675722
research-article2016
ARPXXX10.1177/0275074016675722American Review of Public AdministrationFusi and Feeney
Article
Social Media in the Workplace:
Information Exchange,
Productivity, or Waste?
American Review of Public Administration
1–23
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0275074016675722
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Federica Fusi1 and Mary K. Feeney1
Abstract
Public managers play a central role in the adoption and smooth implementation of social
media tools in the workplace, with local governments increasingly expecting managers to
utilize these tools. Nevertheless, we know little about how public managers perceive social
media use for work activities and what factors shape such perceptions. Preliminary research
has shown that social media use in government may enhance task efficiency, but it may also
increase management complexity and workload. In this study, we draw from current literature
on e-government adoption and use to investigate the role of personal and organizational use
of social media, organizational culture, digital threats, and technological capacity in shaping
public managers’ perceptions of social media use. Combining data from a national survey of
2,500 public managers in 500 U.S. local governments, Census data, and data collected from
city websites, we find that perceptions of social media tools in the workplace are influenced
by the interplay of personal and organization use of social media, an organizational culture of
innovation, and formal guidance on social media use. Technological capacity and perceptions of
digital threats are not significantly related to perceptions of social media. We conclude with a
discussion of what these findings mean for research and practice.
Keywords
social media, local government, Facebook
Social media is pervasive in American society. From online dating to text messaging, around
65% of American adults use social media in their everyday life (Perrin, 2015). This trend is
global with 1.23 billion (Sedghi, 2014), 320 million (Twitter, 2015), and 1 billion (Billboard
Staff, 2015) people worldwide using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, respectively, on a monthly
basis. Social media are a group of “Internet-based technologies that build on the ideological and
technical foundations of Web 2.0” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p. 61) to leverage the social and
interactive nature of technology. Social media tools allow two-way information exchange
between individuals or groups via videos, images, texts messages, and podcasts, and include not
only free applications such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Flickr but also feedriven services such as Basecamp or Ning.
1Arizona
State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA
Corresponding Author:
Federica Fusi, Center for Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Studies, School of Public Affairs, Arizona
State University, 411 N Central Ave #750, Phoenix, AZ 85004, USA.
Email: ffusi@asu.edu
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American Review of Public Administration
Initially, social media tools were designed for nonwork-related activities such as socializing,
sharing photos, and connecting with friends (Mergel & Bretschneider, 2013). In fact, the majority
of Americans report using social media primarily for staying in touch with friends and family or
connecting with lost friends (Smith, 2011). As social media has become a part of everyday life,
organizations have sought to integrate these tools into work life. Public, private, and nonprofit
organizations have progressively increased their social media presence and usage to improve
their relationships with customers and citizens, promote their corporate identity, and improve
their communication (Klang & Nolin, 2011; Trainor, Andzulis, Rapp, & Agnihotri, 2014). In the
public sector, government has progressively expanded its online presence by opening accounts
on Facebook and Twitter. As people become more accustomed to using social media, they expect
government to do the same. Moreover, social media has raised expectations for a variety of positive outcomes within government, such as enhancing transparency, accountability, and collaboration within and across public agencies, encouraging citizen participation, and improving public
service provision (Bonsón, Torres, Royo, & Flores, 2012; Campbell, Lambright, & Wells, 2014;
Kim, Park, & Rho, 2015; Mergel, 2010).
Public managers play a pivotal role in social media adoption and use. Some public managers
have promoted social media use within their departments, with entrepreneurial public managers
being the first to adopt social media tools in everyday organizational activities (Mergel &
Bretschneider, 2013). Yet, researchers and governments have little understanding of how public
managers perceive social media use and how social media use is affecting their work, whether
positively or negatively (Kavanaugh et al., 2012; Khan, Swar, & Lee, 2014). Social media tools
can help managers to better and faster perform their tasks, but research has also found that privacy concerns, time wasting, and multi-tasking challenges may increase management complexity and decrease public managers’ concentration (Bertot, Jaeger, & Hansen, 2012; Oliveira &
Welch, 2013). For example, among American adults using online tools for professional purposes,
39% report a higher flexibility in their working hours, but an almost equal percentage report that
online tools have actually increased their working time (Purcell & Rainie, 2014). All in all, there
appear to be ambiguous effects of technology use, including social media, on work activities.
We investigate how public managers perceive social media use and what factors explain
manager perceptions of social media use. Public manager perception of social media use is
important to understand whether social media support or hinder government activities and how
managers can take advantage of such tools (Ngai, Tao, & Moon, 2015; Tsay, Dabbish, &
Herbsleb, 2012). The lack of understanding of public managers’ perceptions might lead to
misplaced strategies for social media adoption or the overly optimistic belief that social media
use is intrinsically positive for government activities. Building on technology adoption and use
theories and e-government research, we focus our attention on the role of managers’ personal
experiences with social media use and organizational factors, such as organizational use of
social media, organizational culture, digital threats, and technological capacity, in shaping
perceptions. Although individuals are often the leaders in adopting social media, we argue that
the organizational environment and the level of support they receive from their organization
influence their long-term perceptions.
We combine data from a 2014 national survey administered to 2,500 U.S. public managers in
500 U.S. cities, U.S. Census data, and data collected from city websites to test our hypotheses.
We find that personal use of social media has a strong positive effect on public managers’ perceptions of social media use. Moreover, public managers are more likely to report positive perceptions of social media use whether they work for more innovative organizations, organizations
which use social media tools more frequently and organizations where best practices are available to guide public managers in the implementation and use of social media. Finally, we show
that technological factors and digital threats do not influence public managers’ perceptions of
social media use.
Fusi and Feeney
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Literature and Hypotheses
Research has widely investigated the role of managers in the adoption of new technologies, such
as social media. As organization leaders, managers play a pivotal role in innovation adoption by
influencing organizational practices and policies and by creating a climate favorable to innovation
and change (Damanpour & Schneider, 2009; Jeyaraj, Rottman, & Lacity, 2006; Kiron, Palmer,
Phillips, & Kruschwitz, 2012). Several studies have found that technology adoption and implementation within organizations are largely determined by managers, especially their perceptions
and attitudes toward technology and innovation (Karahanna & Straub, 1999), political orientation
(Damanpour & Schneider, 2009), and trust toward managerial capacity (Horst, Kuttschreuter, &
Gutteling, 2007). Moreover, managerial support for technology implementation positively reinforces technology impact on the organization’s performance (Heintze & Bretschneider, 2000).
Hence, understanding managers’ relationships with and perceptions of new technologies is fundamental to predicting technology adoption, use, and impact across the organization.
In the case of social media, public managers have often taken an entrepreneurial position by
introducing social media tools in public organizations (Klang & Nolin, 2011; Mergel &
Bretschneider, 2013) and experimenting with new approaches to use social media for public
service provision (Goldsmith & Crawford, 2014). However, little research has empirically examined how public managers perceive social media use in the workplace. Understanding what
shapes public managers’ perceptions of social media use provides insights into whether government adoption of social media is leading to positive outcomes for managers and, if so, how to
support social media use without compromising public managers’ workload. Dissatisfaction is
quite common during technology implementation as actual use might not meet user expectations
(Bryer & Zavattaro, 2011; Picazo-Vela, Gutiérrez-Martínez, & Luna-Reyes, 2012). Government
managers may perceive social media as an opportunity to foster innovation and experimentation,
but they might also perceive social media as an additional burden.
The e-government literature recognizes that social media can help public employees to connect to one another, build social capital, maintain awareness of professional issues, and share
information (Cao, Vogel, Guo, Liu, & Gu, 2012; Skeels & Grudin, 2009). Moreover, efficiency
gains may arise from the simplification of everyday activities, including public service provision
and design, and faster communication with the public and other stakeholders. Social media provides a platform to local governments to interact with citizens, collect feedback on public services, and better target public service delivery (Khasawneh & Abu-Shanab, 2013; Kuzma, 2010;
Perlman, 2012; Picazo-Vela et al., 2012). In addition, social media tools might facilitate information dissemination within the organization (Chun, Shulman, Sandoval, & Hovy, 2010; Khan,
2015) and provide access to diverse information by connecting local governments with external
stakeholders, including citizens, other public agencies, and various levels of government (Khan
et al., 2014). Information diversity may improve decision-making processes and support managerial choices (Bertot et al., 2012).
Mergel and Greeves (2013) argued that setting up a social media account and using social
media are relatively easy and costless activities. As compared with other technologies, which
require large investments and organizational resources, social media adoption can be a low cost,
bottom-up activity initiated by a single manager. However, widespread social media use within the
organization may lead to managerial costs and might increase inefficiency rather than streamline
organizational activities (Bryer & Zavattaro, 2011). Social media use can increase management
complexity because of technical challenges that public managers have to address. With increased
and faster communication, data and information sharing, public managers face concerns regarding
security, privacy, and accessibility, which require the enforcement of new data and information
protocols and policies (Bertot et al., 2012; Campbell et al., 2014; Landsbergen, 2010; Picazo-Vela
et al., 2012). Public managers must also regulate and monitor technical problems, including data
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storage, system failures, and network reliability (Picazo-Vela et al., 2012). Management costs are
likely to increase as managers need to acquire new technical competencies and organize technical
support within the organization to guarantee smooth adoption and use of social media tools
(Kavanaugh et al., 2012; Picazo-Vela et al., 2012).
Social media use might also increase managers’ offline workloads as governments start providing services and communications both in person, manually, and digitally (Bertot et al., 2012).
Electronic services can double efforts to provide in-person and online services and can require
extra work to keep online profiles up-to-date, continually producing new content and making
content available online (Mergel & Greeves, 2013; Picazo-Vela et al., 2012). Moreover, public
managers are pressured to interact with citizens in real time, which increases the burden on public managers to be responsive and attentive. On social media, citizens react to government content, comment, and share text, images, or links on government accounts. Public managers have
the task of responding to citizen reactions, especially negative feedback and criticisms that might
affect their organization reputation (Mergel & Greeves, 2013). Social media tools provide a number of potential benefits for managerial activities, such as efficiency gains, increased information
sharing, and better service provision. Similarly, there are potential costs associated with social
media implementation including higher workload, and a need for new competencies, policies,
and strategy design. The balance between perceived costs and benefits on managers’ work likely
influences long-term social media use.
A significant body of research has accumulated evidence that perceptions of a technology’s
impact on work performance are an important antecedent of its acceptance and use. Technology
acceptance models (TAMs) argue that perceived technology usefulness significantly drives the
propensity to use such technology (Davis, 1989; Featherman & Pavlou, 2003). Employees who
perceive technology tools as more useful for their work are more willing to use them. Other theories note that expectations toward a technology performance are positively related to technology
use. The Theory of Reasoned Action and Theory of Planned Behavior link technology use and
intention to use to technology-expected outcomes (Compeau, Higgins, & Huff, 1999; Madden,
Ellen, & Ajzen, 1992). Similarly, Motivational Models suggest that believing technology use will
help achieve desired outcomes increases willingness to use a new technology (Igbaria,
Parasuraman, & Baroudi, 1996). Empirical results corroborate such hypotheses showing that
perceived technology performance has a major impact on technology use and intention to use as
compared with effort expectancy, social influence, enjoyment, or other facilitating conditions
(Compeau et al., 1999; Jeyaraj et al., 2006; Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003).
Unfortunately, public management scholarship has done little work on perceptions of social
media use among public managers. Among recent work, Khan et al. (2014) analyzed the predictors of social media satisfaction looking at perceived risks—time, psychological, social, and
privacy risk—and benefits—social connectivity, social involvement, information attainment, and
entertainment—that are associated with social media use by public employees. Khan and colleagues find that, overall, public employees associate greater benefits than costs to social media
use. Such studies focus their attention on perceived technology characteristics without integrating employees’ perceptions of the organizational environment. Yet, the e-government and social
media literatures suggest that organizational characteristics are important in shaping perceptions
of technology use (Oliveira & Welch, 2013). Technology characteristics are not directly translated into organizational costs and benefits, but depend on organizational environments that
facilitate or increase the burden of technology implementation (Bostrom & Heinen, 1977).
Previous studies which expand upon technology acceptance and motivational models have found
that organizational structure, support, technology usage, and skills are positively correlated with
employee technology perceptions (Chenhall & Morris, 1986; Igbaria et al., 1996).
Based on this previous work and research on e-government, we propose a framework to investigate the antecedents of public managers’ perceptions of social media use for work purposes. Our
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Figure 1. Public managers’ positive social media perceptions in the workplace.
theoretical model proposes that in forming positive or negative perceptions of social media use,
public managers are influenced by five factors. Figure 1 illustrates the ways in which (a) individual social media use, (b) organizational social media use, (c) digital threats, (d) technological
capacity, and (e) organizational culture are related to public managers’ perceptions of social media
use. We expect that public managers who more frequently use social media in their personal lives
will benefit from social media knowledge and expertise and will report more positive perceptions
of social media use in the work place (Akar & Topçu, 2011; Davis, 1989). Similarly, organizational use of social media will be related to more positive perceptions, as public managers will
perceive the work environment as more inclined toward social media use (Mergel & Bretschneider,
2013). At the same time, technological capacity should better enable organizations and managers
to utilize social media tools (Oliveira & Welch, 2013). In addition, organizations that have not
experienced security threats or are better prepared to deal with data management challenges and
threats will be better situated to foster positive perceptions about social media use. Finally, we
expect that organizational culture (e.g., innovativeness, centralization, and routineness) may limit
or facilitate the introduction and utilization of social media (Wang & Feeney, 2016; Welch &
Feeney, 2014). Next, we develop hypotheses about the relationships between individual and organizational social media use, digital threats, technological capacity, and organizational culture and
manager perceptions about social media use in the workplace.
Individual Social Media Use
Given the popularity of social media in the United States, we expect that social media are likely to
be widely embedded in the personal life of public managers and integrated into the work environment. The boundary between personal and professional use is nuanced, and many social media tools
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are used in both work and personal lives (Ollier-Malaterre & Rothbard, 2015; Skeels & Grudin,
2009). Experience using social media in personal life is likely to affect the perception of social media
use in professional settings. Several researchers have found that frequent social media use increases
the gratification that individuals obtain from the social experience that such tools offer—for instance,
sharing, and connecting with others—and, as a consequence, fosters positive engagement in social
media use (Akar & Topçu, 2011; Chen, 2011; Khan et al., 2014). In addition, the more frequently
public managers utilize social media for their personal activities, the more they acquire knowledge
and ability to use such tools. A manager’s ability to use social media tools will reduce the learning
costs needed to integrate that technology in the workplace (Picazo-Vela et al., 2012) and will increase
perceived social media usefulness at work (Davis, 1989; Igbaria et al., 1996). Thus, the more one is
using social media, the more likely one will have a positive perception of it.
Hypothesis 1: Public managers who more frequently utilize social media for personal purposes will report more positive perceptions of social media use in the workplace.
Organizational Social Media Use
Along with personal use, the way social media tools are used within the organization is likely to
influence managerial perceptions. Drawing from social influence theory, Karahanna and Straub
(1999) suggested that coworker behaviors and perceptions, especially those of peers and supervisors, are likely to affect an individual’s technology perception. Individuals within the same organization are more likely to view technology adoption as useful when they see others reporting a
positive experience with such technology (Schmitz & Fulk, 1991). Social influence is amplified
in the case of social media tools whose primary aim is communication and information exchange,
both requiring input and response from multiple users (Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield, 2013).
Given the nature of social media, there are strong incentives for a user to recruit other users
within one’s work network. Social media will provide greater benefits within organizations
where more individuals use them, thus allowing organizations to exploit social media benefits,
such as communication, coordination, and social capital building (Khan et al., 2014; Leonardi
et al., 2013). Hence, we expect that when other employees are currently using social media tools
within the organization, public managers will report more positive perceptions of social media.
Hypothesis 2: Public managers who report higher organizational use of social media tools
will report more positive perceptions of social media in the workplace.
As the number of people using social media grows and its usage becomes more frequent,
organizations must establish common rules to avoid misuse, reduce privacy risks, and prevent
security problems (Bonsón et al., 2012; Mergel & Bretschneider, 2013). Although in the adoption
stage the absence of regulation promotes entrepreneurship and experimentation (Mergel &
Bretschneider, 2013), in the long term, policies and guidelines are needed to manage and bound
concerns about privacy and data misuse (Campbell et al., 2014; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
We argue that social media policies might have a positive effect on public managers’ perceptions. Social media policies create a safe environment for social media use by setting standard
operating procedures that reduce the amount of time and attention required to resolve failures and
errors derived from social media misuse (Khan et al., 2014; Kiron et al., 2012; Mergel &
Bretschneider, 2013). For instance, social media policies simplify social media use by driving
and bounding its scopes and applications, such as the separation between professional and personal use (Picazo-Vela et al., 2012; Skeels & Grudin, 2009), or by providing examples of social
media uses (i.e., best practices). Thus, while flexibility is important for innovation, we expect
that in public sector environments, guidance about social media use will better enable managers
to utilize and harness the potential of social media.
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Hypothesis 3: Public managers who report that their organizations have social media policies
will report more positive perceptions of social media use.
Digital Threats
Risk is an important influence on managerial choices, especially when it comes to the adoption of
new technologies (Landsbergen, 2010). Although social media policies can help to ease managerial concerns about technology use, they may not be sufficient for reducing perceived risks associated with social media use. Social media risk management is a key issue in the adoption of social
media tools within public organizations (Landsbergen, 2010; Webber, Li, & Szymanski, 2012).
Kavanaugh and colleagues (2012) and Khan and colleagues (2014) found that cybersecurity is one
of the most critical barriers for social media use in government. Cybersecurity refers to perceived
risk of online network exposure to the world (Featherman & Pavlou, 2003) and unauthorized disclosure of data and personal information. Cybersecurity issues might result in a loss of reputation,
legal contentions, and other negative consequences (Webber et al., 2012). If public managers
perceive social media use as risky, they will be less likely to view social media use in the workplace positively. Managers will feel that social media is a potential threat to their work and to their
constituencies, as it increases the risk of unintended data disclosures (Campbell et al., 2014). In
some cases, managers might have already experienced data or security leaks. Such previous experience might also negatively affect public managers’ perceptions of such tools.
Hypothesis 4: Public managers who report increased concerns about data management will
report less positive perceptions of social media use.
Hypothesis 5: Public managers who report previous experience with data or security threats
will report less positive perceptions of social media use.
Technological Capacity
Technology capacity is the organization’s ability to mobilize IT resources and support (Nah &
Saxton, 2013). Technology capacity has a positive effect on social media and e-government use
as it increases the tools that public managers can deploy, and reduces implementation and learning costs by providing adequate support to public managers and employees (Feeney & Welch,
2016; Oliveira & Welch, 2013). In fact, managers in public and nonprofit organizations report
that low organization technological capacity and staff expertise are serious barriers to social
media adoption and use (Campbell et al., 2014). When organizations have low technology capacity, public managers must learn to use social media by themselves and cannot access organizational support in using such tools, thus increasing costs associated with social media use. As
such, we expect that public managers in organizations with higher technology capacity will
report more positive perceptions of social media use.
Hypothesis 6: Public managers who report higher organizational technology capacity will
report more positive perceptions of social media use.
Public organizations might actively monitor social media use or more broadly monitor
Internet-related activities by, for example, checking employee emails, blocking access to social
media and personal websites, or monitoring data transmission and online activities. From the
employer perspective, online monitoring limits the misuse of the Internet and Internet-based
technologies and helps the organization prevent productivity losses due to employees wasting
time online (Griffiths, 2010; Young, 2010). As Landsbergen (2010) noted, monitoring social
media activities might be fundamental to avoid the mistaken publication of inappropriate content
(i.e., politically sensitive information) and to discourage employees from misusing social media.
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American Review of Public Administration
From the employee perspective, monitoring practices might negatively affect satisfaction,
trust, productivity, and engagement, and can be perceived as an invasion of privacy and a threat
to autonomy (Alder, Schminke, Noel, & Kuenzi, 2007; Choudhury, 2008; West & Bowman,
2016). Over-monitoring employee activities can reduce trust toward the organization and increase
stress, workload, and perceived organization injustice (Grant & Higgins, 1989; Kallman, 1993;
Oz, Glass, & Behling, 1999). As such, we might expect that organizational monitoring will
decrease the benefits that public managers derive from social media use. Monitoring increases
barriers to using social media in flexible and innovative ways while also increasing the psychological costs of using such tools. Moreover, monitoring negatively affects the likelihood of data
and information sharing and internal electronic collaboration among colleagues.
However, studies of social media use in public organizations suggest that monitoring might
have a positive impact on social media perceptions. Monitoring of social media use is a way for
organizations to reduce perceived risks related to social media use by preventing misuse, information leaks, and privacy issues (Meijer & Torenvlied, 2016). Moreover, in the case of smaller
municipal governments, the ability to monitor digital activity is likely a key indicator of technological and management capacity. The governments included in this study are relatively small,
making the monitoring of digital activity a resource-intensive task. We expect that managers who
report monitoring of online activities are more likely to be in organizations where there are clear
rules and regulations about technology use and higher technological capacity, thus resulting in
managers with more sophisticated levels of technology use, including social media, and, therefore, managers who are more likely to have positive perceptions of such technologies.
Hypothesis 7: Public managers who report higher organizational monitoring of online activities will report more positive perceptions of social media use.
Organizational Culture
Organizational culture strongly predicts technology adoption in public organizations (Aiken &
Hage, 1971; Damanpour & Schneider, 2009; Pandey & Bretschneider, 1997; Wang & Feeney,
2016; Welch & Feeney, 2014). Hence, the organizational culture—innovativeness, centralization, and routineness—in which social media activities are embedded will likely affect the overall perceptions of social media use among public managers.
Innovativeness is defined as “the [organizational] propensity to accept innovations” (Oliveira
& Welch, 2013, p. 3). Innovative organizations are more likely to engage in risk-taking behaviors
and adopt and implement new technology, such as social media (Powell & Grodal, 2005). Oliveira
and Welch (2013) found that innovative public organizations are more likely to use social media
for government tasks, such as disseminating information, collecting feedback on public policies,
and collaborating internally. Moreover, innovative organizations are more likely to adapt their
practices to innovation (Thompson, 1965). Social media use requires designing new managerial
procedures and building of new managerial skills and competences (Mergel & Greeves, 2013),
which significantly change organizational culture and practices (Picazo-Vela et al., 2012). We
hypothesize that more innovative organizations are increasingly likely to accept the introduction
of social media use for work purposes and will more actively encourage and support social media
use. Thus, public managers who report working for innovative public organizations will be more
likely to take advantage of social media use and apply social media tools to their tasks.
Hypothesis 8: Public managers who perceive their organizations as more innovative will
report more positive perceptions of social media use.
Researchers have consistently argued that implementing new technologies, such as social
media, is easier in decentralized organizations where managers have the necessary autonomy and
Fusi and Feeney
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decision-making authority to guide the organizational change (Landsbergen, 2010) and adjust
organizational practices (Li & Feeney, 2014). When introducing social media tools, managers
need to adapt their daily work routines according to new online activities and opportunities
(Picazo-Vela et al., 2012). Meijer and Torenvlied (2016) found that Twitter use for external communication and information sharing was more effective in decentralized organizations where
individuals could take the initiative on when and how to use Twitter for communicating with
their constituencies. By promoting the autonomous use of social media tools, decentralized organizations increase opportunities to learn and experiment with social media tools and facilitate the
design of customized social media practices. Thus, we expect that decentralized organizations
will allow for more experimentation and learning, and that managers in decentralized organizations will report more positive perceptions of social media use.
Hypothesis 9: Public managers who perceive their organizations as more centralized will
report less positive perceptions of social media use.
Finally, we argue that managers with more standardized and routinized tasks might see
social media as less useful for their job and as a waste of time. Job routineness provides less
opportunity for innovation adoption (Aiken & Hage, 1971), slows down technology adoption