Defining the Boundaries of Social Media use
A research to the undefined management and control tools in the Royal Dutch ArmyEsmée Zoer
S3254194
Master thesis
MSc. Business Administration – Organizational & Management Control Faculty of Economics and Business
University of Groningen Supervisor: Dr. S. Girdhar Co-assessor: Dr. K. Linke
Date: 25-06-2018
Word count: 15.740 including references and appendices
Abstract
2
1. Introduction
“Military ‘betray’ their position by popular sports app.” This quote originates from a news article of a Dutch newspaper. Data from a sports app have been used to track unknown military and strategic base camps. The article continues “New techniques require for continuous risk assessment” (Boeschoten, 2018).
As seen from the quotes above, the use of social media might bring challenges and risks (Faci, Maamar, Burégio, Ugljanin, & Benslimane, 2017). Along with the increase of ICT-use, the importance of social media in private as well as business life has grown enormously. Social media are still a relatively new concept that grew extensively over the last years and is defined as revolutionary technology that changed the way people connect, communicate, and develop relationships (Derks & Bakker, 2013), resulting in major changes for the business context. The multiple ways of usage in business cause new opportunities and challenges in leadership (Elefant, 2011; Mcfarland & Ployhart, 2015; Zande van der, 2013).
One of these new ways of social media usage, is the possibility to share information with a wide audience, which becomes more and more highlighted (Burke, Marlow, & Lento, 2009), but social media also allows for collaboration and promoting the firm in an interactive way (Elefant, 2011; Zande van der, 2013). It allows for more effective and efficient communication, over a large distance (Mcfarland & Ployhart, 2015), has potential to support organizations’ hiring decisions, and allows for information transfer to citizens (Chang & Kannan, 2008; Clark & Roberts, 2010). Most studies on social media and its possibilities for organizations tend to have an optimistic tone. Many studies promote information transfer via social media in businesses and thus to open up the organization to society (e.g Gibbs, Rozaidi, & Eisenberg, 2013). However, this is not without risks since open information transfer could lead to sharing sensitive or confidently information easily to unauthorized people (Eisenberg & Witten, 1987). Moreover, social media deals with issues around privacy, security, accuracy and law (Sherman, 2011). According to a study in the U.S. Navy, social media have the potential to be ethically or financially problematic (e.g., pictures possibly contain people in them, which could possibly lead to privacy issues), life-threatening (e.g., when locations of mobile phones can be traced), or pose network security threats (e.g., the risk of leaking covert operational information to unauthorized parties) (Stanko & Beckman, 2014).
3 Jackson, Hitt, & DeNisi, 2003). However, research regarding social media is still in its early stages (Mcfarland & Ployhart, 2015; Sarka & Ipsen, 2017). Therefore, it is interesting and of practical importance to study the potential controls organizations can apply to generate effective use of social media platforms, whilst eliminating risks to maximum capacity. Hence, the goal of this study is to discover the following research question: How is an organization able to manage the boundaries of social media in order to utilize the use regarding information sharing in favor of the organization? This is going to be investigated by qualitative research including interviews based on an interview protocol in the Dutch Military organization, which is an interesting starting point as many suggest that armed forces are an example to businesses. The interviews allow to investigate and consequently define tools organizational managers can use to control the use of social media, with the focus on information sharing. Using the case of the Dutch Army, we find that controls are necessary for defining the boundaries of both individual use and corporate use, and subsequently provides an understanding of the controls needed.
The study contributes to existing literature regarding boundary control in three ways. First, we develop a model that shows the controls that define and manage the social media boundaries. We argue that little is known about boundary controls available to organizations in the social media context. So, this study provides measures to limit or even eliminate risks and utilize the opportunities. Second, these controls can work as practical solutions to guide organizations in their management of individual and corporate use regarding the publication of information as they provide organizations with guidelines to find their way in the unstructured rather new phenomena of social media in business. Thus, while contributing to problem solving regarding social media in business, this study might be an example to business managers as well. Finally, the view of the military context as an extraordinary situation can help to more accurately explain how organizations are able to manage the social media boundaries and therefore create a better understanding of the boundary theory applied to the new technology.
4
2. Theoretical framework
2.1. The business context of social media
In recent years, social media in private as well as business spheres have become increasingly popular and part of our daily activities (Faci et al., 2017). A new type of ICT has been adopted in business in recent years (Kane, Alavi, Labianca, & Borgatti, 2014). Social media are a digital form of communication, compared to traditional ways of communication, such as face-to-face interaction, which build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Picazo-vela, Gutiérrez-martínez, & Luna-reyes, 2012). McFarland and Ployhart (2015) describe social media as substantially different to other forms of digital communication media, such as email, and calls it an extreme form. They argue that social media not only differ from traditional ways as a technology, but as a whole context. Social media are even called technologies that caused a revolution in the way people connect, communicate, and develop relationships (Derks & Bakker, 2013; Kane et al., 2014).
The use of social media include internal purposes such as video sharing, blogs, social networking, but also external purposes such as to connect with customers, external partners, and suppliers (Culnan, Mchugh, & Zubillaga, 2010). Thus, social media are a way to share information with followers. This information is, according to Davenport and Prusak (1998), “a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information.”. The technologies allow for a more interactive dialogue between individuals, organizations, and other communities. By Picazo-Vela et al. (2012) social media are even seen as the best tool for this purpose at the moment. Social media networks have the potential to grow large and evolve quickly in unexpected ways (Culnan et al., 2010; Greenhow & Robelia, 2009; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Urso et al., 2009; Wei & Hindman, 2011). Moreover, they facilitate collaboration and information sharing in an interactive, more effective and efficient, less expensive, and a more user-friendly way. Besides, more information is accessible in less time and information can be shared among employers and employees spread around the world (Aula, 2010; Elefant, 2011; Mcfarland & Ployhart, 2015). Moreover, social media are used to support hiring decisions at organizations (Clark & Roberts, 2010) or get into dialogue with citizens, disseminating information to the public or achieving transparency (Aula, 2010; Chang & Kannan, 2008).
5 period of time, which means it is permanent (Mcfarland & Ployhart, 2015). Moreover, information might be fake, incomplete, or outdated, as content is created and shared by users themselves (Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield, 2013). Even identity theft might occur (Picazo-vela et al., 2012). Gibbs et al. (2013) introduced the concept of “Ideology of Openness”. Since using social media includes many risks, open information sharing is not always desirable. Openly sharing information could also lead to sharing sensitive or confidential information easily to unauthorized parties (Eisenberg & Witten, 1987). Thus, information present on social media which turns out to be catastrophic may lead to serious treats for the liability of an organization (Mcfarland & Ployhart, 2015). Moreover, publishing corporate information has huge privacy concerns as it easily happens that employees mistakenly share information (Clark & Roberts, 2010; Sherman, 2011). Issues with privacy, security and accuracy as well as law issues are seen as potential risks (Sherman, 2011). The degree of openness of an organization might determine the level of risks involved (Picazo-vela et al., 2012). Finally, Sherman (2011) defines social media not as a new venue per se, but as a new tool with which public officials can misbehave.
2.2. The boundaries of social media
As mentioned earlier, social media provide organizations the opportunity to be transparent to the community, which means organizations use social media for corporate purposes, but every employee is free to use social media himself as well. Subsequently, boundaries of social media are not limited to the organization influences. In order to identify the possible measures organization can apply to regulate social media use in favor of the organization, the organizational boundaries of social media should be identified. For this, we use elements of the boundary theory and extent it with boundary control literature. As the Latin roots of ‘boundary’ refers to a field with limits (Rosenblatt, 1994), everything has a boundary in a form of physical borders, limits, restrictions or defined as “the edge of appropriate behavior in a given situation” (Gutheil & Gabbard, 1993). Furthermore, barriers separate social groups and their values. Such barriers include social or living conditions, legal rights and customs or viewpoints. Often boundaries are just part of common sense but sometimes it might cause problems regarding ambiguity and direction is needed (Nikolov, 2015).
6 (BN de Stem, 2007). Another heading of a news article by “de Volkskrant” is as follows: “You cannot take off the uniform” (van Bemmel, 2007). One of the differences compared to any other profession is the zero tolerance policy on drugs with severe measures for military employees (Governemntal policies and laws, 2013; van Bemmel, 2007). As an employee is always a soldier, the work-life boundaries of social media are assumed to be vague. The boundary theory is a general cognitive theory of social classification (Zerubavel, 1993) and explains how and why employees and their employers often have contradicting work and private life values, which can lead to blurred boundaries, and how individuals transition between these contexts (Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate, 2000; Nippert-Eng, 1996). Subsequently, boundary management involves investigation of principles used by individuals to organize and separate job demands and expectations in the home and work context (Kossek, Noe, & DeMarr, 1999). The extent to which individuals integrate work values into their private life depends on one’s ‘mental fences’ (Zerubavel, 1993) which are created by strategies, principles and practices used “to create, maintain, and modify cultural categories” (Nippert-Eng, 1996). Boundaries are important as they help individuals to fit their environments together (Welchman, 1996).
Subsequently we discuss the corporate use of social media. This refers to corporate channels the organization uses to fulfill purposes like information transfer to citizens (Chang & Kannan, 2008). The reasons for organizational exposure on social media mainly relate to the possibilities the platforms bring. However, by doing so the organization might deal with privacy and safety issues. Moreover, the openness of social media, to allow public relations, results in less corporate control over the relationship, meaning less control over the conversation about the organization (Aula, 2010). Aula (2010) argues that the conventional boundaries between stakeholders is clear, but that as a result of digitalization, these boundaries become increasingly vague. Thus, the boundaries of corporate use especially deal with privacy and safety issues leading to a certain extend of openness and transparency on the platforms.
8 in contrast, are “guided by the momentary and local pressures of the situation – resulting from the particular, temporal, and spatial circumstances” (Ocasio & Wohlgezogen, 2010). As mentioned earlier, military organizations might deal with serious safety and security issues. In such situations, situational controls allow for instant reminders to employees that some of their behavior might cause serious problems (DiMaggio, 1997). Especially when the private values contradict the work requirements, it can trigger behavior which is inappropriate or harmful for an organization (Stanko & Beckman, 2014).
In sum, quite a substantial amount of studies focused on the risks and opportunities social media bring to organizations. Besides, in the theory of boundary management, much is known about the individual perspective in which individuals try to balance their social and work life. However, previous research fails to investigate the potential boundary controls available to organizations to manage the boundaries of social media use among their employees and to utilize their own purposes. These controls have not been investigated extensively from an organizational perspective, at least not in the Dutch governmental and military setting. Controlling social media use of both the individuals and organization in favor of the organization is a rather new phenomenon, which requires further investigation in order to deliver a contribution to the boundary and controlling field. Therefore, we develop an overview of possible boundary controls based on the boundary theory, boundary management, and boundary control allowing to investigate possibilities and risk the information transfer via social media include and how to optimally manage these.
3. Methodology
The findings around this topic are relatively scarce. Therefore, a case study seemed most appropriate as research method. This qualitative method allows in-depth analysis of the controls related to risks and opportunities around information transfer by means of social media. It allows investigating the rather new topic and building a theory around the management and controllability of the publication of information via social media within the organization and enables analyzing which, how, and why questions related to the controls. The focus will be on exploring ways to manage the risks that arise from the relatively new technology in business: social media.
9 In total, seven interviews were conducted. One at policy level, to investigate what the policies and procedures are and why these apply. The management of communications has the final responsibility for the internal and external communication of the department of Defense. “For example, in strengthening the support for Defense in society and the image of the organization as an attractive employer. This management works on involvement, identification and pride, to enable employees to act as ambassadors of the armed forces.” (Defensie.nl, n.d.). These staff functions serve all four armed forces: Army, Navy, Air Force, and Military Police. On operational level, the other six interviews were conducted to investigate how the set rules and procedures are applied in practice. To create a connecting theme throughout the study and stay consistent, a specific combat unit of the army serves as research unit for this research. Besides the communication department of all the armed forces employees of the communication departments of the land forces and respectively one of the brigades of the land forces (“43 Gemechaniseerde Brigade”) have been interviewed, meaning that all communication levels of the organization have been touched. However, so far only the organizational use has been investigated. In order to study the individual social media use, security officers whom are in charge of mission preparations, in which a large element is cyber security, were interviewed. Finally, three interviews have been conducted with the ‘users’ of all policies regarding social media: an assistant unit commander, a private, a corporal and a sergeant. In Appendix A more details have been given about the interviewees.
As mentioned above, all data has been collected from seven semi-structured interviews, each of approximately 30 to 60 minutes in length. Interviews were assumed to be appropriate because it allows more flexibility to ask for further clarification (Alshenqeeti, 2014; Gephart & Rynes, 2004). An interview guide with a fixed set of questions (see Appendix B) has been used to ensure reliability. Due to the difference between policy and implementation level, a slight difference in the interview protocol exists. Interviews were conducted one-to-one or one-to-two, tape-recorded and thereafter transcribed in Dutch to ensure the obtaining of complete and reliable data. Subsequently, the transcripts were translated into English. Moreover, in order to obtain a higher level of validity, the interviewees were sent a copy of the interview transcripts as well as the conclusions that were drawn from them (Alshenqeeti, 2014; Lee & Lings, 2008). All interviews were coded and compared manually. First, some basic principles have been distinguished. Later on, relationships between the elements have been defined (Wolfswinkel, Furtmueller, & Widerom, 2013). Finally, to ensure broad validity of the case study, triangulation has been applied. Documentation was provided which included e.g. a handbook of do’s and don’ts around social media, how to behave with regard to media in general, and a guideline with tips and trick about risks and controls about social media.
4. Results
10 Bakker, 2013; Kane et al., 2014; Mcfarland & Ployhart, 2015). In the organization, interactions between people increasingly occur via digital communication paths (e.g. units use Facebook pages, WhatsApp groups) consistent with Kaplan & Haenlein (2010) and Picazo-Vela et al. (2012).
“Nowadays it is quite embedded in society and it became an integral part.” – P5 (7/7)
It has even been suggested that without providing Wi-Fi on missions and allowing the use of digital media, the organization has difficulties to retain the soldiers to serve, which is already a scarcity. To this assumption has been responded with fear by a private who indicated that they should provide top-down restrictions on the use because of their private life, with a few (security) exceptions aside. This is an interesting finding not found by prior literature, but an important aspect organizations should keep in mind when they formulate their social media strategies and policies. Somehow organizations have to manage the existence of social media in business.
4.1. Opportunities
As nowadays so many people use social media, it is also an opportunity to get societies attention, for instance to recruit new staff and provide information to the tax payers. It is important to share organizational activities in order to be transparent to society and provide clarity. Therefore, the views on the opportunities of social media are generally quite similar to the theory as this also highlights information transfer to followers as one of the main reasons in order to fulfil overarching goals. An interactive dialogue can be created with society (Aula, 2010; Chang & Kannan, 2008; Clark & Roberts, 2010; Davenpoort & Prusak, 1998; Picazo-vela et al., 2012).
“It has the ability to make the organization more visible. (…) It enlarges the support of the Dutch society for our organization and especially for the tasks we execute.” – P1
(6/7)
11 ways (e.g. Culnan et al., 2010; Greenhow & Robelia, 2009; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010) and therefore provide extra strength to the recruiting purpose. Many posts are linked to the central recruitment website and show what the work looks like. Employees also notice the consequences of the enormous lack of staff and therefore support promotion video’s or similar.
“If you want people to work at our organization, they need to know what we do, otherwise they do not know why they should work with us.” – P3
(7/7)
These purposes are also explicitly mentioned in the documentation established around media contact and social media usage. The guidelines does not only mention the organizational goal to be accountable to society. It also aims to expand society’s knowledge about the organization, strengthening the support, and expanding the visibility for it (Directie Communicatie, 2015). However, the following is new to the literature: according to most participants this “storytelling” about the government is necessary because the Department of Defense is perceived as a closed organization. It is easy to enter most governmental departments, for instance a police office or city hall. However, it is difficult to enter a military base as these are not publicly accessible. The theoretical lack of this reason for using social media can be explained by the research setting of this study, which is relatively extraordinary compared to other studies in the governmental or private sector. Even though, it is an interesting finding, as providing information about military activities gives society the possibility to establish a well-founded opinion about the usefulness of military actions. Whereas, formulating an opinion cannot be found in earlier theory as far as we know, but it is an immediate consequence of the closed characteristic of the organization. When people do not know what an organization does ‘behind these walls’ they cannot define an opinion about it. This requires transparency and openness to show what the organization does, which can be created as a result of social media, according to Aula (2010), and Chang and Kannan (2008). However, with the earlier mentioned high level of closeness within the Dutch army kept in mind, this requires adjustments to the traditional operations. While only four participants explicitly support the statement below, they all acknowledge that transparency is necessary to inform society about the military activities.
I think it is important that the people know what we do in order to allow them to form an opinion whether they think our work is meaningful or not, but we train to become better, better than yesterday
and if necessary, we are ready to fight. – P2 (4/7)
12 analysis of the followers appeared that the majority had a prior connection with the organization, in one way or another. E.g. they are currently a soldier, veteran, or family or friends of those people. As a result, some accounts have been used for internal communication with other divisions as they are not always on the same place and with the use of social media they can communicate as a unit with each other.
However, social media, as a means to spread information, are a complementary tool to the governmental websites, as a governmental unit it is not obligated to get in touch with citizens. However, it is a duty to provide the people with information, still the primary source for this is the governmental website. Still, it is an ambition to get in touch with citizens and the use of social media does fit to that (Directie Communicatie, 2015). Moreover, posts on social media are often linked to articles on the website, so it can be seen as an extra dimension or show window to elsewhere. Even though, they have the feeling that currently social media are the best tool the reach the people and moreover provides an extra dimension to the primary website. It is obvious that social media are very popular platforms nowadays, resulting in many active users. Information is shared with many people in little time, and allow for an interactive, more efficient and efficient, less expensive and more user-friendly way of information sharing (Aula, 2010; Elefant, 2011; Mcfarland & Ployhart, 2015). These elements explain why social media are perceived to be the best channels to connect the organization and society, which both the participants and literature support (Picazo-vela et al., 2012).
This corporate usefulness is extended to the individual employees. The organization encourages employees to tell about the tasks they perform.
“Everybody is ambassador, so show the things you do.” – P2 (6/7)
4.2. Internal tension
Employees of the Dutch army find there to be some kind of tension involving the possibilities and risk with regard to social media. Some promote the use of social media for organizational purposes, while others do not because it increases the risks. This tension is reflected throughout the organization and in line with the theory (Eisenberg & Witten, 1987; Faci et al., 2017; Gibbs et al., 2013). Communication advisors mainly recognize the opportunities of being open and transparent, while security officers express their concerns about the risks, which in turn generates doubts about the usefulness of social media.
13 (3/7)1
Norms and values of employees of different divisions are contradictory. Security officers warn not to share vehicle’s locations on the base, while others suggest that vehicles are visible when you walk along the base’s fence. However, all participants recognize that basic operational security and privacy issues should be kept in mind, but that not everything the organization does is a secret. They argue that both parties should meet each other in the middle.
“We see social media primarily as an opportunity for our employees to show what they do and why they do it. There are always threats or risks. There will be examples to mention that it went wrong in
some situations, but you cannot completely control it. Even if you would ban it completely, you still keep some risks.” – P1
(5/7)
4.3. Risks
We will now dig a bit deeper into the risks, which are, according to security officers, mainly a result of the openness of the devices and the usage of certain connections. This is consistent with the literature as Gibbs et al. (2013) and Picazo-Vela et al. (2012) argue. Consequently, soldiers can be easily traced on the basis of their phones and they might become an interesting military target for certain groups as a results from the information they provide on their profile. The openness of these devices is one of the reasons that in military operations enormous devices without any plugs ins are used. This is not always easy to use, but it brings safety. However, the security awareness of staff is perceived to be low by security officers. Employees have procedures and drill on their phones and do not realize that this is important tactical information, while these procedures have been developed over years and adversary groups might be interested in that information. According to security officers, staff is not always aware of the fact that they might, unconsciously, share sensitive information. These risks are also emphasized by previous studies. E.g. Eisenberg and Witten (1987) warn for sharing sensitive or confidential information to the wrong people as a result of open information sharing.
“If the enemy knows who you are digitally and they know that you are a soldier on social media, they consciously investigate whether they can put something on your device in order to be able to retrieve
interesting data from that device.” – P4 (7/7)
1 The statement is not explicitly agreed by all participants but represents at least the say of all communication
14 So, this view of the security officers is supported by the other participants, but in the opinion of others this is an extreme view and the risks should be nuanced a bit. This means that according to communication advisors it is not necessary to worry about the impact of social media. Still, operational security is very important and becomes even more important in mission areas as location tracing and targeting can bring serious consequences. Thus, according to the security specialists there is too little security on the digital devices which has not directly to do with actions on social media, but it has mainly to do with the security of the devices and the privacy settings of the accounts on the platforms. Security and privacy issues have been highlighted in the literature as well (Clark & Roberts, 2010; Sherman, 2011).
“The underlying technology makes that you are already vulnerable sometimes.” – P4 (1/7)
Normally, money and company information should be secured, while in a military organization these are people’s lives. This is a complementary and different reason compared to prior literature, which primarily focuses on risks of sharing confidential information leading to serious treats for the liability of an organization (Faci et al., 2017; Mcfarland & Ployhart, 2015; Sherman, 2011). However, in the military setting, the organization does not deal with liability risks, but risks for people lives. Therefore, sharing location or other secret information might attract the adversary’s attention and might consequently put people in danger. Thus, information can be easily shared to the wrong people (Eisenberg & Witten, 1987).
“Last year I was in Afghanistan, there I got some friend requests of people with who I should not get in touch. This is quite innocent, but it shows that ‘the enemy’ found us. So far, nothing really happened
in the Netherlands, but in other countries it occurred that attacks were targeted on soldiers. You wear green which makes you recognizable, but if you then also show that you are a soldier online, they also
recognize you there.” – P7 (7/7)
In addition to security problems, there are also problems that have to do with the nature of social media and the way the platforms are used. The following quote is in line with a statement of the communication advisor of the brigade, who states that everything on the internet can be only done right once and also strongly emphasized by Mcfarland & Ployhart (2015). Interesting is that participants not argue about information being fake, incomplete or outdated as suggested by Leonardi et al. (2013), and also likely to be an important aspect for the organization as it can cause even more criticism.
15 The risk that someone will disclose secure information also exists with face-to-face communication, but with the use of social media, the content might be faster and more widely distributed as this is one of the characteristics of internet and especially social media. The attitude of social media users that mainly affects corporate channels might be an issue. Employees are asked not to harm the image of the organization, but on social media this can also be caused in comments by society, as it is relatively easy to judge someone when one is not acquainted and on the platforms one is more or less anonymous. People often feel the need to share their opinion which is possible because the platforms are easily accessible. It is an advantage that society can be reached easily, but this also brings the disadvantage that the organization can be easily reached by society with negative comments consistent with the findings of Picazo-Vela et al. (2012) leading to bad opinions about the organization (Faci et al., 2017). The negativity is especially high after many years of budget cuts for the department. This negativity is difficult to overcome. The quote below originates from a communication advisor who actively pushes information about the armed forces and is not explicitly highlighted by other participants, but participants do perceive the negative opinion society has of the organization.
“Nowadays there is often a sour note. Thereafter have been 1000 positive messages, but the negative always are better remembered.” – P2
Employees of the communication department strive to trace the reasoning behind negative comments. They often find these comments to be poorly grounded. Account administrators often try to nuance the reactions, while their comments are not perceived as plausible as they are seen as an static organization rather than a person. Luckily, in most cases it occurs that the community itself regulates the negative comments.
Still, it is suggested that it is not possible to eliminate all risks. Some wish to take zero risk because it is not known to what extent social media can harm the organization, its actions, and the safety and privacy of employees. As mentioned earlier, security officers have an extreme view on operational security which is not ultimately supported by other participants. Most others agree that it does not harm to allow social media unless the basic security and privacy issues are kept in mind.
“That is the problem. We do not know all threats.” – P4
(1/7)
4.4. Procedures and measures
16 employees private life (Gutheil & Gabbard, 1993). However, first some general codes of conduct can be discussed.
“Online rules of conduct are in most cases a matter of common sense and social decency.” (Kok, 2015)
The statement above discusses the boundaries of social media in the form of online rules of conduct, suggesting that it in general is a matter of common sense, also suggested by Nikolov (2015). This means that employees should keep in mind the image and reputation of the ministry of Defense, not to write about internal matters, non-established policies, or classified information, not reveal anything that could harm operational safety, such as names of locations, sharing mission-related pictures and video’s. Finally, one should not harm anyone’s personal privacy (Directie Communicatie, 2015; Kok, 2015). These can be seen as instructions by the organization to control the boundaries of social media as it tries to align employee awareness with the organizational needs and values, and affect employee behavior on social media (Kunda, 1992; Perlow, 1998).
4.4.1. Corporate use
Other guidelines give a limited number of instructions, discussing general issues about how to deal with social media. For example, it explains how to use soldier’s names in news articles. It states that in general a soldier’s first- and surname plus rank should be used. However, when there are security reasons the use of complete names might be undesirable. In these cases rank and first name or a fictional name is sufficient (Sonder, 2014).
When using promotion imagery, employees are often in the picture which might harm personal safety and privacy. Therefore, also guidelines are established to deal with these issues. It is, for example, not allowed to publish pictures or videos taken on the inside of vehicles. Photographers often tell employees to take off name tags before pictures will be taken as names are not important. They also tell them to stay away from the camera if a soldier does not want to be in the picture. Moreover, camouflaged faces or even no faces and shots from behind are often favorable.
“Privacy issues are well thought. Some say: “Well, communication drops everything on Facebook.” but that is not the case at all. – P3
(4/7)
Security specialists have an additional advice to radically reduce risks. It is not clear if this is an official rule and to what extent it is taken into account throughout the organization, at least it cannot be found in official documentation.
17 pixels. They no longer see name tags, unit symbols or vehicles. So, the goal is achieved, but for once
operational security it is operational secured.” – P4
Thus, before a newsfeed is posted online, considerations regarding guidelines are made. Regardless, it occurs sometimes that people want a photo to be removed from social media. They will be asked for a legitimate reason why, and this has often to do with privacy issues. Furthermore, as social media is one of the exposure tools, considerations are made regarding the message that needs to be shared. What do they want to achieve with this post and to whom is it written? It should be an interesting messages with fancy images or videos, as little text as possible and a catchy title. At brigade level they have specific themes. One of these is ‘combat’, which means a lot of green in the pictures. Moreover, only a few messages about ceremonies, which is an important aspect of military activities though, but it is not the core business. Moreover, they try to show elements from the missions in foreign countries. The essence is showing the goal of the organization.
“Ultimately, we show what we do, what our duty is, that we are well trained and ready to serve.” – P3 (6/7)
It is unlikely that online expressions of one of the corporate channels do not meet the requirements as the content is often checked with the relevant spokesperson. In many cases, this is done by Public Affairs Officer (PAO) who is the advisor of the commander in mission areas. In such situations, the PAO asks permission from the commander to share relevant information, pictures or other content. Thus, in guiding the corporate use of social media, we mainly see elements of the boundary system as guidelines and handbooks have been provided. Therefore, in line with Simons (1994, 1995) corporate exposure, is sufficiently guided by law, regulation, operating directives, and codes of conduct (Picazo-vela et al., 2012). It explains what is not allowed to post on social media trying to avoid risks such as security and legal issues (Picazo-vela et al., 2012; Simons, 1994, 1995). Moreover, the purposes of social media for the organization have been extensively discusses in the guidelines, indicating the belief systems have been applied to reinforce the organizational values (Simons, 1994). However, interactive and diagnostic control systems could not have been distinguished in this setting. Only directions and boundaries have been provided, while there is no active interaction with communication advisors about social media. Even tough, we can distinguish some kind of a diagnostic system as comments by society will be monitored and, if necessary, feedback is provided (Simons, 1994).
4.4.2. Individual use
"The ministry of Defense actively stimulates its employees to actively tell their military story on social media from their own point of view, with compliance to regulations, guidelines and rules of conduct
18 As mentioned earlier, it is encouraged that individuals tell about their job, but it is difficult to draw the line between work and private life, as one is always a soldier. As mentioned before, guidelines for corporate channels are clear, actions are double checked and satisfy requirements. However, the actions of individuals are more or less a grey area. It can be challenging for individuals to distinguish whether one acts as a soldier, or as a citizen. As appears from the quotation above, guidelines mainly focusses on the reinforcement of organizational values and the fulfilment of exposure goals by employees, which relates to the belief system of Simons (1994, 1995). As indicated by the participants, there are not many limitations to the use of social media and the organization mainly tries to stimulate ‘telling the military story’. Moreover, by asking the employees to tell about their job, social media becomes integrated in work spheres, making it even more difficult for employees to make a distinction between their use of social media in work or private life. Consistent with literature (e.g. Mazmanian et al., 2006; Stanko & Beckman, 2014), organizational boundaries become blurred, resulting in difficulties for employees to manage their ‘mental fences’ and keep their private life separate from their job (Zerubavel, 1993). Many participants argue that they preferably not use their social media in the military context and therefore have difficulties to meet the organizational purpose of social media. Welchman (1996) suggests that boundaries help individuals to distinguish between both environments and thus the organization actually confuses their employees by allowing them to use social media for organizational purposes. However, this might be a result from the vague distinction between private and work life of the soldier (BN de Stem, 2007; van Bemmel, 2007) and thus this distinction is not only visible on social media levels.
Guidelines are provided to show soldiers what they may and may not post on social media with regard to their military function and are therefore a form of boundary control as it are rules and norms (Kunda, 1992) exerted by superiors to influence, suggest, and most importantly, encourage employee’s actions, behavior, and awareness on social media to align it with the organizational needs and values (Nippert-Eng, 1996; Perlow, 1998; Stanko & Beckman, 2014). The quote below originates from a communication advisors who cooperates in the establishment of the policies regarding (social) media.
“We have tried to draw the line between acting in your function and in your private life, but that is very difficult. In the end, we have drawn that line between the identified official channels and individual use. These official channels include the corporate channel, the channel of every armed forces, but those of commanders or other important persons in the military organization also. These
always use the governmental house style, included in for instance the profile picture on Facebook. However, every employee is free to use social media and anyone may in anyway share his opinion or
19 between job demands and private expectations (Kossek et al., 1999). This need to give people guidelines and direction became apparent quickly and is in line with the theory, as the merger of private and work life might cause confusion and therefore some boundaries are needed (Ashforth et al., 2000; Welchman, 1996). When the only advice is to use common sense, problems arise, which appears from the statement below (Nikolov, 2015).
“Occasionally people like to have a certain direction so they know within which boundaries they can act. I noticed that need for this.” – P1
(3/7)2
The handbook recognized that the use of social media offers opportunities for the Dutch military organization, such as the possibility to create a positive image, but tries to generate some awareness about employees activities on the platforms. The most important element is the encouragement to use common sense. The statement below is supported by many participants. It is especially interesting as it represents the say of troops as well as they are the ‘users’ of the guidelines regarding social media. All know that they have to use their common sense, but especially by the, so-called, users, the need for some direction and guidelines was pointed out.
“Key is, which is also literally written, use your common sense. That brings you quite far, but sometimes you need more guidelines and direction, so that is why this one sentence is elaborated a bit
more.” – P1 (7/7)
Thus, it suggests employees to speak only from their own view, to be aware of the fact that they are ambassador of the organization, and not harm the organization’s reputation. Moreover, it encourages employees to use their common sense and to not break the rules for operational security or personal safety by sharing confidential information such as positions, capacity, shortcomings, or training situations. The final advice is to take into account the fact that once something is posted online, it stays online, forever (Directie Communicatie, 2015). This is line with an instruction card that gives some simple guidelines how to communicate with media and reminds employees to tell the truth as long as this is not contrary with operational security and safety and that a soldier is also a soldier in private life (Ministerie van Defensie, n.d.). This instruction card is provided to allow employees to tell about their job. Not everything is a secret and there is always something useful to tell. Additionally, a cyber checklist is provided by the U.S. Army to all coalition partners. This includes actions on how to select the privacy settings that will only allow friends to see the messages on a profile (U.S. Department of
2 Supported by all participated communication advisors. This is logically as questions regarding social media
20 State, 2012). A similar handbook is provided with tips and tricks but additionally explains the risks of public networks and smart devices.
“This document shows makes clear where the danger of social media, smartphones, and the internet in general lies. It gives practical guidelines in order to limit this danger. However, these controls do
not guarantee absolute (online) security.” (School voor Vredesmissies, 2018).
It can be concluded based on the above, that both the boundary and belief systems (Simons, 1994, 1995) have been included in the organizational controls to manage social media use. Explicit boundaries indicate not to harm operational security and personal safety, rules and limits which absolutely have to be respected. Employees are encouraged to seek for opportunities to tell about their job by the belief system. The organization values the creation of a positive image, and supports employees to use their common sense and as a result tell their own story (Simons, 1994).
Generally speaking, social media do not have many additional limitations compared to offline rules. Information which should not be shared offline, should also not be shared online. The military intelligence and security service were also involved in the development of this handbook. These officers wanted to make sure that certain safety aspects would be sufficiently covered. On the other hand, it was also desired to provide freedom and stimulate staff to use social media, but this point of view was not entirely shared by everyone.
However, regarding the regulation of social media, these are mostly preventive guidelines in the form of advices and trainings in order to make employees aware of their behavior and actions on the internet. Handbooks are provided on the intranet and are accessible by military personnel. Moreover, the content is used in trainings. These trainings are primarily given to new soldiers that start their service, or before they will be deployed. Preliminary of this period, an information day for the home front (relations of the soldiers, such as wife, parents, children) is organized where often also information is provided about what the relations of the soldier can do to protect the safety of their soldier (and themselves) with regard to social media. It often occurs that the soldier himself does not share any information, but family or friends start to share information or tag them in pictures. There is a lot of demand for instruction cards written to the home front, but these are not available yet, except for the handbooks provided to the soldiers and a home front relations information day before every deployment. However, this is an interesting type of control which is not suggested by prior literature. In barely no organization employee’s private relations are involved in order to limit organizational risks.
“This is certainly enthusiasm, because you are very proud and when you see your partner on a picture you tag him. However, regarding safety for you and your partner, this is not always very smart. During military practices, okay, but during mission this is not convenient. People are not aware of the
21 (7/7)
We cannot distinguish any actions resulting from interactive or diagnostic control systems (Simons, 1994) and thus no corrective actions, while they are suggested to be important by Stanko and Beckman (2014). Finding only preventive measures might be explained by the suggestion that preventive actions might work better than corrective actions (Faci et al., 2017). However, while it has not happened yet, communication advisors would respond to messages that harm the organization and ask the person to delete the message and still therefore somehow a diagnostic control as employees receive feedback on their actions. They are reluctant with actions to intervene in the activities on private accounts. This has different reasons. For example the freedom of speech, which is a legal right. Only if the Department of Defense will be harmed communication advisors give advice in the form of a direct message. In order to know, so communication advisors should see it by accident or someone has to tell them. Moreover, the commander often takes responsibility and might intervene with the actions of his subordinate. Other actions also have to do with safety. In early stages, especially with trainings, phones are taken in and at the end of the week provided again. This is to learn how to deal with it in operations, where procedures regarding social media and digital devices become more strict. However, if soldiers were allowed to carry the phone with them, the use of it is often very discreet and are only used during breaks. This shows that employees have a sense of logical reasoning.
Still not all actions can be controlled. Boundaries for the organizational channels are clear, but most risks exists on the individual use. Guidelines are not black or white and therefore subjected to individual interpretation. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, hardly no monitoring takes place and thus interactive and diagnostic control systems are missing (Simons, 1994). Which is a remarkable finding as we would have expected that such an organization dealing with huge risks would have monitored and controlled the actions of social media. Still, according to participants, monitoring and controlling is impossible and it is undesirable (in terms of human rights, such as freedom of speech and privacy) to monitor this individual usage. Here again, the boundaries between private and work life are vague. It is accepted to control the use within work spheres, but as this is closely related to the private life it becomes tricky. Therefore, it is not a command, but only an advice.
“Whether you do that remains a personal choice (…). There is hardly any control because it is something private and sometimes that can be interwoven with your work. Therefore it is very difficult
to punish certain behavior.” – P5 (4/7)
22 that are not allowed to be crossed. If one exceeds the law, legal penalties simply apply to it. These are not directly linked to social media per se, but the sharing of e.g. confidential information, simply results in detention. Still, compared to the private sector these sanctions are relatively extraordinary. Civil servants do have to behave according to the law. For example, the sanctions for violation of state secrecies is maximal six years detention (Wetboek van Strafrecht, 1993). However, when organizational secrets are shared in the private sector the detention has a maximum of six months (Wetboek van Strafrecht, 2010), but often results in losing your job. For military civil servants there are some additional codes of conduct, such as the zero tolerance policy on drugs. Thus, as long as expressions are not in conflict with the law there is no big deal and sanctions are not directly linked to social media. The strong support for the quote below indicates that these measures are clear to all employees. They know that crossing the lines has consequences.
“Wetboek van Strafrecht, art. 98. In clear language: violation of state secrets is a prison detention and a fine. These punishments are not severe (…), because you do endanger your colleagues lives.” –
P4 (7/7)
For internally sharing confidential information, the organization uses special systems which are difficult to hack. Moreover, documents and reports containing secure information receive a label meaning that everyone knows that it contains information that has to stay within the organization. Ignoring these results in sanctions as discussed above.
All in all, we can say that in general two elements of boundary control are missing. As Simons suggests, all four control systems should be included to have optimal control. However, in this context the majority of controls are preventive and can thus be categorized under boundary or belief systems controls and interactive and diagnostic controls have been missing (Simons, 1994, 1995; Stanko & Beckman, 2014).
4.4.3. Employees’ awareness
An important aspect is the awareness of the risks social media can bring. However, it has been suggested that this is often a problem because we see safety and peace as a given. Moreover, privacy is often an argument for certain behavior and might never be harmed by the government, not even when safety becomes threatened.
“Everybody understand that wearing ‘the green uniform’ might have some restriction for soldiers privacy, but the world of cyber hardly tangible.” – P4
(7/7)
23 interest the employees or should see another need for the use of social media handbooks and trainings, otherwise they will not listen. This statement has been confirmed by the ‘users’. They know that the social media handbook can be found on the intranet, they find the design attractive, but they have difficulties to explain the content. They think that only a small percentage of the employees actively viewed the guidelines and that they could be presented more interestingly. This, again, suggests the lack of corrective control systems and thus employee behavior will not be monitored and controlled. Subordinates indicate that they feel little involvement and active guidance from the communication advisors regarding social media (see statement below). However, we could argue that these corrective control systems are not perceived to be relevant. Following the intention of Simons, these control systems focus on controlling daily business activities and social media in this context is only a boundary condition for the organization to function well.
“We know that the guidelines exist, but that is it actually (…). In order to makes that kind of things clear, you have to reach the people and you have to go to them instead of they coming to you. And to
be honest, it does not reach us.” – P6 (4/7)
24 other. The fight against each other continues on social media, but adds, compared to traditional welfare, an extra dimension involving the information gathering and threats that are not obviously visible. All in all, many think that the awareness should be improved.
“Currently safety and security measures are only annoying and obstructive in the activities. However, it should provide some peace and stability.” – P4
(5/7)
In generating awareness, the social media handbooks, guidelines, and training play an important role. The guidelines have been highlighted in trainings, so everyone should have heard it at least once, but it is up to the individual and how he interprets it. Due to the nature of the available measures, which is mainly preventive, the employee awareness should be improved by repeating rules more. The fact that only preventive measures are used is perceived as a huge lack, because the only measures are briefings. Still, these controls are seen as important situational controls (Ocasio & Wohlgezogen, 2010) in order to remind employees that some of their behavior might cause serious safety and security problems (DiMaggio, 1997).
To finish off, on the operational organization level, a lot of indecipherability exists, regarding what they are allowed to share. Employees often have the feeling that they are restricted in what is acceptable to post, while the information is shared by the organization later on. For them it is not always clear where this line has been drawn. The statement below is supported by the assistant unit commander, the private, and the sergeant and corporal.
“With regard to large training or missions, it is always said that we are not allowed the share any information of picture about it, while the headquarters post a lot of pictures themselves. It is fine by
me, I do not feel the need to post anything, but is raises questions to me, it is strange.” – P6
4.5. A look at the future
25 Nevertheless, in general applies, social media is important for the organization, but in the end it is only complementary in informing citizens. The organizational share is guaranteed on the governmental website and does conform to the law of information providing to society. Therefore, unique content will never be shared via social media alone. Currently, social media is, however, the only option to actively push content and bring information under the attention of followers, but statistics show only shallow response. Such trends generate a lot of internal discussion. It seems harder to achieve the goals with social media, which is a view that is shared by all communication advisors.
“The key question is when are you being successful? Do we need to continue on social media? If so, will we do web care, yes or no? On Facebook we have around 36.000 followers. Not much, also not very little. For who is it and to answer what question? The answer remains: we want to be accessible
for the community and we want them to know what we do. That is it.” – P2
Not everyone agrees on whether restrictions on social media might be of good influence for the organization or not. Employees increasingly rely on the technologies and its connections. Consequently, operating without it becomes more difficult. Therefore, half of the participants warns not to abandon social media, and more general, technology. Participants suggest that the organization has to follow the developments and think that abandoning electronic devices has the opposing effect on the organization’s well-being.
“Technology will have a major impact on the organization’s activities, also elements that cannot be foreseen at this point in time.” – P3
(4/7)
Some participants with the before discussed view argue that something has to go wrong before one realizes that security officers, with their extreme focus on risks, were right in their warnings. This is consistent with security officers’ concerns about employee awareness of security and recognizing the existing threats. The second group of participants shares future expectations regarding restrictions on social media and mobile devices. This group thinks that restrictions on private use, in terms of human rights should count for military staff and that awareness and responsible acting of personnel needs to be increased. They think that this is only the beginning of the new digital era.
“We have to return to how we did it in the past. We are not a scouting, we are part of the armed forces. The opium law does not apply to us, we have a zero tolerance policy regarding the use of
drugs. I think, this will also happen digitally.” – P4 (3/7)
26 finally have been taken. Learning how to deal with the new technology must be learned by trial and error over time.
“It is not only moving along the developments, but also examining how to deal with it. We have to learn how to do that handle it and that takes time.” – P5
(7/7)
5. Discussion and conclusions
We studied the extent of the boundaries and boundary controls in the Dutch military organization. In this, we made three contributions to the literature of boundary control. We discuss each of these contributions below, followed by the implications of this study and end with the discussion of future research.
First, we argued that little is known about boundary controls available to organizations in the social media context and therefore we develop a model that shows the controls that define and manage the social media boundaries. So, this model provides measures to limit or even eliminate risks and utilize the opportunities.
27 Furthermore, the results show very interesting findings regarding the boundaries of social media. The boundary theory allowed us to investigate the social media use from both an organizational and individual perspective (e.g. Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009; Stanko & Beckman, 2014). The findings suggest that the boundaries of social media are mostly defined by preventive measures trying to influence employee awareness of the possibilities and risks, and make them behave within the boundaries. However, we find that not all actions can be controlled. We find little controls of Simons corrective systems (1994, 1995), while many are preventive, relating to boundary and belief systems. Still, with this study’s setting in mind, meaning the more severe risks, we would have expected more restrictions on the use of social media in order to limit the risks, and therefore keep staff safe. It is interesting that this is a result of law regulations, such as freedom of speech and right of privacy for individuals. This is something every organization needs to keep in mind if they want to regulate social media use. It is against the (Dutch) law to cross the boundaries of it. Even though, we would have expected that this would be different for the case organization as they are treated differently compared to others.
Additionally, we find that the organizational boundaries regarding social media are extended beyond employees. The military organization involves employees’ relations in controlling the risks as information days are organized for them. It suggests that company information is often taken home and subsequently shared with close relations. Therefore, it could increases the organizational risks. Still, the studies organization could make improvements on this aspect, as the instructions and guidelines to employees regarding social media are not explicitly written for the home front relations and therefore employees do not share these with their relations. However, it would make them much more aware of the risks the soldiers have to oblige to.
28 Second, the controls described above, function as practical solutions in order to guide organizations in their management of individual and corporate use regarding the publication of information. It are guidelines for the organization to find their way in the unstructured rather new phenomena of social media in business. Thus, while contributing to problems solving, this study might be an example to business managers as well. However, it should be kept in mind that the this research setting is relatively unusual and therefore not always generalizable to other organizations. The findings from the present study show that the extension of these organizational boundaries could possibly eliminate a substantial amount of risks. The approach of involving employee relations is not perfect yet, though. Information days should be complemented with written guidelines which act as a reference. Furthermore, our findings strongly confirm that social media dramatically changed the military setting, and while social media is sometimes perceived as a huge risk in sharing firm information, the study’s participants still see a positive future regarding social media use.
Finally, work processes developed by military organizations are often followed up by other firms and it is therefore seen as an example to others. As we have seen, the military organization is extraordinary and therefore provides insights into how the organization is able to manage the social media boundaries in certain extreme situations. Therefore, it could create a better understanding of the boundary theory applied to the relatively new technology. We found a change in mindset regarding social media. Traditionally the organization has been perceived to be relatively closed. Therefore, one of the reasons was to open up and share the military story with the community. Opening up is one of the conditions for effective social media use. While some interviewees said they still struggle with the adoption of social media, social media is generally seen as the best tool in order to utilize the organizational goals (recruitment and get in touch with community). Another extreme characteristic which makes the military setting so unusual are the specific and important liabilities that come with organization’s nature. Results emphasized that, in this case people’s lives are at risk. Previous research findings showed that other organizations fear for organizational liability. This means that, when firms use the same boundary controls to regulate the information transfer via social media as the military organization, they have the opportunity to secure their business information and thus increase their liability. However, in an organization where human lives are put in danger, and the fact that being a soldier is different from other professions, we expected more restrictions on the use of social media as it involves risks.
29 This study’s results should be interpreted within its own context of limitations. First, the way participants have been selected is perceived as a limitation. Most participants were requested to cooperate through the contact person of the organization. Therefore, it may be possible that mainly people who were interested in the subject or who were perceived to give political correct answers were selected. This may have influenced the results and subsequently have decreased the validity of the study. Second, it is important to note that only seven interviews have been conducted, and only has been focused on the a specific unit within the army. It is possible that different results will apply to the navy or the air force. Last, the results of this study are difficult to generalize to other contexts because one of the most important aspects of military organizations is human safety, while organizations in the private sector mainly try to protect their business information. However, military organizations are often seen as an example for many other organizations and these organizations should therefore still be able to learn from them. Nevertheless, we think that the present research results are in line with findings of previous studies.
Future quantitative research can focus on, for example, identifying the extent to which employees perceive the threats or the extent to which employees consciously act according to the guidelines to be able to actively respond to this. More extensive research on this topic, including surveys or focus groups, may be able to generate answers that allow generalizability. Furthermore, the results of this research mainly revealed preventive measures. In order to repair the mistakes it could be interesting to elaborate research on specifically these kind of measures: monitoring and corrective actions. Finally, as this study’s setting is relatively restricted by law and thus state regulated, such as the zero tolerance policy on drugs, it is relatively extraordinary to other private sector cases. Therefore, it could be interesting to further investigate such settings and their controls.
References
Ashforth, B. E., Kreiner, G. E., & Fugate, M. (2000). All in a day’s work: Boundaries and micro role transitions. Academy of Management Review, 25(3), 472–491.
Aula, P. (2010). Social media, reputation risk and ambient publicity management. Strategy & Leadership2, 38(6), 43–49. https://doi.org/10.1108/10878571011088069
BN de Stem. (2007). Militair moet zich ook privé netjes gedragen. Retrieved from
https://www.bndestem.nl/overig/militair-moet-zich-ook-prive-netjes-gedragen~acac5f60/ Boeschoten, T. (2018). Militairen “verraden” hun positie met populaire sportapp. Algemeen Dagblad.
Retrieved from https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/militairen-verraden-hun-positie-met-populaire-sportapp~a87d0c03/
30 Network Sites. CHI: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 945–954.
Chang, A., & Kannan, P. K. (2008). Leveraging Web 2.0 in Government. IBM Center for The Business of Government.
Clark, L. A., & Roberts, S. J. (2010). Employer’s Use of Social Networking Sites: A Socially Irresponsible Practice. Journal of Business Ethics, 95(4), 507–525.
https://doi.org/10.1007/sl0551-010-0436-y
Culnan, M. J., Mchugh, P. J., & Zubillaga, J. I. (2010). MIS Uarterly. MIS Quarterly Executive, 9(4), 243–259.
Davenpoort, T. H., & Prusak, L. (1998). Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage what they know. Harvard Business School Press.
Defensie.nl. (n.d.). Eenheden Bestuursstaf. Retrieved June 7, 2018, from https://www.defensie.nl/organisatie/bestuursstaf/eenheden
Derks, D., & Bakker, A. B. (2013). The Psychology of Digitial Media at Work. Psychology Press.
DiMaggio, P. (1997). Culture and Cognition. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 263–287.
Directie Communicatie. (2015). Handleiding sociale media voor defensiemedewerkers. Retrieved from
http://1gnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Handleiding-sociale-media-voor-defensiemedewerkers.pdf
Eisenberg, E. M., & Witten, M. G. (1987). Reconsidering Openness in Organizational Communication. Communication Arts and Sciences, 12(3), 418–426.
Elefant, C. (2011). The Power of Social Media: Legal Issues & Best Practices for Utilities Engaging Social Media. Energy Law Journal, 32(1), 1–56.
Faci, N., Maamar, Z., Burégio, V., Ugljanin, E., & Benslimane, D. (2017). Computers in Industry Web 2.0 applications in the workplace: How to ensure their proper use? Computers in Industry, 88(3), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compind.2017.03.003
Gibbs, J. L., Rozaidi, N. A., & Eisenberg, J. (2013). Overcoming the ‘“Ideology of Openness”’: Probing the Affordances of Social Media for Organizational Knowledge Sharing. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19, 102–120. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12034 Governemntal policies and laws. Aanwijzing opsporing en behandeling militaire zaken (2013).
Retrieved from http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0033103/2013-04-01#voetnoot10
