What’s at stake? An analysis of employee social media engagement and the influence of power and social stake

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Public Relations Review journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pubrev

What’s at stake? An analysis of employee social media engagement and the influence of power and social stake ⁎

Brian G. Smith , Neva Stumberger, Justin Guild, Amanda Dugan Purdue University, United States

AR TI CLE I NF O

AB S T R A CT

Keywords: Power Social media Engagement Strategic communication Stakeholders

Engagement has become the new buzzword for public relations, in both research and practice. And yet, despite its centrality and import for public relations, the concept still remains severely under-developed. Discussions have centered on engagement’s connection to the organizationpublic relationship and its role in facilitating and mediating relationship outcomes. Yet, two considerations of engagement have gone practically unconsidered: the sense of power and sense of stake of a public or stakeholder group in social media activities regarding an organization. This study examines social media engagement among employees and argues for a need to consider stake and relational connection as critical components.

1. What’s at stake? an analysis of employee social media engagement Despite the import of engagement in public relations research, there remains a limited understanding of the concept (Oh & Sundar, 2016) and of its use by, perhaps, the most important organization stakeholder—the employee. Social media provide a place where employees may post content about or for an organization, or may interact with employers and fellow employees. The knowledge of what factors contribute to employee social media engagement, as well as the consequences of such communicative endeavors, is still relatively scarce. And yet, employee social media content stands to add organizational legitimacy and credibility through the conversational human voice such content provides. There is a need to examine employees’ social media engagement directed toward their organizations, specifically because employees are in constant interaction with an organization’s external publics and stakeholders (Kim & Rhee, 2011). The purpose of this research is to explore employee engagement on social media from both theoretical and practical orientations. Whereas most research on employee engagement considers employees’ internal connection to their organization (Chiles & Zorn, 1995; Men, 2011), this research explores the external manifestation of their internal connection: social media engagement regarding the organization. Rather than take a broad approach to understanding employee social media engagement, this study examines two components of an employee’s online content generation—power and stake. Smith (2010) argued that social media behavior targeted at an organization is mitigated by one’s sense of power and the resources to enact that power, a concept he termed “social stake”. This study’s findings not only provide insight into the motives of social media use among employees for their respective employers, but also makes both practical and theoretical advances on the concept of social stake, and the influence of the stakeholder-organization relationship in the complex phenomenon known as engagement. Furthermore, though it was our intention to examine engagement as both employee–employee interactions and employee-company interactions on social media, most of the discussions centered on the latter form of engagement, indicating a centrality of the organization-employee connection in social media engagement.

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Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (B.G. Smith).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2017.04.010 Received 17 October 2016; Received in revised form 28 March 2017; Accepted 26 April 2017 0363-8111/ © 2017 Published by Elsevier Inc.

Please cite this article as: Smith, B.G., Public Relations Review (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2017.04.010

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1.1. Social media and the employee Social media are defined as the collective platforms that “facilitate the dissemination of content through social interaction between individuals, groups, and organizations using Internet and Web-based technologies to enable the transformation of broadcast monologues (one to many) into social dialogues (many to many)” (Botha & Mills, 2012; p. 85). Research on social media is extensive, and often examines the uses and gratifications of media to understand the motives of social media use (McCay-Peet & Quan-Haase, 2016; Pai & Arnott, 2013; Wang et al., 2012). Though few studies have considered the drivers of employee social media use regarding their organization or employer, generic drivers for the use of social media include social needs, psychological needs, entertainment needs, and the aesthetics and qualities of the social media interface. First, those who use social media commonly do so to increase relational connections, interact, and seek emotional support and belonging among like-minded individuals (Hargittai & Hsieh, 2010; Pai & Arnott, 2013; Smith & Gallicano, 2015). Research also underscores the personal psychological needs that drive social media use, including the self-esteem, selfpresentation, and self-expression needs (Leung, 2013), which often present themselves in identity creation behaviors like setting up and building a social media profile. Social media can also be used for distraction and other entertainment needs (Pai & Arnott, 2013; Wang et al., 2012) that may lead to the habitual use of social media (Smith & Gallicano, 2015). Finally, judgments about the ease of use and attributes of social media platforms (i.e. attraction to the platform) have also been identified as contributing factors of social media use, including a platform’s novelty and aesthetics (Oh & Sundar, 2016). 1.2. Social media and engagement Whereas social media use may be depicted in research as a premeditated activity, there is also a point in the progression of social media usage that goal-directed behavior gives way to absorption in the social media experience, a concept referred to as engagement. Despite the extent of research on social media, engagement has been underdeveloped as a concept. This is in part due to the tendency to refer to social media use and engagement interchangeably. Engagement has also been used synonymously with “attention, interactivity, and cognitive load because people need a means of operationalizing the concept” (O’Brien, 2016; p. 6). Still, “rigorous definitions of engagement are scarce” and agreement on what engagement entails is limited (Oh & Sundar, 2016; p. 179). Generally, engagement is an affective state that yields voluntary extra-role behaviors (Kang, 2014; p. 402). Some have described it as involvement or absorption with media, like Oh and Sundar (2016) who define it as “a point on the user involvement continuum marked by physical interactions with media and cognitive experience that lead to user absorption with content, finally cumulating as behavioral outcomes in the form of outreach” (p. 180). As such, engagement operates on a continuum from shallow to deep engagement, depending on the quality of the social media experience (O’Brien, 2016). Engagement differs from social media usage in that usage involves an evaluative feeling regarding content, while engagement comprises cognitive or emotional absorption that may or may not be part of every social media experience (O’Brien, 2016). Furthermore, engagement operates on a “continuum with many influences and outcomes, rather than being an all-or-nothing response to technology” (O’Brien, 2016; p. 14). Overall, engagement comprises absorption, experience, and a corresponding behavioral response. As a concept of absorption, engagement comprises a strong cognitive and emotional focus on media content (Oh & Sundar, 2016) and represents depth of investment in the human-computer interaction (O’Brien, 2016). When individuals are engaged in social media, they may feel inspired, committed, attached, or “affectively focused on media content” (Oh & Sundar, 2016; p. 178). Engagement has been compared with “the feeling of being lost in a story where all mental systems and capacities become focused on events in the narrative” (Oh & Sundar, 2016; p. 178). As a concept of experience, engagement involves attraction, curiosity, and interest toward a social media platform or interface. This attraction reflects a “state of playfulness” aroused by curiosity and intrinsic interest (Oh & Sundar, 2016). Engagement is “in the moment” and comprises ongoing reflections about the nature of the experience (O’Brien, 2016; p. 6). As such, engagement is experiential, and may be defined as a collection of experiences and beliefs about how the social media experience fits within one’s life (Calder, Malthouse, & Schaedel, 2009; Hollebeek, Glynn, & Brodie, 2014). Finally, behavior may be the most commonly considered component of engagement, and naturally so, as the “extra role behaviors” are particularly valuable for consideration in public relations and communication management. Engagement commonly spurs voluntary information-sharing behaviors (Oh & Sundar, 2016; p. 180). The quality of the social media experience leads users to interact with, create, and/or share content (McCay-Peet & Quan-Haase, 2016) which becomes a self-reinforcing activity whereby engagement becomes an ongoing phenomenon. Inasmuch as social media usage and engagement are not synonymous, and that the social media experience may not always be characterized by engagement, perhaps the critical point for researchers and practitioners is to ascertain what factors or phenomena move an individual from social media usage to engagement. As a process, some have compared engagement to Cziksentmihalyi’s concept of flow, whereby individuals become absorbed in an experience because of the pleasurable nature of the experience (Cziksentmihalyi, 1990 cited in O’Brien, 2016), though O’Brien (2016) argues that the complexity of positive and negative emotions distinguishes engagement from flow. Whereas negative emotions may derail flow (as a pleasurable experience), O’Brien (2016) suggests that people may “engage with things that induce discomfort or negative emotions” (p. 11), and that more exploration is needed on the role of “negative affect in user engagement” (p. 12). Still, engagement features flow’s continuity and state of immersion in which nothing else seems to matter (O’Brien, 2016). Research has suggested that factors that engage users, and keep them engaged, include curiosity and interest, novelty of the 2

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experience, ease of use and competence in media use, and contingency of interaction (or the expectation of response) (McCayPeet & Quan-Haase, 2016; Oh & Sundar, 2016). Presence, or the sense of “being there” in a social mediated-experience, is also considered a contributing factor to engaging social media users (McCay-Peet & Quan-Haase, 2016; Oh & Sundar, 2016). In fact, some have argued that the experience, itself, is what engages an individual. O’Brien (2016) argued that for social media activity to lead to engagement, the experience must be “characterized by the perceived usability and aesthetic appeal of the system, focused attention, novelty, felt involvement and endurability” (p. 3). The experience may also produce engagement if it is characterized by a “state of playfulness” and involves spontaneity, inventiveness, and imagination (p. 5–6). Message interactivity and expectation of a response is also a factor of an engaging experience (Oh & Sundar, 2016). 1.3. Social media engagement and the organization Generally, engagement is a function of experience, but engagement is also context specific (O’Brien, 2016). When considering social media engagement regarding one’s organization or employer, other factors may come into play. Yet, insight on employee social media engagement is underdeveloped. Studies that have examined it have primarily considered organization-centric themes, such as the benefits and constraints of social media usage at work (e.g., Leonardi et al., 2013), the impact of social media on internal communication (e.g., Huang, Baptista, & Galliers, 2013), and the use of social media as opposed to other internal communication channels (e.g., Friedl & Tkalac, 2011). Not surprisingly, given the relevance and importance of engagement in recent years, more researchers have become interested in cognitive and emotional aspects of communicative actions on social media among employees (e.g., Krishna & Kim, 2015). And yet, there remains a noticeable blind spot on employee use of social media in favor or even against the organization, as “virtually all studies describe how organizations work to engage publics” (Taylor & Kent, 2014; p. 386), this study seeks to fill the gap and examine employee social media use regarding an organization. One particular area of development for employee social media engagement is empowerment, which has been considered central to engagement (Kang, 2014). Empowerment—or sense of capacity for influence (French & Raven, 1968)—is born in the way social media “widen the range of people receiving messages and ultimately, increase the power they wield in confronting organizations” (Valentini et al., 2012). Social media use tends to facilitate a “sense of agency” and may even polarize users, leading to increased potential for involvement in criticism and change efforts (Fieseler & Fleck, 2013; Miller & Brunner, 2008; Stavrositu & Sundar, 2012). At least one study has already shown that social media empower public relations practitioners within their organizations (Smith & Place, 2013), but more research is needed to consider how this empowerment plays into employees’ social media engagement regarding their respective organizations. Another factor underlying social media engagement for employees is their connection with their organizations. Studies have already demonstrated that employees who engage with organizational social media feel “more empowered in the relationship” and “perceive better relationships with their organizations” (Men & Tsai, 2014; pp. 427–429), and other research has considered engagement as “the ultimate marker or maker of a good organization-public relationship,” rendering engagement a mediator between a relationship and the supportive behavioral outcomes of that relationship (Kang, 2014). In fact, Taylor and Kent (2014) argued that engagement comprises the “commitment to productive and mutually beneficial interaction” and necessary for organization-public interaction (p. 390). Connecting engagement to the organization-employee relationship renders social media use as a resource in the relationship. Relationship resources are also known as stakes, which constitute the tangible and intangible contributions that a group (in this case employees) may offer or seek in a relationship (Smith, 2012). In the context of social media, relational stakes may include what employees offer to the relationship, like social capital and network connections (Taylor & Kent, 2014), but also the risks of public connection with or discussion about an organization (Smith, 2010). In fact, the resources and risks of participating in social media have been referred to jointly as social stake (Smith, 2010), which in this case may involve the way an employee’s social media both contributes to the organization and puts the employee at risk. Social stake may be evidenced in public expression of organizational loyalty or even an effort to gain power within the organization. In many cases, employee social media engagement is considered a form of distributed communication whereby promotional messages proceed from non-promotional entities within an organization (Smith, 2010). 1.4. Why employee social media engagement? The development of the concept of social media engagement hinges on understanding the factors that drive engagement, as well as the tangible and intangible outcomes (O’Brien, 2016). The persuasive potential of messages distributed through social media (Oh & Sundar, 2016) coupled with the centrality of the employee as an important stakeholder for an organization renders the need to understand employee social media engagement critical. This study considers employee social media engagement both generally, and specifically, investigating employee empowerment and social stake in engagement. Therefore, the following research questions guided this study: RQ1: How do employees consider their power in their social media engagement experience regarding their organizations? RQ2: How do employees consider their stake (or investment) in their social media engagement experience regarding their organizations? 2. Method This study uses in-depth qualitative interviews to study employee social media engagement regarding their employers. Given the 3

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Table 1 Interview Participants. Respondent ID

Gender

Position

Industry

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

F F F M M F F M M F F F F F F

General Manager University communicator Researcher Purchaser Accountant Director, Office of Communications Faculty Project Manager Faculty Program Manager Middle Grade Officer Senior Account Executive Graphic Designer PR Coordinator Marketing Manager

Fast Food University Consumer Goods Consumer Goods Consumer Goods University Community College Technology Consulting Community College Community College Defense Public Relations Agency Fast Food Hospital System Fast Food

complexity of emotional and cognitive aspects of social media engagement that highly affect and/or are highly affected by the perceived relationship that employees have with their employers (Smith & Gallicano, 2015), such qualitative approach to studying employee social media engaged allowed us to gain deeper understanding and meanings of how and why employees communicate about their organization via social media. We interviewed 15 employees of various organizations in the United States who consider themselves as being active on social media and/or share general interest in social media use. We used a purposive sampling technique and reached out to our professional networks to recruit our participants. Participants (20–50 years old) held various positions within their respective organizations (public relations, management, finance, operations, administration, etc.) in distinct industry sectors (military, education, fast food industry, consulting, etc.). We recruited employees who were not explicitly in charge of social media for their organizations, though we did interview one participant designated as a social media team member to provide depth to the findings. We specifically recruited participants who had posted social media content about or with their organization, rather than those who had not, in order to get perspectives reflecting, specifically, the social media engagement experience. Among participants there were 11 females and four males. The average time that participants spent with their organization varied from one to 11 years. For confidentiality, we assigned each interviewee with a number between 1 and 15. The information for each participant is outlined in Table 1. Interviews lasted between 45–60 min on average, and were based on a flexible interview guide (Appendix A). We asked questions such as: Why do you communicate about your organization on social media? What risks do your associate with social media engagement regarding your organization on social media? How much influence do you think you have on your organization through social media? All interviews were audio-recorded and later transcribed. Data collection was considered complete when no new themes emerged from interviews and researchers were confident they had reached data saturation. To analyze the data, we created a coding list based on our literature review and previous research on this topic. Power was analyzed based on principles outlined by French and Raven (1968), and which has been validated and utilized in several studies, including recent studies in public relations (Smith & Place, 2013; Smith et al., 2015). Stake was open-coded based on stake as a tangible or intangible resource that an individual, group or entity may contribute to an organization-public relationship (Smith, 2012). All codes are listed in Table 2. To account for intercoder subjectivity and seek reliability, all authors test-coded one transcript and met to discuss the analysis based on the coding scheme outlined above. Once we came to an agreement on analysis and determined our coding was aligned, two of the authors coded the remaining transcripts. As an added effort to ensure intercoder reliability, all coding was conducted via Google Docs, where all authors had access to review the coding. The validity of this study follows Kvale’s (1995) three concepts of validity: craftsmanship validity (through a flexible interview guide), communicative validity (by establishing claims through discourse), and pragmatic validity (through the applicability of

Table 2 Coding categories. RQ 1: Power

RQ 2: Stake (Grounded Codes)

Coercive Reward Expertise Legitimate Referent Persuasion

Internal External Organizational Risk Social Risk Personal Risk

4

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findings to communication practice). Reliability between this study’s authors was sought by using the same interview guide (each author conducted interviews), which authors developed together prior to the study. Throughout the study, authors also discussed findings to ensure interviews were consistent. 2.1. Findings Engagement in this study seemed to revolve around both personal and professional social media needs. In many cases, engagement blurred the boundaries between personal and professional life. In fact, much of the discussions centered on the ways interviewees interacted with or about their organization, with minimal discussions about employee-to-employee interactions. For many interviewees, social media engagement centered on pulling back the curtain on the workplace experience and fulfilling professional and organizational objectives. Though social media remained primarily a personal outlet, engagement commonly involved sending messages on behalf of participants’ organizations, and the sentiment that the organization was watching. Participants were particularly cognizant of their online presence, and just how much they shared about themselves and the organization. Challenge within the engagement experience was marked by establishing balance between personal and organizational content. As one interviewee said, “I try not to advocate or post too much on my company because I want to keep those very separate lives.” 2.2. Social media engagement and power Our findings also showed that participants did not typically associate their sense of power on social media in regard to their ability to force (coercive power), persuade (persuasive power) or their ability to give awards (reward power). Rather, we saw that participants’ consideration of power often related to how they saw their ability to influence or impact others through their social media engagement. For example, one of the participants shared: “I want my enthusiasm to show through, but I also want people to join me in feeling kind of the same way I was feeling. So, if I was posting ‘Hey, register for the golf tournament’ it’s because I’m excited for the golf tournament and I want everyone to register and sign up. So, it’s not just sharing it to share it, it’s garnering some sort of action” (Interviewee 2). Such influence or impact was commonly seen in the way participants referred to their expertise and knowledge (expertise power), title or position within the organization (legitimate power), or group affiliation (referent power). A participant working in public relations industry admitted having “a pretty decent influence” over her organization via social media, evidenced through the organization’s attention to her social media content in the form of retweeting and liking her content. She said she enjoyed the “boosts of impressions” from the retweet, and “the fun to see that [the organization] knew I posted something about them” (Interview 12). Another participant defined her influence in the reach and attention her message earned around her department, and its effect on changing an organizational decision. “I think I had five people in our liberal arts department stop me. I was just surprised how fast it travelled. Then, ironically, a day later our Chancellor wrote an email going back through [her comment]. And even though our Vice Chancellor had said, ‘This is the way it is going to be done, she came back and [changed her mind]. So, I guess [my post] did accomplish what we wanted” (Interviewee 7). At the same time, however, some of the participants admitted that their power was limited or that they had no power at all. For instance, one said: “I don’t think that much of what I say does anything other than support other individuals which is still prominent” (Interviewee 9). Another participant shared: “I don’t know. I think the point is I don’t want to use [social media] as a method to influence people because I don’t think particular in the military, it should not be used for influence” (Interviewee 11). This indicates not only that employees were concerned with their social media-based influence, but that other factors (such as their position, the type of organization they worked for, sensitivity of the information they shared about their employer, etc.) influenced their social media engagement as well. In addition, our findings showed that participants’ sense of power was often associated with their status as a social media user, allowing them to see from outside of organizational limits. For example, one participant shared his satisfaction with the ability to see both sides of the organization through social media: “I definitely check social media for what’s going on with [my company] in terms of how everyone else sees us. So, I’m more of a user in terms of I get notifications. Last week there was an article about [our product] in a lawsuit and I saw it through the consumers’ side versus ours” (Interviewee 5). 2.3. Social media engagement and employee stake Sense of personal investment and risk underscored much of the discussions about social media use for participants. Above all, participants strived to remain genuine and authentic when communicating about their employers, which meant a difficult balance of investing personal attention, organizational loyalty, and mindfulness of their friends, family, and social media connections. 2.3.1. Personal investment One of the dominant themes of discussions was the tendency for participants to consider any social media output about their organizations as a reflection of their persona on social media. Participants were highly aware of their personal connection with their employers, so much so that their engagement on social media was a struggle to rationalize the authenticity of the content they posted about their companies and maintaining an online persona that reflected who they were outside of work. Being genuine was commonly mentioned in interviews, and participants attributed the authenticity of talking about their employers on social media to being “proud of what I do” and the notion that “my company is my life” (Interviewee 1) and “it’s not just a job” (Interviewee 15) 5

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because “who you are in person and who you are on social media needs to be consistent” (Interviewee 6). This meant that it was important to show that they were enjoying their jobs. One participant said, “If I make a post on social media, it’s not to help [my company], it’s to show a glimpse of my life and what it means to me” (Interviewee 15). Many were proud to say that their jobs and their employers were central to who they were, or as Interviewee 10 put it “I communicate about [my employer] on social media because it’s an integral aspect of my identity.” As such, many participants considered both the personal and professional ramifications of social media engagement regarding their companies, often tempering their comments so as not to damage the company’s reputation or their own. Those for whom engagement rendered social media a “venting station” (like Interviewee 7), would take measures to ensure privacy or anonymity in social media venting. Still, the effort to “walk the line between the personal and the professional” (Interviewee 6) and “distinguish the two” (Interviewee 12) was a challenge, primarily because of sense of continuous connectivity and presence underscoring their social media engagement. One participant called the tendency to find and post things about the company “subconscious” and struggled to “take off the [company] hat” on social media as she admitted constantly looking for ways to promote her company even when “scrolling social media for personal stuff” (Interviewee 15). Others bemoaned the need to be connected to social media non-stop for their organizations. One participant complained that she was “more glued to social media for work,” and, as a result, admitted that she had little interest in social media engagement outside of work (Interviewee 13). Another said, “It almost came to a breaking point for me of being so overwhelmed and overworked that made me realize I’ve got to disconnect” (Interviewee 1). Despite difficulties, the desire to maintain some level of personal separation from the organization was a constant among participants. Some posted disclaimers in their online profiles that their views were their own while others said they tried to limit their association with their companies online, separating themselves from colleagues who have no problem latching onto their companies as part of their identity. One participant put it succinctly: “I am me. I am not [my company]. I do not want to be attached to that” (Interviewee 15). She went on to explain: “It is extremely important to have a work life and a non-work life. Right now, I don’t seem to have one, which is not good. It’s not healthy, but I think it is extremely important to have separate ones...I define [myself], and I don’t want other outside sources defining me, and if I attach myself too much to those outside sources, then they are my identity…but it has to come from within me.” 2.3.2. Social network mindfulness The social media engagement experience was underscored by a concern for one’s relationships and social networks, with many weighing their engagement on social media against their own priorities in both building and maintaining their relationships. Principal among their considerations was the sense of respect for those in their network, which usually included both personal and professional connections. Many participants discussed their sense of mindfulness, defined by Interviewee 6 as being “mindful of the fact that [content] needs to be appropriate” for her connections. Others admitted holding back on what they share on their social networks because not everyone would agree with the content they posted. One participant admitted, “I would not want to jeopardize any of my relationships [at work] by posting something that either was not allowed or not positive. Even if I got in an argument with my boss, I would never put that in a public forum because I don’t think that is the right thing to do” (Interviewee 11). Another summarized the way she was mindful of her network in the following way: “I always think about my whole audience.” Still, few considered it an affront to their relationships to promote their companies on social media, often justifying the promotion as part of their identity. Interviewee 13 said she posts promotional content for her company on her social media profiles because “it’s a big part of my life and I’m not going to hide that part of my life just because I don’t want to annoy people.” However, she did add that she tries to find a “good balance” between posting personal and the promotional content because, in her words, “I don’t want to turn my personal account into just another [company] board because I feel like my followers will become fed up with it.” She summarized, “If they want to follow [my company] they’ll follow [my company]. They’re following me because they want to learn about me not just about my company.” Still, for many of the participants in this study, engagement regarding their companies was more natural than it was contrived. One participant explained that without even thinking, she connects opportunities to promote her company with needs from her social group: “If I see an opportunity to [promote the company] then my brain instantly wants to connect them...It’s never my intention. If I am a part of a conversation, I think ‘Oh, [my company] could help out with that! My only worry is that they will get annoyed and feel like I am just an ad pusher, but it never sounds like an ad. It is just me talking about [my company]’ (Interviewee 15). Another explained, “I’m posting because I care about what is happening with [my organization] and I want the rest of my network to see what’s happening as well as know that I care about what is happening” (Interviewee 2). Other reasons for being unconcerned about posting company content online included the sentiment that their “social media mirrors real life” (Interviewee 10) so it’s justified, and even that their relational connections don’t care, or as Interviewee 3 put it, “I don’t think they have much stake in me.” Those who were against sharing company content with their social networks were also generally reserved about sharing much about their personal lives with or about coworkers. One participant explained, “There aren’t that many things that I want to say about my company publically. There is a total of one person from my firm that I am friends with on Facebook. Several other people from my workplace have extended a friend request to me on Facebook, which I did not respond affirmatively to because I don’t want to have my work cohort knowing as much about me as what I make available on Facebook” (Interviewee 8). 2.3.3. Organizational loyalty Communicating about one’s company online is also a function of the stake participants have in their organization’s success and in their relationship with the organization. Not surprisingly, participants cited the strength of their connection with and loyalty to their respective organizations. For many, sharing content on social media was a reflection of that relationship, or as interviewee 12 said, “If 6

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I didn’t like my organization as much, I wouldn’t be as inclined to share content about it, but because I do, I’m invested. So, I want to let other people know the things we have going on because it’s a positive relationship...I think if you don’t have a good relationship with your organization, you might be more inclined to just be mute about your organization on social media platforms.” Those who felt particularly connected with their organizations described their roles on social media as ambassadors. Interviewee 2 said, “I’m an advocate for the organization. I’m putting out there something and it’s hopefully bringing in more money because of people like me.” She described her social media behavior as “paying it forward” because the organization was more than a job for her, but, as she said, “a place that I believe in, a place that I became a donor to, a place that gave me a lot of good experiences and relationships.” Part of that responsibility to advocate for the organization was to show social networks what it’s like to work for the company, or as Interviewee 3 said he thought his content showed people he’s friends with or who might be interested in working for the organization “what it looks like to be a [company] employee.” The natural corollary to this tendency to present the organization in a positive light on social media is that participants did so to improve their position at their companies, or for career prospects. Whether this was the case with participants in this study was not blatantly obvious. In fact, when asked if they posted on social media to get a leg up in their companies, the common response was, “no.” Rather, one interviewee said, “It [posting about the company online] was very organic in nature” (Interviewee 2), and another said, “I don’t want to say it was to ‘get a leg up,’ but if I am going to be doing my job the best I can, then I would be doing this [posting on social media], and it’s very important for me to do my job the very best I can” (Interviewee 15). The other natural corollary to the tendency for individuals to post about their organizations online is that they feel pressured to do so, in spite of declarations of relational commitment. Interviews suggest a blurry line between organizational pressure and participants’ use of social media on their own accord. One participant said, “It wasn’t like ‘Here’s the things we want you to do with social media.’ It was, ‘Ok, how can you enhance your role and be better at your job by using social media?”' (Interviewee 2). Others called it “a push” to tag their organizations in their posts. One participant said, “They try and make you share different things, but this is more at trainings and events rather than a typical day” (Interviewee 3). Perhaps the extreme answer came from a participant at a large organization who said that his organization requested that any social media posts about the organization would also include a special hashtag marking the content as employee-generated to separate it from other consumer generated content. The risks of social media use were also illustrative of participants’ sense of stake, and included hurting the company’s business and even putting one’s job at risk. Sense of risk was one of the oft-cited reasons that participants said they would never post content that would make the organization look bad. One admitted, “I would never post something that my employer would then see and be able to use negatively towards me” (Interviewee 11), and another cited a cautionary tale passed around the organization that makes him: “You know, we’ve seen a lot of cases of people getting fired [for social media posts], so I think there’s definitely that fear to not post negative things about the organization” (Interviewee 12). In perhaps the most extreme case, one interviewee said she felt so loyal to the organization that she preferred not to share anything online. “My priority is to the organization and not communicating on social media...I would always do what is best for my relationship to the organization. I feel more loyal to my organization than I do to publicly sharing information” (Interviewee 11). Ultimately, though participants attributed their social media activity to the stake they had in their relationship with the organization. In fact, those who felt aligned with the organization’s mission said they felt no risk in communicating about their organizations online. For example, a program director for a university said, “I felt comfortable sharing about [my college] because I know how we want the college to be portrayed broadly. I’m confident that the stories I’m sharing are in line with the image the college wants to portray. That isn’t to say I’m making a strategic effort to support that image, but I feel like I’m well-informed about the college itself to be able to be a voice for it.” 3. Discussion The purpose of this study was to examine employee social media engagement regarding their organizations, and the sense of power and investment (or stake) involved. What we discovered was a complicated interaction between social media engagement, and the employee-organization relationship. Findings demonstrate how engagement is an outcome of an extant employee-organization relationship, and the ways sense of power and stake might mediate engagement behaviors. Moreover, findings suggest the need to differentiate between social media engagement and employee engagement. 3.1. Engagement Our principle objective was to understand engagement, and its motives and drivers. What we discovered, similar to what other studies will likely discover, is that engagement is difficult to define and track because it is a state of mind. Defining it through afterthe-fact discussion makes it difficult to get the range of cognitive and emotional experiences that occur to make engagement a “cognitive experience that leads to user absorption with content” (Oh & Sundar, 2016, p. 180). Instead, researchers may get motives for going online or behaviors after being online, neither of which necessarily gets at the deeper considerations of flow and absorption characteristic of the concept of engagement. In essence, what most studies report on is activity or behavior, rather than engagement. When discussing social media engagement, studies are often actually examining social media usage rather than sense of engagement that proceeds from usage. So, the question becomes, how do we evaluate engagement using participant reflections on their experience, especially when participants are likely more adept at talking about social media activities rather than engagement? Though this study reports participants’ communicative behaviors, responses provide clues about the absorption, experience, and behavioral response that 7

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comprise engagement. Though much of the discussion reflected employees’ behavioral response in the form of a social media post about their employer, their responses also reflected sense of absorption (e.g. in the form of the need for continuous connection) and the attributes of the engaging experience. Responses like “my brain instantly wants to connect” and being “glued to social media” connote the sense of absorption that follows engagement. Sense of reinforcement from satisfying social media activities leading to increased social media usage also connote engagement, driven by the qualities and attributes of the experience. Interestingly, this study also confirmed the need for both control and challenge as attributes of the social media engagement experience, as working through risks and difficult interactions seemed to underscore the extent of employees’ engagement in social media. Results from this study also suggest an important distinction: not all engagement is the same. When we discuss engagement in communication research, we rarely classify type or even level of engagement. This study exhibits two types of engagement, social media engagement and organizational or employee engagement. Though the two may exhibit similar characteristics (i.e. absorption, commitment, flow, etc. (Oh & Sundar, 2016; O’Brien, 2016; McCay-Peet & Quan-Haase, 2016)), the distinction lies in the target of engagement, or the engagement point. And that point differs for each of the two contexts in this study. When considering engagement in social media, the point of engagement is two-fold: the social media content and social network connections. The entry point into the immersive, continuous and self-reinforcing use of social media that is characteristic of engagement, rather than just use, is the fulfilling experience with the content or the interaction with social connections. Or, at least, this was the case for the current study. Participants directed their online activity at interacting with and expanding networks, while exhibiting behaviors toward information gathering and distribution that other studies on social media engagement have similarly discovered (Pai & Arnott, 2013; Wang et al., 2012; Smith & Gallicano, 2015; Smith, Men, & Al-Sinan, 2015). For organization-based engagement, or what we may term employee engagement, the engagement point was squarely on the organization-employee relationship. Factors underlying social media use (which in this case would be considered the outcome of engagement) in this study included loyalty to and desired position or standing within the organization. Participants cited commitment, fondness, and even the centrality of the organization within their lives as factors that determined their organization-based social media commentary and involvement. Therefore, rather than discuss engagement generally, we will consider the specific context of social media engagement and the stakeholder-organization relationship because our sample for this study—employees—are often considered a critical stakeholder group for their explicit connection (and stake) in the organization. 3.2. Engagement in stakeholder-organization relationships In public relations literature, engagement is invariably connected to the stakeholder- or public-organization relationship as a mediator of that relationship (Taylor & Kent, 2014) or of its outcomes (Kang, 2014). And yet, the central components of a relationship have received insufficient attention in research, including empowerment and stake. Smith (2012) argued in line with Broom, Casey and Ritchie (1997) that a stakeholder-organization relationship, or any relationship for that matter, revolves not around sense of favorability between two actors, but around the interests that connect the actors, and each actor’s stakes and sense of empowerment around that interest or issue. Whereas power has been listed as a central concept in engagement (Kang, 2014), stake, or sense of investment has received less consideration, with the exception of a study by one of this study’s authors which presented the concept of social stake in social media usage (Smith, 2010). 3.2.1. Engagement and power The principle assumption may be that engagement imbues power. The public nature of social media stands to grant its users with power through visibility, reach, and media access. However, in this study, we saw only limited views of power, perhaps tempered by their extant position or power within the organization. Therefore, the engagement experience on social media, in this case, did not seem to increase employee power, at least in the areas of reward, persuasion, or coercion. Rather, their power was borne in employees’ positions within the organization, their expertise and knowledge of the content that they are willing to or do share via social media, and in their networks. In each case, sense of risk and control were critical to power, seemingly mediating sense of power. Therefore, we argue that questions of how employees consider their power and their stake in using social media to communicate about their organizations cannot be studied without a closer look at employees’ reflections of risk and control that they associate with such social media activities. In fact, power and social media engagement interacted around how employees in this study experienced their day-to-day work and ongoing relationships with their organizations, including the structures and power relations that are embedded in such relationships, consistent with previous research (Calder et al., 2009; Hollebeek et al., 2014). 3.2.2. Engagement and stake We argue that risk, as a concept, is central to the consideration of stake in social media engagement, which invariably ties stake to power. This may be natural, as one’s sense of power hinges on the stakes she or he possesses in a relationship, not the least of which is risk. Participants’ perceived risk that they associated with their social media use to communicate about their organizations varies. Based on our findings, we see two broad categories or types of risk that may play role in how and why employees use social media in this specific context: internal and external. While internal risk refers here to (potentially negative) consequences that may affect individual employees themselves (commonly, in regard to job loss or bad personal image), we see external risk as (potentially negative) consequences that participants associated with their organization (and organizational network). Importantly, the ways our participants understand risk was not directly linked to social media communication or platform as such, but how they experience (or might experience) how the social media activities affect (or might affect) their work-life (which is similar to 8

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positions expressed by Calder et al., 2009 and Hollebeek et al., 2014), including the relationships they have with other organizational members. Indeed, our findings indicate that questions of how and why employees communicate via social media about their organization should not be studied in isolation from conversations that occur in their day-to-day work life, for instance, when they communicate with their co-workers or leadership. Several participants discussed that what they share about their organization on social media may affect (positively, negatively) their communication and relationships they have with the organization. To add more, several participants noted that what they were ready or willing to communicate on social media was what they would be ready to share with their organization in person as well. This seemed to be the case even in instances when a couple of participants used social media as a “safe place” to share their critiques and negative feelings about their organization, which may suggest that there is, generally speaking, great perceived risk associated with the use of social media to communicate about their employer among our participants. Interestingly, risk among friends, colleagues, and other members of participants’ networks was not a significant external risk in interviews. Though some expressed concern about annoying friends with promotional content about the organization, most dismissed the notion because of the centrality of their job in their personal lives. The predominance of the sentiment that “my job is part of who I am” to explain why friends should welcome promotional communication on social media is proof positive of the relative lack of concern about social network risk among participants. This finding has significant implications for what has been termed “social stake” (Smith, 2010). Examining social media use within a crisis, Smith (2010) argued that one of the principle risks under consideration when communicating on social media was the effect of that content on social networks, thus individuals place social stake in their social media usage. To further the connection between stake and empowerment, Smith (2010) also argued that stake may be empowering, as the size of one’s network–and strength of position in that network—might grant an individual power. This study’s finding that social stake was neither a significant risk nor an empowering raises questions about the importance of social stake and, more broadly, one’s social media network. Whereas it is difficult to imagine that social connection is not a factor in social media use—indeed this finding could be an anomaly of this study’s context or specific sample-base—we may find it illuminating to turn to an alternate position. It is possible that participants’ responses in this study may be attributed to the relative strength of their connection with their company vs. the strength of connection with their online social networks. Indeed, findings regarding stake in this study may be a function of the priority of the stakeholder-organization relationship. In fact, most of the interviewees in this study expressed a positive relationship with their respective employer organizations. While this is recognizably a limit to this study—we did not sample for organizational favorability in this study, other studies that do might uncover different findings—it is also a point that further validates the notion that engagement is a function of the stakeholder-organization relationship (Kang, 2014; Taylor & Kent). Future research should examine the phenomenon of engagement, including sense of power and stake, among employees who are unfavorable to their organizations to see how power and stake interact toward social media use.

3.3. Practical implications The lesson here is fairly straight-forward: rewarding relationships spawn engagement, particularly in an open-communicative structure, whereby social media-based interaction within and without the organization is encouraged and facilitated. Participants in this study considered their social media activities in favor of the organization based on the relational strength (or desired relational strength) with their organizations. This suggests two particular applications for public relations. First, managers should support a communicative environment. Second, social media grant public relations a clear role in the realm of internal communication, human resources, and, more broadly, organizational communication. In many organizations, public relations professionals are already involved in internal communications, but this study suggests explicit consideration of the employee-organization relationship in instilling social media engagement. One additional area of internal communication that may be relevant to public relations is work-life balance. The extent to which participants in this study shared concerns about the time and attention required by their employers (and by the nature of social media use, itself) suggests that work-life balance is a major issue for employees in their social media use about their organizations.

4. Conclusion & future research As engagement becomes an increasingly central concept for public relations, professionals and academics, alike, should seek greater understanding of how and why employees use social media on behalf of their organizations. Engagement should be considered beyond the behavioral considerations that dominate academic and trade literature—as general social media activity—but should be examined as a complex psychological process involving sense of empowerment and stake, among others. More directly observable empirical methods (i.e. experiments) may add to the insight revealed in this study. Furthermore, future research should delve deeper into the concept of social stake as an individual’s sense of risk (internal, external) and network empowerment as a factor in social media engagement (Smith, 2010). Other factors such as age, profession, culture, industry, and social media channels, to name a few, could be explored in the future to get a better insight into how employees engage on social media across different contexts (e.g., Men & Tsai, 2014). Finally, future research should consider the opinions of those who do not use social media about their employer to ascertain other possible challenges and obstacles to employee social media usage

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Appendix A Social Stake in the Workplace In-depth Interview Guide 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

How long have you been at this organization? Why did you decide to work here? What do you do here? What is your role? What do you like about your job? Is there anything you would change about your job?

Subject 1: Employee Social Media Activities Regarding Organization Today, I’d like to talk a little bit about how you communicate about or with your organization on social media. When I say social media, I’m referring to any online media, including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, SnapChat, or any other online content distribution platform. I am not referring to email. Though we will be talking specifically about your role here at the organization, I will not include your name or your company’s name in the final report. 1. First, what types of things do you like to do via social media? Which platforms do you use most? 2. What types of things do you do on social media regarding your role here at this organization? 3 How often do you communicate about your organization on social media? 4 What types of things do you say about your organization? 5 Why do you communicate about your organization on social media? 6. How much is social media communication about your organization required or encouraged as part of your job here? ▓▓a. When you communicate as part of your job, what types of things do you say/do online? 7. How much do you communicate about your organization on your own (without being encouraged/asked to do it)? ▓▓a. When you communicate on your own, what types of things do you say/do online? Subject 2: Social Stake: Social Risks and Social Empowerment 8 What are the risks you face when communicating about your organization on social media? 9 What things do you do to overcome the risk of communicating on social media? 10. What types of things would you not say about your organization, but would like to on social media? Why? 11. Is there anything that holds you back from communicating what you want to about the organization? 12. What kind of impact do you think your communications on social media have on your job? 13. How do you take into consideration these things when communicating about your organization? 14. What kind of impact do you think your communications have on your social network connections? 15. How do you take into consideration your network when communicating about your organization? 16. What do you hope to accomplish with your posts about your organization on social media? 17. What type of effect do you hope to have on the organization? 18. What type of effect do you hope to have on your friends and social connections? 19. How much influence do you have on your organization through your social media activities? Why? 20. How much influence do you have on your social network through your social media activities? Why? 21. What things do you do to gain empowerment or influence using social media? 22. How empowered or influential do you think you are through social media? Why? 23. (STAKES) What types of things do you depend on from your organization? Besides salary? How do you communicate those things on social media? 24. (STAKES) What types of things do you think the organization depends on from you? Besides hard work at the organization? How do you communicate those things on social media? 25. Overall, what is your stake in your organization? Subject 3: Employee Organization Relationship I’d like to conclude by talking about the relationship you have with your organization. 26. How would you describe your connection to your organization? ▓▓a. What type of relationship do you have with your organization? Would you say it is a good or bad relationship? Why? 27. How does your relationship with your organization influence your social media activities about the organization? 28. How do you think your social media activities influence your relationship with your organization? 29. What type of Thank you for your answers. Is there anything about your social media usage about and/or for your organization that we haven’t discussed? Thank you for your time. References Botha, E., & Mills, A. J. (2012). Managing the new media: Tools for brand management in social media. In A. Close (Ed.), Online consumer behavior: Theory and research in social media, advertising and E-tail (pp. 83–100). New York: Taylor & Francis.

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