Factors influencing the adoption and
use of social media in organisations:
an employee perspective
Accepting social media in organisational life
June 24, 2016
10172602 Tessa Kreunen Thesis Supervisor: James Slevin MSc Corporate Communication Graduate School of Communication
Abstract
A key issue for communication managers resulting from the rise of social media is how they can effectively manage and use the media internally. It is shown that these new technologies can support collaboration and facilitate knowledge sharing, yet they can also increase stress. This study explores the challenges and opportunities for internal communication by examining how employees adopt and use social media in their organisation. A mixed method approach, consisting of focus group interviews and quantitative survey, was taken to explore the factors influencing employees’ adoption and usage of social media in a corporate setting. In general employees were relatively skilled in applying social media, and results indicate that they have adopted some forms of social media at work, yet employees still seem to depend more on traditional media in their organisational lives. Based on the outcomes, several implications and suggestions for organisations to manage and steer social media use are given.
Key Words: social media; adoption; internal communication; media preference; web 2.0.
In recent years, many employees who grew up with new technologies such as Facebook and Whatsapp have been entering the workplace and they are slowly changing the way in which contemporary interaction takes place. Social media are an important part of their universe and as a result the communication landscape is altering and new media play an increasing role in it (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy & Silvestre, 2011). Research however shows that this growth is not limited to the so-called digital natives as members of older generations are increasingly using social media too (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). For organisations it seems therefore important to stay up to date and include social media, such as blogs and social networking sites, in their internal communication. Potential benefits of using social media internally are facilitating knowledge management (Bollinger & Smith, 2001), improving information flow, increasing inter-department co-operation (Kuikka & Äkkinen, 2011) and enhancing the overall organisational performance (Ruck & Welch, 2012; Verčič, Verčič, & Sriramesh, 2012). However, on the downside, a lack of organisational guidelines and control can lead to misapplication of the medium (Schoeneborn, 2013) and it can reduce employee satisfaction concerning internal communication (Ruck & Welch, 2012).
While many organisations have integrated social media, they often fail to understand how to use them correctly (Meske & Stieglitz, 2013). Integrating social media into their media plan will not automatically bring an organisation benefits. One essential factor in determining whether internal social media are beneficial for the organisation is how employees adopt and use the media. Research by Huy and Shipilov (2012) showed that only 30% of the surveyed 1060 global executives reported that social media initiatives were adopted and had positive effects on the internal communication in their organisations. Additionally, research has indicated that a majority of employees prefer traditional media (such as e-mail, intranet or
teleconferencing) when internal communication is concerned, and as a result the adoption of social media in organisations seems to develop more slowly than it does in personal life (Friedl & Verčič, 2011). Thus, the need to shift from conventional forms of communication towards social media channels seems not that urgent. Nevertheless, social media are becoming more and more integrated in our social lives and as such it is inevitable that social media tools will also play a more prominent role in the future when internal organisational communication is concerned, albeit to complement traditional forms of media. Moreover, it seems important for organisations to start adapting the communication within their firm to the new digital age and to integrate social media in their internal communication strategy.
In recent years, a lot of research has been conducted to find out how organisations are adopting and using social media. Adoption of social media refers to the decision of an organisation or its employees to make use of a social media tool (Frambach & Schillewaert, 2002). Many scholars have looked to the external side to see how organisations use new media tools to communicate with customers (e.g. Kuikka & Äkkinen, 2011) or how the media are integrated in non-profit organisations (e.g. Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012; Waters, Burnett, Lamm & Lucas, 2009). Another group of studies presents findings on how social media tools are being used for public relations (e.g. Diga & Kelleher, 2009; Eyrich, Padman, & Sweetser, 2008; Verhoeven, Tench, Zerfass, Moreno, & Verčic, 2012). However, to date there seems to be a lack of knowledge concerning the challenges and opportunities of social media adoption and use for internal communication purposes, which appears to be the result of a scarcity of research on the topic. The few times it has been topic of research, content analyses were conducted to assess which channels are used and the volume of information it creates, only organisations active in one country took part in the research (e.g. Meske & Stieglitz, 2013) or it was presented from a managerial perspective (e.g. Huy & Shipolov, 2012; Ruck & Welch, 2012) and therewith forgetting to address the opinion of the main users: the employees.
As more forms of social media continue to emerge, firms have to determine in what ways they can effectively integrate social media internally and they have to understand how their employees use these tools in daily practice. Employees often bring a lot of resources that could be even better put to use if social media are available for disseminating their knowledge or to facilitate collaborative efforts between employees (Bollinger & Smith, 2001). In other words, social media could be beneficial for organisations that want to tap into the pool of knowledge available in their organisation and that want to upgrade their internal communication. The problem for organisations is how to effectively manage social media use in a corporate setting, to find out which channels their employees prefer and where they have to invest in. Organisations thus have to make well-conceived decisions regarding the adoption of new social media applications. Therefore, it is important to identify factors that influence the adoption and use of social media by employees; this will help organisations in
making informed decisions regarding selecting the right internal communication media and to benefit from the positive organisational outcomes these can generate.
This study provides insight into the extent to which employees are skilled in using social media in a corporate setting, what types of media they prefer for internal organisational communication and what they perceive as barriers that hinder social media adoption and usage. It contributes to existing literature in that it synthesises employees’ knowledge about social media affordances, while it simultaneously gives direction to communication managers within companies who seek a consolidated way to manage and steer their organisation’s internal communication. For managers it is important to find out if there are consequences when employees do not feel motivated or simply lack the skills to use the available social media channels, does the internal communication suffer from this?
Research Questions
New technology-based interaction is becoming more prominent in organisations; as such it is conceivable that employees will become more reliant on social media channels in the future. Companies have to make informed choices on whether or not they want to use certain social media for internal communication purposes and what they expect to accomplish with it. In order to answer to the preferences of employees, first the factors influencing the adoption and use of social media have to be addressed. The main research questions in this empirical study are therefore:
RQ1: What factors influence the adoption and social media use of employees?
RQ2: What are the challenges and opportunities of using social media for internal communication in organisations?
To address these questions, this study examined social media adoption and use, social media literacy and preference of employees at two large international organisations. A mixed method approach is exerted in which focus group interviews are used to inform quantitative in-company surveys to examine employees’ expectations and perceptions of social media as tool for internal communication. The outcomes are compared with the expectations deriving from literature and based on the results various implications for organisations are given, in particular with respect to how to avoid negative consequences and gain benefits of social media use. First a contextual background on internal communication, the development of the field and social media use in organisations is given. Thereafter the research design and taken approach of this study will be presented. Next, the outcomes and implications of this research are discussed and finally limitations of this research will be put forward.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Defining Internal Communication
The field of internal communication developed during the final decades of the previous century and became widespread at the beginning of the new era. Having its roots in both public relations and communication management, internal communication is perceived an essential feature of change management (Verčič et al., 2012). The mentioned disciplines form an important base for the strategic communication of an organisation, which is defined as the purposeful usage of communication by an organisation to fulfil its mission (Hallahan, Holtzhausen, Van Ruler, Verčič, & Sriramesh, 2007). Internal communication can help make employees aware of a company’s mission and can contribute to organisational commitment that is needed to pursue company goals. To be more specific, academics have distinguished two goals of internal organisational communication (e.g. Francis, 1989 & De Ridder, 2003 in Elving, 2005), which are to inform employees about their tasks, the organisational policy and other issues and to create a community within the organisation. For both types it is important to effectively manage communication within the organisation.
Grunig (1992, in Verčič et al., 2012) reviewed existing literature on the subject of internal communication and concluded that more research had to be conducted to gain thorough understanding of how organisations can successfully benefit from internal communication. As a result several scholars dived into this and presented empirical evidence for the positive interconnection between internal communication and effectiveness of the organisation (Verčič et al., 2012). More specifically, internal communication has been linked to higher performance levels (Ruck & Welch, 2012), can increase organisational commitment (Welch, 2012), can create employee awareness of opportunities and threats (Welch, 2012), is known to be a determinant of organisational innovation (Kivimäki, Länsisalmi, Elovainio, Heikkilä, Lindström, Harisalo, … Puolimatka, 2000), and can facilitate knowledge sharing within organisations (Friedl & Verčič, 2011). Recent technological developments and the introduction of social media have played an important role in many of the abovementioned advantages of effective internal communication. Therefore, researchers have increasingly been paying attention to the role of social media in internal organisational communication (e.g. Meske & Stieglitz, 2013). Research on internal communication thus deals with the role communication plays in the relationship between an organisation and its employees and more recently also how new communication technologies affect employees.
In general organisations do have a medium or even several channels that are used for internal communication and can help generate the aforementioned positive outcomes. Companies can use internal media to, for example, inform and educate their employees or to facilitate knowledge sharing within the organisation (Kietzmann et al., 2011). Employees have to be encouraged to actively participate in communication processes to profit from the
benefits that social media can bring. But, when internal communication is poor, it can also pose a threat to an organisation; it can be counter-productive and damage internal employee relationships (Welch, 2012). An important part of an organisation’s internal communication efforts should thus be to create actively participating employees and to make sure that the internal communication is valuable and aligned to make it successful and effective.
What are Social Media?
The first web based applications that can be defined as social media were developed at the end of the previous century. The term Web 2.0 was later created to identify the new types of Internet based media that were developed after the dotcom crisis, referring to the second coming of the Web (Trottier & Fuchs, 2014), and to attract potential investors and users (Fuchs, 2013). Since being introduced in the beginning of the new century, the term Web 2.0 has often been used to describe social media. For instance, Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) define social media as: “A group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content.” (p. 61). Fuchs (2013) looked at the social aspect of ‘social’ media, using a social theory approach, and came to the conclusion that media that primarily support cognition, communication and/or cooperation (i.e. the three models of sociality) can be defined as social media. New technologies have the potential to enable a combination of these three social activities at one medium, e.g. Facebook (Trottier & Fuchs, 2014). This has caused a shift in power from organisations towards the media users; i.e. the informational and collective characteristics of the Internet have provided users with expert power since they can now get information on products and services from many online sources (Sinclaire & Vogus, 2011). It is not only easier to access knowledge; information also becomes more transparent through the use of social media. The collaborative and communicative elements are repetitive in descriptions and thus seem to be an important part of social media.
As more and more social media entered the market, these tools rapidly moved from the domain of the tech-savvy to the mainstream and became widespread in the first decade of the current century (Treem & Leonardi, 2012; Fuchs, 2013). Nowadays, almost all organisations have adopted and integrated some form(s) of social media in their media matrix. This new social media driven society is characterised by interactivity and connectivity, in which content seems inseparable from new technological tools. Together these new media provide organisations dozen opportunities to reach customers (Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden, 2011) and employees (Ruck & Welch, 2012). Challenges are to integrate and effectively align messages on all different media, besides, finding the right medium to communicate with can be difficult as well since not all people prefer the same medium (Friedl & Verčič, 2011; Ruck & Welch, 2012). However, social media additionally offer several opportunities for
organisations as well. Through social media it becomes easier to work on collaborative projects, to improve corporate identity and to form communities (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Kietzmann et al., 2011; Ruck & Welch, 2012). In sum, social media offer both challenges and opportunities for organisational communication and companies have to find the right balance in adopting and using these media as part of their corporate strategy.
Accepting Social Media in Organisational Life
Over the past few years social media have been a central topic in research about internal communication in organisations. It is shown that social networking sites, such as blogs, wikis and Twitter, can facilitate communication practices in organisations that differ from practices traditionally associated with computer mediated technologies, such as e-mail, intranet or teleconferencing (Treem & Leonardi, 2012). Social media tools have given companies the opportunity to actively interact and communicate with their employees. Simultaneously, the same social networking technologies have empowered employees to create, share and consume content and this has lessened the power of those in management (e.g. Kietzmann, et al., 2011; Sinclaire & Vogus, 2011). Social media channels that are often used by and for employees to participate in internal communication are Whatsapp, Yammer, blogs and YouTube. As mentioned before, scholars have shown that social media can positively contribute to the creation of knowledge and the dissemination of information in organisations (Bollinger & Smith, 2001; Kuikka & Äkkinen, 2011). Therefore social media can even further enhance organisational performances when effectively used for internal communication.
Researching knowledge management in companies in 2001, Bollinger and Smith identified some barriers to effective adoption and use of social media for knowledge sharing. The organisational perspective was that workers do not see the benefit of using the available social media, however Kuikka and Äkkinen (2011) show that managers themselves are often reluctant to invest in social media because they feel threatened by the accumulated power employees gain by increasingly using social media to build new relationships and gather information. At the team level Bollinger and Smith (2001) found that employees fear criticism by managers and co-workers, whereas at the individual level it was especially the resistance to share information and the competition among professionals that obstructed the sharing of know-how between employees via social media. However, more recently companies have recognised the need to be more active on social media, yet the question remains as to how this can be done effectively as it is unclear what employees want. Organisations have started using internal social networking platforms (Meske & Stieglitz, 2013), but the positive effects that social media can generate not automatically follow when social media are being used for internal communication purposes. Still, the applications that emerge because of these new tools do offer a wide range of opportunities for reaching the two central goals of internal
communication as described earlier (Friedl & Verčič, 2011), the main question is what factors influence employees’ social media use in a corporate setting and how can this be managed to create favourable organisational outcomes?
Affordances of Social Media and Social Media Literacy
Social media can help in creating and further facilitating an effective communication climate (Treem & Leonardi, 2012), however previous research has shown that the same technology might provide different affordances to different users (Gibbs, Rozaidi, & Eisenberg, 2013). Looking at the affordances of social media might therefore be helpful to explain why people or organisations use different technologies in similar ways or the same medium in different ways (Fulk, 1993; Schoeneborn, 2013; Treem & Leonardi, 2012). The affordance approach is based on a relational view; it is perceived that affordances are not inherently attributed to a medium or a person; rather they are constituted in the moment of contact between a person and the tool (Treem & Leonard, 2012). Additionally, taking a relational approach helps to explain how social media coalesce with existing forms of internal communication.
Researchers Treem and Leonardi (2012) reviewed numerous studies and distracted four distinct affordances of social media use in organisations: visibility, persistence, editability and association. The first refers to the ability to make behaviour, knowledge, preferences and network connections visible through social media. Persistence implies that communication can remain accessible in the same form as originally presented, thus social media enable communicative acts that persist long past the initial time of publication. The third, editability, is a function of interaction. It refers to communicative acts that are formed in isolation from others, before they view it and as a result the communication is asynchronous. Additionally, social media provide users with the option to modify or revise a message after is has already been communicated. The last affordance of social media is association, referring to the links between individuals with others or with content. The use of algorithms leads to personalised and more relevant information because the technology makes associations between the user and his or her preferences. As Treem and Leonardi (2012) note, some traditional media posses one or two of these qualities, but social media tools score high all four affordances. In a comparable manner, Trottier and Fuchs (2014) took a social theory approach and came to an almost identical conclusion stating that social media have the potential to enable a combination of the three modes of sociality (they distinguish cognition, communication and cooperation) by simply using one social space. In other words, these researches show that social media enable integration of several communication processes that were previously reserved for separate media. Nevertheless, since many social media and their affordances are relatively new, it is questionable if users are familiar with the different affordances and opportunities they present (Treem & Leonardi, 2012). And precisely because of the likely
differences in application skills of new social media, the consequences and relevance of their usage for internal communication purposes are not yet well understood.
For instance, previous research found that the positive relation between openness to experiences and social media use was affected by age (Correa, Hinsley, & Gil de Zúñiga, 2010), which was in line with expectations given the novel nature of these technologies. Moreover, young people grew up with new digital media for interacting and communicating at their disposal, making them digital natives, as opposed to the digital immigrants: i.e. older people who confront each change in technology as something new to be mastered (Prensky, 2001). And even though it might seem logical that these younger users who are immersed in digital technology prefer newer social media to more traditional channels in organisational life, research has shown that not all employees below thirty are literate in social media and those that are do not necessarily prefer social media in their business lives (Friedl & Verčič, 2011). Being used to be surrounded by social media thus not implicates that employees also actively use social media themselves, or at least not in all settings.
Researchers Bucher, Fieseler and Suphan (2013) looked into the stress potential of social media use and found that mainly overload, invasion and uncertainty were possible side effects of social media use. Stress can be caused when users do not posses the skills required to use these social media, but a lack of organisational guidelines can also result in misapplication and insecurity because employees are unsure how to use the social media (Schoeneborn, 2013). To be able to cope with these effects, professionals need to be literate in the domain of social media, especially when using them daily (Bucher, Fieseler, & Suphan, 2013). The study further states that if employees are unable to deal with the stress potential social media might bring, this can result in negative reactions such as anxiety or burnouts. Where literacy historically refers to the ability to read and write, research dealing with new media indicates that media literacy refers to a definition less narrow (Livingstone, 2004). According to Livingstone (2004), media literacy refers to the ability of a user to access, analyse, evaluate and create messages in many different ways using a variety of channels. Bucher et al. (2013) go one step further and state that being literate in social media means “being able to cope with overload, invasion and uncertainty that social media bring” (p.1652), which is the definition adopted and used in the current study.
In sum, it might be the case that a majority of the employees within an organisation is not a digital native and therefore is not literate in social media or those who are digital natives might not be as literate as expected. Users can also simply lack knowledge of the desired application requests of the organisation and thus not actively use social media. It is therefore expected that social media literacy has a positive influence on the adoption and use of social media, indicating that the more literate an employee is, the more often he or she will use social media. Based on these expectations the following hypothesis is drafted:
H1: The level of social media literacy has a positive influence on the adoption and use of social media in organisations.
Preferring One Medium Over Another
While novel social media in organisational context are not always adopted and used as was originally expected, it is relevant to find out how social media use differs per employee. As Welch (2012) presented in her study, a preference hierarchy exists amongst employees. This means that employees do not share a uniform preference; as such they should be regarded as a multi-dimensional group of internal stakeholders with different needs and demands. This gives rise to a challenge for internal communication managers in that they should adapt their strategies and offer several media to enable employees to choose outlets they find most satisfactory and usable. Additionally, the amount of employees that grew up with social media is increasing in number, it therefore seems important for organisations to alter the communication within their firm to the new digital age and as such to integrate social media in their strategy. Scholars also found strong media effects when examining social media use, which means that the use of a specific media format can provoke strong negative emotional reactions, suggesting that communication managers need to reflect on the effects different media can have (Fonner & Roloff, 2012; Welch, 2012). A majority of employees still prefers traditional media (such as e-mail, intranet or teleconferencing) when internal communication is concerned, and as a result the adoption of social media in organisations seems to develop more slowly than it does in personal life (Friedl & Verčič, 2011). These results were, however found in 2011 and in a rapidly evolving society such media preferences might have changed substantially over the course of five years. Having said that, it can still be expected that those who prefer social media as tool for communication will more often want to use social media in organisations than employees who do not prefer social media at all.
A study conducted by Pempek, Yermolayeva and Calvert (2009) showed that a large number of an organisation’s Facebook group users never used the group as intended. The users reported all kinds of reasons for using the Facebook group, however not to discuss serious topics, express their view on issues or to connect with others as was the original company policy. It has been revealed that new social media have an infrastructure designed to accommodate apolitical behaviour, such as sharing funny pictures and news about ones private life (Gaby & Caren, 2012). In other words, social media are designed to generate social conversations that might not directly be aligned with work-related organisational goals, and therefore it might be that employees prefer to use social media in private context but are less keen to adopt social media for facilitating organisational conversations.
In sum, organisations have to consider media preferences of their employees when interacting with them and in order to do so they have to determine whether and why users
have reasons to prefer and use social media for private over organisational communication (Friedl & Verčič, 2011). As several researchers noted, social media acceptance for internal organisational communication seems to develop less rapidly than social media adoption in personal life. Nevertheless, organisations should not ignore the growing demand of various employees to use social media for content creation, knowledge sharing, expressing personal opinions and building a strong community with colleagues. Every recipient has a medium of preference and therefore communication managers have to discover what the main channels are that their employees prefer and how they can strategically align internal communication using different types of channels. If the social medium of preference is available, it can be expected that employees will more often make use of them and based on this argumentation the following hypotheses are formulated:
H2: The level of social media preference has a positive impact on the adoption and use of social media in organisations.
H2b: Employees are keener to prefer and use social media tools in their private lives than for internal communication purposes at work.
Task Interdependence
Social media are perceived easy media with which one can quickly communicate with others. Through mobile devices people can easily reach out to others since they are almost always connected to the Internet wherever they go. Employees who have to collaborate often can use social media to facilitate communication with their co-workers (Bucher et al., 2013). Jarvenpaa and Staples (2000) showed that task interdependency indicates that employees work closely with others from their team and must frequently coordinate their efforts. Also, working in a team means that employees often have to consult with peers and as such they need media to communicate with them. In a collaborative work context, it is shown that employees whose work involves tasks that are interdependent of others use collaborative media tools more often than employees who predominantly act alone (Jarvenpaa & Staples, 2000). These researchers found that task characteristics of the job are strongly related to the person’s use of collaborative media, whereas other studies indicate that today most people use social media but simply not that often at work (Friedl & Verčič, 2011; Meske & Stieglitz, 2013). Nevertheless, the interactive nature of social media make that these new tools indeed easily meet the demands of collaborative workers, hence it is hypothesised that:
H3: Task interdependence is associated with employees’ adoption and use of social media for internal communication at work.
Challenges of Using Social Media For Internal Purposes
Communication practitioners consider internal communication managers responsible for the creation and controlling of internal media in an organisation (Verčič et al., 2012). This implicates that communication management should supervise and regulate the use of the media within the organisation. Schoeneborn (2013) studied the use of PowerPoint as tool for project documentation and provided evidence that, due to a lack of organisational standards and control, the medium was used in ways beyond its intended use and function. The study illustrates why it is important for managers to be in charge of new media. That is, if the new (social) medium is not used as intended, communication managers can step in and inform employees how they should use the medium (Kivimäki et al., 2000). Ruck and Welch (2012) showed that internal communication is undermined due to absence of senior manager clarity, which often reduces employees’ satisfaction concerning internal communication. Managers should thus ensure that organisational leaders and senior managers act as role models in the communication process (Elving, 2005). Interpreting this in terms of social media use for internal communication, it is important that both communication managers and leaders demonstrate employees the point of the new medium, co-ordinate how it should be used and show in what way the medium can be beneficial for them and the organisation.
Huy and Shipolov (2012) indicated that in order to be successful, social media tools must be targeted at developing emotional capital amongst employees; i.e. “the feelings of goodwill towards the organisation and the way it operates” (p. 74). The usage of social media internally could however expose the shortcomings of the organisational culture and in some cases even magnify them, which might be a reason why companies seem quite hesitant in adopting social media for internal communication. Apart from managerial challenges that withhold organisations to fully adopt social media, employees can experience difficulties in accepting social media at the individual level. As discussed, people who are not literate in social media can have a hard time keeping up with new technological developments which might result into stress, and it might evoke feelings of uncertainty, invasion and information overload (Bucher et al., 2013). These factors are part of the social media literacy concept as previously mentioned. Fonner and Roloff (2012) showed that the use of social media could lead to an increase in interruptions and this can also result in higher levels of stress.
Furthermore, the perceived complexity and insecurity that social media cause might influence the use of social media in organisations (Bucher et al., 2013). Perceived complexity means that users might find it difficult to understand new media applications quickly or feel that their organisation does not give clear directions on how to use new media. Similarly, employees might feel unsure when they perceive their level of knowledge of social media to be low. This might affect employees’ self-esteem, resulting into lower confidence levels in using social media for internal communication purposes compared to other colleagues who
Figure 1. Conceptual framework of possible predictors of employees’ social media adoption and usage.
are more certain about their know-how of using these social media. This might have an affect on employees’ notion of their social media skills and affect if they will use social media. As such it is expected that the level of insecurity and perceived complexity will both have a moderating effect on the relationships between social media literacy and preference to social media adoption and use. Based on these expectations the following hypotheses are drafted:
H4: The perceived complexity of social media has a negative influence on the relation between social media literacy and the adoption and use of social media. H5: The perceived complexity of social media has a negative influence on the relation between social media preference and the adoption and use of social media. H6: The level of insecurity has a negative influence on the relation between social media literacy and the adoption and use of social media in organisations.
H7: The level of insecurity has a negative influence on the relation between social media preference and the adoption and use of social media in organisations.
Based on the outlined theory a schematic framework was created to show the expected relationships that are explored in this study. The conceptual framework, see Figure 1, shows possible predictors of social media adoption and use in organisations. In the following parts, employees’ social media adoption and use in a corporate setting will be explored through focus groups and quantitative surveys at two large international organisations.
Social Media Literacy
Social Media Preference
Task Interdependence
Adoption and Use of Social Media Perceived Complexity Level of Insecurity H1 + H2 + H3 + H4 - H5 -H6 - H7
-METHODOLOGY Research Setting
Given the exploratory nature of this study, a mixed method approach was taken. This is beneficial because it can be instrumental in understanding how social media use relates to internal communication. According to Flick (2009, p. 26), triangulation means: “combining qualitative and quantitative methods”, and this method should only be employed when it can contribute to the understanding of the researched subject (Thurmond, 2001). Kaplan and Duchon (1988) advocate that a multi-method design using qualitative and quantitative methods can give a richer understanding of a phenomenon. The intent of using triangulation in this study was to contribute to the understanding of social media adoption and use for internal communication purposes in organisations from an employee perspective.
The chosen approach included focus group interviews and self-completed surveys and examined employees’ social media adoption and use in a corporate setting. The study was conducted in two phases, first conducting a focus group interview to explore the factors influencing adoption and use of social media by employees, followed by a quantitative survey to measure the relationships between the factors and adoption / use of social media for internal communication purposes. The study was conducted under the auspices of the Graduate School of Communication, a part of the University of Amsterdam, in collaboration with two large international organisations in May and June of 2016.
Research Units
Empirical research was conducted at two large global organisations to answer the research questions and hypotheses of this research. The organisations were contacted through the personal network of the researcher and both companies agreed to participate in this study. Since international organisations are more dependent upon media channels to communicate with colleagues who are abroad, it was expected that these types of organisations were fitted to address the current research purpose. The researcher had contact with communication managers at the companies and reached an agreement at both organisations on terms and conditions that should be met to carry out the research. The first company is a Dutch food company serving the professional bread and confectionery trade worldwide by offering high-quality baking ingredients. The second company is a British pharmaceutical company active in the biotechnology and consumer goods industries.
Phase 1: Focus-Group Interview and Contribution to the Second Phase
Prior to the main survey, a focus group interview with employees working at the researched organisations was conducted. As already mentioned, the aim of this study was to understand which factors influence employees’ adoption and use of social media in organisations. Since
the field of internal communication is relatively novel and as such lacks large-scale quantitative research, the factors identified in this study were distracted from neighbouring research fields. Hence it might be possible that there are other factors influencing the adoption and use of social media internally. Moreover, the use of social media differs per organisation, consequently it was deemed necessary to pre-test and discuss the survey with several key informants for the intended target audience of this study. Therefore, the purpose of this first phase was to establish employees’ expectations and perceptions of social media use for internal communication, and to discover potential unidentified factors influencing the adoption of social media tools to ultimately refine the instrument’s design and wording.
Via the personal network of the researcher one respondent per company was recruited. Each respondent was then asked to recruit one other employee who had been working at the organisation for several years and who additionally had experience working at other large corporations. Thus, the final sample consisted of four respondents, two of which worked at the Dutch and the other two at the British organisation. The focus group interview was held via Skype with all four respondents simultaneously and everyone participating was asked to sit in a neutral place so that the surroundings did not cause distractions. Facilitated by the researcher, the items in the provisional survey were discussed and new categories were added. An interview guide was used to direct the discussion, as proposed by Flick (2009). Based on the focus group interview a list was drafted of media channels that are generally available in international organisations. Multiple open questions were asked to find out for what reasons social media can be employed in organisations, the four respondents interactively discussed the functions of social media channels in a corporate setting. Further, several possible barriers of adopting and using social media and possible influencing factors were added to the list of variables. This first phase helped in gaining understanding of what employees might prefer and how they can use social media, it contributed in sharpening the questionnaire used in the second phase of this study.
Phase 2: Quantitative Survey
The second phase, consisting of in-company online surveys, was conducted to generate generalizable outcomes and to answer the research questions and hypotheses studied in this research. Based on these findings the consequences and opportunities of social media use for internal communication in organisations were explored. The survey was used to not only examine employees’ use of social media, their media preferences and their social media skills, there was also looked at what they perceived good applications of social media in their organisation. The second part of this research was conducted amongst employees working at the same organisations as used in the first phase of this study.
Procedure
Employees were recruited and invited via an e-mail sent by the communication manager of the organisation. The e-mail shortly explained the purpose of the study and included a link to the online Qualtrics survey. Before starting, respondents were provided with a guiding text, again explaining the aim of the research and guaranteeing anonymity of the gathered data. Respondents had to read and accept an active informed consent before continuing with the survey. After approving to partake the respondents were explained the differences between internal and external use of social media to ensure that the respondents had the same understanding as intended in this study. Thereafter they could fill in the questionnaire, all questions were self-reported and had to be answered individually. Data collection took place in the ten days following the invitation, after five days respondents received a reminder to fill in the survey. In total 3261 employees were contacted of which 115 agreed to partake in the
survey, resulting in a total response rate of 35.27% (n = 115). Respondents
All incomplete surveys were removed (n = 29). The final sample comprised 86 respondents, of whom 60.50% were male and 39.50% female. The mean age of the sample was 42.67 years old (SD = 8.96; range = 26-60) and 76.70% of the participants had received education at University level or higher. 24.40% of the final sample had the Dutch nationality (n = 21), 15.10% was Greek (n = 13), another 8.10% was Ukrainian (n = 7), 7.00% was Spanish (n = 6) and the nationality of the remaining 45.40% varied (e.g. South African, Swedish, Chinese, Indonesian). The question concerning the department in which participants work showed that a majority worked in management, marketing or sales. More specifically, 29.10% (n = 25) is active in marketing or communication, 19.8% (n = 17) worked in sales and 12.80% (n = 11) held a position in management. Another question regarded respondents’ social media use in general. 68.60% reported using social media daily, 10.5% four to six times a week, 9.30% two to three times a week and just 11.6% answered once a week or never. Respondents reported receiving enough support (M = 2.94 SD = 1.10) to help people deal with new media.
Measures
The survey included several questions to measure the current use of social media by employees, items to assess their social media literacy and social media skills and multiple questions related to media use and communicating with colleagues. Employees were also asked to fill in what internal media channels are available in their organisation and how their
1 A group of subsidiaries asked to be removed from the sample after data was collected; as such these were excluded from the number of employees contacted and the final sample used for analyses.
organisation uses social media internally. At the end of the questionnaire some questions were asked in which respondents had to give several demographic characteristics such as gender, age, country of origin and educational level. The complete questionnaire that was used to measure each construct can be found in Appendix 1. The main variables used in this research were related to employees’ social media adoption, use, media preference and literacy. Some variables included several items, as such factor analyses were conducted in SPSS to analyse if the items measured the same construct and thereafter, through reliability analyses, the internal consistency of the scale variables was calculated (see Table 1). Scale scores were obtained by taking the mean of the item scores for each variable individually, a more detailed explanation of the analyses can be found further on.
Social Media Adoption and Use
This variable was constructed using the twelve categories of Treem and Leonardi (2012) who explored four types of affordances that new technologies enable. The scales were developed by the researcher based on the conceptual definition of the four categories presented in the abovementioned study: visibility, persistence, editability and association. For instance, items to measure editability were ‘I critically reflect upon what information I display to others in my personal profile’, ‘I have an audience in mind when sharing knowledge and thus provide information that will appeal to potential viewers’ and ‘I edit, revise and alter organisational content after the time it is first displayed’. Together these items were supposed to measure if users are aware and make use of the affordances social media have to offer.
Participants were asked to view the statements and to answer to what extent this described their behaviour on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). In total five items were removed during the analysis because their factor loadings were below the threshold of .60. A factor analysis with the remaining seven items displayed one factor (eigenvalue = 3.76; explaining 53.70% of the variance) paired by a Cronbach’s Alpha of .85, which is perceived good (Gliem & Gliem, 2003).
Social Media Literacy
Following the approach taken by Bucher et al. (2013) and adopting the scale developed by these researchers, social media literacy was measured using nine items. Respondents received a list of statements and were asked to indicate to what extent they (dis)agree with the presented statements on a five-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). The social media literacy scale comprises three constructs: overload, invasion and uncertainty, and was measured using items such as ‘I am forced to change my work habits to adapt to social media’ and ‘Social media drive constant changes in our communication strategy’. In order to test the internal consistency of the scale Cronbach’s
Alpha was calculated, the test showed that the scale reliability was acceptable (Cronbach’s α = .76). This means that the scale that was used to measure social media literacy is reliable. Because the items were negatively keyed the items were first reversed and subsequently, by taking the mean of the items, the scale variable Social Media Literacy was created.
Social Media Preference
The media preference of employees was measured using a question developed by Fonner and Roloff (2012). Participants were asked to fill in their rank order of preferred media of communication with colleagues and in the second version they were asked to do the same but then for communication in private life. Since there were seven items (e.g. e-mail, social networks, face-to-face communication), ranking numbers ranged from one to seven, with one being the most important. The scores for all seven items were reversed and new variables were created for each medium. Overall face-to-face talks were ranked most important tool for communication with colleagues (M = 6.00; SD = 1.31) whereas groupware (e.g. Dropbox) were rated least favourable media channel to communicate (M = 1.97; SD = 1.00). In private life employees prefer to communicate face to face too (M = 6.33; SD = 1.07) and least often use video as communication channel (M = 1.33; SD = 0.76). By taking the mean of the social networking tool rank scores (Instant message and Social Networking Sites) the variable Social Media Preference was created for both organisational and private life.
Task Interdependence
The level of task interdependence was measured using the scale developed by Jarvenpaa and Staples (2000). Examples of items used to assess task interdependence are: ‘I work closely with others in my team’ and ‘I frequently must coordinate my efforts with others in the team’. A factor analysis showed one factor with an eigenvalue of 1.94; explaining 64.58% of the variance in task interdependence. The Cronbach’s Alpha of this scale was perceived acceptable (Cronbach’s α = .72) and the variable Task Interdependence was created.
Complexity and Insecurity
Both moderators are measured using items adopted from research by Bucher et al. (2013). Examples of the items used to decipher the perceived complexity are: ‘I quickly understand new social media applications’ (reversed) and ‘Social media are easy to understand and use’ (reversed). The three items all measured the same construct (eigenvalue = 2.07) and together explained 69,04% of the variance in complexity, a reliability analysis showed that the internal consistency was acceptable (Cronbach’s α = .75). Insecurity was assessed using five items such as: ‘If I understood social media better, I could work more effective’. A rotated factor analysis showed that each statement measured the same variable (eigenvalue = 2.29)
Table 1 - Means, standard deviations, internal consistency and correlations.
M SD α 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Social Media Literacy 3.33 0.66 .76 -
2. Social Media Preference Organisational Life
3.30 0.82 - -.215* -
3. Task Interdependence 4.31 0.57 .72 -.042 -.066 - 4. Social Media Use 3.37 0.78 .85 -.293** .259* -.064 - 5. Complexity 3.60 0.78 .75 .075 .060 .102 .304** - 6. Insecurity 3.10 0.70 .70 -.493*** .095 .015 .337** .011 -
+ Social Media Preference Private Life
4.63 0.76 -
Note: n = 86 for all variables. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients are shown. * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.
and these items together explained 45.76% of the variance in the latent variable insecurity. The internal consistency of the scale was deemed acceptable (Cronbach’s α = .70).
RESULTS
Prior to testing the proposed framework, first some basic analyses were conducted to check for missing data and to label all values, then scale variables were created for all constructs that were measured using multiple items. Next, the means and standard deviations for the variables were calculated as shown in Table 1. Scale means outreached the midpoint of the scale for most variables. A correlation matrix was used to identify relationships of interest and small and moderate correlations among the study variables were found. First of all, task interdependence was not significantly related to any variable and therefore not used for further analyses. Consistent with the notion that social media literacy and preference predict social media use, significant correlations between the variables were found. Further, both moderators were positively related to social media use, suggesting that complexity and insecurity not necessarily withhold social media use but might even foster social media adoption and use. Besides, the correlation coefficients show a negative significant relation between social media literacy and insecurity, which was not part of the expectations but was further explored in the next section.
The hypotheses were tested through statistical analyses in SPSS. The conceptual framework consisted of one dependent variable measured at interval level and multiple predictors and possible moderators, again, at interval level; therefore a multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses. First standardised versions of the continuous
independent and moderating variables were made as well as interaction variables to measure the moderation effects. Then assumptions for conducting a regression analysis were tested (Field, 2009); the variables were normally distributed, skewness and kurtosis were close to zero and the scatterplots of standardised residuals showed that the data met the assumptions of homogeneity of variance and linearity. Next, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to simultaneously test the main effects of social media literacy and social media preference and possible moderating effects of perceived complexity and insecurity on employees’ social media adoption and use in corporate setting.
Predicting Social Media Use in a Corporate Setting
To test the hypotheses, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted since it was unclear based on literature what ordering of variables could be expected. It was tested if age had an influence on the variables used, but correlation coefficients were small and did not show significant associations between age and the variables of interest. As such age was not added as control variable in the regression analysis. First the main variables social media literacy and social media preference were entered. Secondly, the assumed moderating predictors insecurity and complexity were added. In the third step the interaction effects between the moderators and social media literacy and preference were entered.
The first model without the interaction effects and moderators was significant, F (2,83) = 5.98, p = .004 and had an R2 of .13. The second model in which complexity and insecurity
were added was again significant, F (4,81) = 7.34, p < .001 and had an R2 of .27, with ΔR2 = .14, ΔF (2,81) = 7.73, p = .001. The latter indicates that the second model with the two added variables significantly contributes to the variance in social media use. The third model including the interaction effects was again significant, F (8,77) = 3.92, p = .001 with an R2 of
.29. However, the third model did not account for significantly more variance in social media use than the second model, ΔR2 = .02, ΔF (4,77) = 0.64, p = .635, indicating that there do not
seem to be potentially significant moderations of complexity and security on the relationship between social media literacy and preference on employees’ social media use. Further, none of the interaction effects in the third model were significant which means that no evidence of moderation of complexity and insecurity was found.
Table 2 shows the outcomes of the hierarchical, multiple regression analysis. Since the increase in variance and the interaction effects were not significant, it was decided not to continue with the third model and instead using the second model to answer the hypotheses. In sum, a significant regression equation was found, F (4,81) = 7.34, p < .001, with an R2 of
.27. This finding indicates that 26.60% of the variance in the level of social media adoption and use can be explained through a model that incorporates social media literacy, social media preference and the predictors complexity and insecurity.
Table 2 - Outcomes regression analysis of multiple factors on social media use.
B SE b* t p R2
Model 1**
(Constant) 3.369 0.080 42.127 .000
Social Media Literacy (SML) -0.195 0.082 -.249 -2.369 .020
Social Media Preference (SMP) 0.161 0.082 .205 1.952 .054 .126a Model 2***
(Constant) 3.369 0.074 45.412 .000
Social Media Literacy -0.125 0.088 -.159 -1.417 .160 Social Media Preference 0.144 0.077 .184 1.877 .064 Perceived Complexity 0.237 0.075 .302 3.148 .002
Insecurity 0.187 0.086 .238 2.172 .033 .266a Model 3**
(Constant) 3.410 0.084 40.689 .000
Social Media Literacy -0.149 0.092 -.190 -1.624 .108 Social Media Preference 0.148 0.078 .189 1.904 .061 Perceived Complexity 0.242 0.078 .309 3.117 .003 Insecurity 0.146 0.093 .186 1.569 .121 Interactions SML x Complexity 0.008 0.082 .010 0.098 .922 SML x Insecurity 0.068 0.069 .102 0.980 .330 SMP x Complexity 0.092 0.080 .122 1.155 .252 SMP x Insecurity -0.007 0.075 -.010 -0.094 .926 .290b Notes: N = 86. Dependent variable is Social Media Use.
a ΔR2 = .14, p = .001. bΔR2
= .02, p = .635. ** p < .01; *** p < .001.
Next the individual variable effects were considered and for all partial effects it is assumed that other independent variables are held constant. H1 proposed a positive direct relationship between social media literacy and social media adoption and use in organisations. Results as noted in the second model indicate a weak direct effect of social media literacy on social media use, b* = -.159, t (85) = -1.48, p = .160, albeit not significant and as such H1 was not supported. Yet, in the first model a significant direct effect of social media literacy on social media use was found. In the second model the significant main effect of social media literacy
Figure 2. Schematised framework of employees’ social media adoption and use with standardised beta coefficients. Asterisks note if relationships were significant and at what level: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.
disappeared, when the variables perceived complexity and insecurity were added. These findings seem to suggest that the true relationship among these variables is that social media literacy predicts the level of insecurity (based on the correlation found between the variables, as noted in Table 1), which in turn predicts employees’ social media use. A simple linear regression analysis with insecurity as dependent and social media literacy as predictor was conducted to further test these findings. As expected, a significant regression equation was found, F (1,84) = 26.94, p < .001, with an R2 of .24. Social media literacy had a moderately strong negative effect on insecurity, b* = -.493, t (85) = -5.20, p < .001, indicating that with each additional point on the scale of social media literacy, the participant’s score on the level of insecurity will decrease with approximately half a standard unit.
H2 proposed a positive impact of employees’ preference of social media as tool for communication on adoption and use of social media. Results indeed indicate that employees who score high on social media preference make more use of social media, b* = .184, t (85) = 1.88, p = .064, but again this finding was not significant and therefore H2 could not be accepted. Thirdly, it was expected that task interdependence would have a positive influence on adoption and use of social media, since this variable was not significantly related to any of the variables H3 was rejected. To test the possible moderating influences of complexity and insecurity, interaction effects were created and entered in the third stage of the model. As mentioned before, these did not significantly contribute to the variance in employees’ social media usage. Besides, none of the individual interaction effects was significant which means that no evidence for moderation effects of complexity and insecurity was found, and as such H4, H5, H6 and H7 were not supported. The full schematic overview is presented in Figure 2.
Social Media Literacy
Social Media Preference
Adoption and Use of Social Media Level of Insecurity Perceived Complexity b* = -.159 b* = .184 b* = .238* b* = .302** b* = -.493***
Table 3 - Descriptive statistics for media preference in organisational and private life. Organisational Life Private Life M SD min max M SD min max Face to Face 6.00 1.31 1.00 7.00 6.33 1.07 3.00 7.00 Telephone 5.65 0.79 3.00 7.00 5.49 1.08 3.00 7.00 Social Networking Sites 3.15 1.27 1.00 6.00 4.15 1.33 1.00 7.00 Instant Messaging (e.g. SMS) 3.45 1.23 1.00 7.00 5.10 1.29 2.00 7.00 E-mail 5.70 1.27 3.00 7.00 3.70 1.03 2.00 7.00 Groupware / File share 1.97 1.00 1.00 5.00 1.91 0.45 1.00 3.00 Video Conferencing (e.g. Skype) 2.08 1.26 1.00 6.00 1.33 0.76 1.00 4.00 Social Media Preferencea 3.30 0.82 4.63 0.76
Note: n = 86. Scores ranged from one to seven, where one is reserved for the least favourite channel. a Scale variable was created that measures Social Media Preference, see p. 18.
Interestingly enough, the regression analysis showed main effects of both complexity and insecurity. The second model showed that complexity, b* = .302, t (85) = 3.15, p = .002, and insecurity, b* = .238, t (85) = 2.17, p = .033, were both positively and significantly related to the dependent variable. These findings indicate that employees who score higher on the perceived complexity of social media will more often adopt and use the available social media in their organisation. Similarly, employees who are relatively more insecure than their colleagues will, in comparison, more often adopt and use social media at work.
Media Preference in Organisational vs. Private Life
Apart from the main framework as presented in the previous section, another hypothesis concerned the difference in social media preference in private versus organisational life. The assumption is that employees are keener to prefer and use social media in their private life than at work. To have an idea what types of media employees prefer to use at work and at home, an overview of the scores for the seven types of communication channels is given in Table 3. A paired samples t-test was conducted to test whether the scores on the two variables significantly differed from each other. All employees had scores on both variables, and the paired sample t-test showed a significant difference in employees’ preference of social media in private life (M = 4.63; SD = 0.76) compared to their social media preference at work, (M = 3.30; SD = 0.82); t (85) = 11.34, p < .001, 95% CI [1.09, 1.56]. Based on these findings H2b is accepted, suggesting that employees are indeed more eager to prefer and adopt social media in their private lives than in their organisational lives.
CONCLUSION
A key issue for communication managers resulting from the rise of social media is how they can effectively manage and use the media internally. The objective of the current study was to explore how organisations can effectively manage social media adoption and use in their organisation. Possible factors that can predict employees’ adoption and use of social media for internal communication were examined by gathering existing theory and by conducting a focus group interview and quantitative survey with employees working at large international organisations. The research was directed by two main research questions that concerned the factors influencing social media use and what possible challenges and opportunities the use of social media for internal communication poses.
This paper has demonstrated that employees’ preference for social media, their level of social media literacy, the perceived complexity and insecurity are important predictors of employees’ adoption and usage of these new technologies. While the level of social media literacy seems to play an important role in predicting employees’ adoption and use of social media channels, the outcomes did not present a direct relation between the two constructs. Interestingly though, a probable mediating effect was found between social media literacy and insecurity, indicating that the level of social media literacy predicts how insecure users are about their social media skills. Looking back at the definition of social media literacy (i.e. “being able to cope with overload, invasion and uncertainty”, Bucher et al., 2013, p.1652) this relationship seems rather logical. If an employee can cope with the overload, invasion and uncertainty that social media use might cause, the lack of confidence in using social media will diminish. However, strangely enough insecurity had a positive main effect on employees’ internal social media usage. Perhaps this can be explained in terms of peer pressure, when employees have the feeling that their colleagues posses better social media skills and are more confident in using social media, they will increase their use to make sure they will get to the same level and reduce their insecurity. Or, in line with Kuikka and Äkkinen (2011), it can also be the case that the employees invest in social media because they feel threatened by the accumulated power others in their organisation gain by increasingly using social media and by adopting social media themselves they might be able to join their peers.
Another particularly revealing finding was that level of perceived complexity had a direct effect on employees’ social media usage. In other words, evidence was found that the perceived complexity of social media has the potential to foster adoption and use of social media. Even though this was unexpected, it might be explained in a similar manner as with insecurity; people might feel challenged when presented with novel media channels and this might motivate them to try to understand and actively use these new technologies. As long as employees have developed coping mechanisms to deal with the side effects social media
might present (Bucher et al., 2013), they might not encounter negative feelings that withhold them to adopt, use and get familiar with new complex social media.
Further, it appears from the findings of this study that employees are more eager to prefer and adopt social media in their private lives than in their organisational lives. Even though a majority of the employees reported using social media at least several times per week if not daily, when they are presented with more media, they show the tendency to opt for face-to-face, telephone or e-mail communication. In comparison, looking at employees’ social media use in their private lives, new media are beyond doubt a popular communication tool. In spite of social media being more popular at home, results showed that employees do use social media quite regularly for internal communication, which seems to indicate a shift in social media adoption. Where Friedl & Verčič (2011) found that traditional communication media were mainly used, these results suggest that it is now becoming more balanced.
Task interdependence did not turn out to be a predictor of employees’ social media usage internally. As Jarvenpaa and Staples (2000) showed, employees who have to work closely with others from the team must frequently coordinate their efforts with the team and as such they will more often use collaborative media tools. Yet these do not necessarily have to be social media, there are other types of collaborative media tools that employees might use when communicating with colleagues (e.g. workshops). The findings of this study demonstrate that social media are not yet actively adopted on a large-scale. Yet, since the interactive nature of social media make that these new tools easily meet the demands of collaborative workers, they might hold promise for future use.
In sum, the presented findings suggest that social media adoption and use for internal communication are associated with several challenges. That is, the social medium has to be accepted by the employees, without active usage the medium will never be instrumental in generating positive results such as community building or improving the internal information flow (Kuikka & Äkkinen, 2011; Welch, 2012). Furthermore, the positive influence of perceived complexity indicates that employees are not simply using the most comfortable medium but might choose the medium that is most convenient or usable for the communication purpose. Hence, for organisations it is important to take these barriers into account when considering adding a new social medium to their organisation’s media matrix.
Discussion
Managerial Implications
Communication managers have to evaluate the possible negative consequences social media can cause. If they choose a medium that no one finds convenient and that does not seem to have any clear added value or purpose, this might cause misapplication of the medium (Schoeneborn, 2013). By proactively communicating to and with their employees
