Can organizations guide employees' social media behavior? The benefits of incentive rather than restrictive social media guidelines
Journal of Communication Management
ISSN: 1363-254X
Article publication date: 10 August 2021
Issue publication date: 5 November 2021
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of social media guidelines (SMGs), as well as their impact on control mutuality, a sub-dimension of the organization–employee relationship (OER). A total of two studies compare guidelines with a focus that is either predominantly incentive or restrictive. In addition, they investigate the moderating effect of guideline writing style and enforcement.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, two online experiments were conducted among Belgian employees. Participants read a social media policy manipulated in terms of focus (restrictive vs incentive) and style (conversational vs corporate; Study 1) or enforcement (signature requested vs not requested; Study 2).
Findings
Incentive guidelines increase employee branding behavior more than their restrictive counterparts, while also safeguarding employees' perceived control mutuality. However, solid SMGs will not compensate for an organization's bad reputation among employees. The guidelines' style and manner of enforcement did not seem to matter.
Practical implications
Communication executives can use our findings to draft SMGs in a way that increases opportunities (e.g. ambassadorship) and reduces risks (e.g. criticism) associated with employee social media use.
Originality/value
Prior research on SMGs is predominantly descriptive and focused on the organizational perspective. This research paper contributes to both theory and practice by studying the causal impact of these guidelines on employees.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Floor Leplae and Justine Lambrechts for their help in collecting the research data.
Funding: This research was funded by the Special Research Fund of Ghent University (BOF), grant number BOF.STG.2020.0034.01.
Author note: Ellen Soens and An-Sofie Claeys, Research Centre for Multilingual Practices and Language Learning in Society, Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Ghent University.
Declarations of interest: none.
Citation
Soens, E. and Claeys, A.-S. (2021), "Can organizations guide employees' social media behavior? The benefits of incentive rather than restrictive social media guidelines", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 454-471. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-02-2021-0017
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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