Jos Bartels

Keeping up online appearances: How self-disclosure on Facebook affects perceived respect and likability in the professional context

Abstract Employees often share personal information with professional contacts on social media (e.g., Facebook), complicating boundaries between private and professional identities. According to Ollier-Malaterre, Rothbard, and Berg (2013), the online behavior of employees on social media can be described by what they communicate online about themselves determined by their self-evaluation motives (self-verification vs. self-enhancement) and with whom they prefer to connect on social media (integration vs. segmentation of personal and professional identities). This study tests the effects of these strategies on respect and likability in a professional context. We conducted an online experiment (Nxa0=xa0257) in which individuals were exposed to a Facebook profile page illustrating a particular type of boundary management behavior of a possible colleague. Respondents rated the individual on ‘likability’ and ‘respect’. Results indicated that integrating personal and professional contacts yields higher levels of likability than segmenting them. Posting self-enhancing messages results in higher levels of respect than posting self-verifying messages. Findings imply that the best strategy to preserve respect and likability among colleagues is to integrate professional contacts on Facebook and post self-enhancing messages (so called ‘content’ behavior).

Tell Me How You Treat Your Employees

In communicating their good deeds to customers, most companies focus on company-external discretionary Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities such as philanthropy. In contrast with this prevailing managerial practice, the present paper proposes that customers react less positively to communications on how companies allocate profits to company-external good causes and more positively to communications on how companies make their profits in the first place, i.e., how they treat their employees. A preliminary study among customers of an international retailer (N = 11,587) suggests that customers perceive the domain of employee CSR to be significantly more important than other CSR domains. Based on a qualitative study using focus-group interviews, the authors propose that employee support CSR messages elicit the highest intrinsic attributions among customers and enhance customer identification with the company. A large-scale field experiment of customers of the focal retailer (N = 5,586) delivers evidence that supports these propositions for four real CSR communication messages from different CSR domains. More specifically, the study results suggest that an employee support message elicits the most positive customer responses, not only by increasing attributions of the companys intrinsic motives for engaging in CSR but also by increasing customer identification with the company.

Exposing one's identity

Research has shown that the willingness to interact with colleagues in offline contexts mostly depends on morality traits. However, little is known about how social judgments of traits can influence online intentions to interact with colleagues. Specifically, we investigated the effects of colleagues morality, sociability, and competence traits on employees boundary management on Facebook. An experiment (N=289) was conducted using a (morality: high vs low) by 2 (sociability: high vs low) by 2 (competence: high vs low) design. Results revealed that employees preference to separate (vs. integrate) professional and private contacts on Facebook was determined by both morality and sociability traits, whereas no effects of competence traits were found. High levels of morality and sociability lead to integration of professional and private contacts.Social media could lead to more selectivity in terms of the traits users want to see in others.Competence does not have an effect on users decision to integrate private and professional contacts.

Explaining online ambassadorship behaviors on Facebook and LinkedIn

Abstract Due to technological advancement work is situated within a broader network where work communiques become public and observable by anyone at any time. This study draws on identity theory and boundary management preferences to examine the extent to which employees use their Facebook and LinkedIn accounts to share updates about their organization. This study reports on a two-wave panel study among Dutch employees (Nu202f=u202f515). Drawing on boundary theory and organizational citizenship literature this study shows that self-enhancement motives are important predictors for ambassadorship behaviors on Facebook and LinkedIn. Conversely, segmentation preferences and identification processes significantly affect ambassadorship behaviors on Facebook, but not on LinkedIn. Hence, social media afford similar behaviors across platforms but the antecedents may differ across social media platforms.

Does Facebook Use Predict College Students’ Social Capital? A Replication of Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe’s (2007) Study Using the Original and More Recent Measures of Facebook Use and Social Capital

In 2007 Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe published an article on the positive association between Facebook use and social capital that started a decade of research on the social outcomes of social network site use. Although cited almost 9,000 times, it received critique on the conceptualization and operationalization of Facebook use and social capital. In this study we replicate Ellison et al.’s study with original and alternative measures of social capital and Facebook use, thereby shedding light on the robustness, stability, and ecological validity of the original findings. We found that Facebook intensity positively predicts the original social capital measures, lending support to the validity of the original findings. Its relationship with structural measures, however, was weak for bridging and absent for bonding social capital.