2) visibility vs. invisibility, (3) conforming vs. strategic legitimacy, and (4) emancipation vs. control. Moreover, I found two broad strategies Chinese social ventures employed to manage these tensions: (1) strategic hiddenness, and (2) networked, associative mechanism, which involves interorganizational and interpersonal relationship building with key actors. This research makes four theoretical contributions to research on organizational use of social media, organizational legitimacy, organizational tensions, and (social) entrepreneurship. Practical implications for social entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders are also drawn from the findings.

SOSYAL MEDYA İLETİŞİMİNİN KURUMSAL İTİBAR ALGISI ÜZERİNDEKİ ROLÜ

Sosyal medyanın kurumsal kullanımı halkla ilişkiler mesleğinin çeşitli yönlerini etkilemiş, değiştirmiş ve literatürü genişletmiştir. Sosyal medya ortamları kuruluşlara kurumsal itibarlarını arttırabilmeleri için yeni fırsatlar sunmaktadır. Bu kapsamda, sosyal medya ortamlarının kurumsal itibar algısı üzerindeki rolünü araştırmak üzere 356 kişi üzerinde bir araştırma yapılmıştır. Araştırma kapsamında kuruluşların sosyal medyada hedef kitleleri ile kurmuş olduğu iletişimsel sürecin yapısı ve kalitesi (bilgi verme, iletişim kurma, karşılıklı kontrol, sosyal etkileşim ortamları oluşturma) ile kurumsal itibar algılamaları arasındaki korelasyona bakılmıştır. Araştırma bulgularına göre sosyal medya ortamlarında pazarlama ve reklam amaçlı tek yönlü bilgi verme etkisiz bulunurken, iki yönlü simetrik etkileşime fırsat tanıyan uygulamalar etkili bulunmuştur. Sosyal medya etkileşimleri memnuniyet, güven ve bağlılık duygusunu olumlu etkilemektedir. Bu duyguların ise kurumsal itibar algısı üzerinde arabuluculuk etkisinin ortaya çıkmasına yardımcı olabileceği bulgusuna ulaşılmıştır. Diğer yandan, kuruluşların çevrim içi ortamlarda algılanan dijital/sanal itibarları ile çevrim dışı ortamlarda algılanan marka itibarları arasında bir farklılık olabileceği bulgusuna ulaşılmıştır.

Does Stakeholder Engagement Pay Off on Social Media? A Social Capital Perspective

Nonprofits use social media to pursue a broad range of mission-related outcomes. Given the centrality of user connections and social networks on these sites, attaining these outcomes is contingent on first generating a stock of online social capital through investing in online relationships. Yet, little is known empirically about this process. To better understand the return on social media, this study develops empirical measures of four key dimensions of social media–based social capital centering on the nature of nonprofits’ network positions and stakeholder ties. The study then tests a series of hypotheses relating the increase in social capital to different types of stakeholder engagement tactics. Using Twitter data on 198 community foundations, the study finds that content with multiple communication cues and intersectoral stakeholder targeting predict higher levels of social capital; communicative and stakeholder diversity, thus, appear to play a key role in the successful organizational use of social media.

Using social media for competitive business outcomes

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the drivers, practices, and outcomes of social media use in the management of organizational supply chain.Design/methodology/approachOnline questionnaire survey was used to collect data from 285 organizations representing different industries in China. The data then were analyzed with structure equation modeling using SmartPLS.FindingsThe results indicate that key antecedents such as external pressures, internal readiness, expected benefits, strategic goals, and perceived risks influence organizational social media use, which subsequently impact organizational performance outcomes in operation and marketing as well as the satisfaction level of both internal and external constituents, such as customers, employees, partners, and suppliers.Research limitations/implicationsThe study obtained data about one organization from only one respondent and did not used random sampling.Practical implicationsThis study provides insights on why and how companies should use social media for relationship building and business outcomes.Originality/valueDrawing from the resources-based view, social networks, strategic choice theory, and technology organization and environment framework, a new social media utilization model for business outcome was established and testified using empirical data. This study is one of the first studies that adopts technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework of technology adoption theory to study organizational social media use. The findings in this study confirm the validity of the TOE framework for analyzing social media adoption and use in various organizations.

Social Media in the Workplace: Information Exchange, Productivity, or Waste?

Public managers play a central role in the adoption and smooth implementation of social media tools in the workplace, with local governments increasingly expecting managers to utilize these tools. Nevertheless, we know little about how public managers perceive social media use for work activities and what factors shape such perceptions. Preliminary research has shown that social media use in government may enhance task efficiency, but it may also increase management complexity and workload. In this study, we draw from current literature on e-government adoption and use to investigate the role of personal and organizational use of social media, organizational culture, digital threats, and technological capacity in shaping public managers’ perceptions of social media use. Combining data from a national survey of 2,500 public managers in 500 U.S. local governments, Census data, and data collected from city websites, we find that perceptions of social media tools in the workplace are influenced by the interplay of personal and organization use of social media, an organizational culture of innovation, and formal guidance on social media use. Technological capacity and perceptions of digital threats are not significantly related to perceptions of social media. We conclude with a discussion of what these findings mean for research and practice.

Social Media: A Technology that needs no Support from It…Yet

Research indicates that social media applications, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are rapidly being adopted by many organizations. However, little is known about the different resources and capabilities that organizations deploy internally to support social media initiatives, nor of the role that organizational IT departments and IT professionals may play in the deployment. We examine the content of 200 social media job ads collected from Indeed.com to gain understanding of organizational use of social media and how organizations are developing their social media initiatives. Our findings indicate that organizations are planning to deploy significant resources and are developing new internal processes to support social media initiatives. In addition, gaining sustainable benefit from these initiatives may require considerable investment in complementary resources. Our data also indicate that IT departments have little involvement in these initiatives.

Social Media Around the GLOBE

Building on the GLOBE study of cultural values, this article explores the impact of societal culture on organizational social media use. The analysis reported in this article is based on data collected from the Fortune Global 500 organizations regarding their use of six different types of external social media. The results of the analysis indicate that societal culture has to be considered an important factor for organizational social media use.