Social media technology management in College of Technology in Oman: An empirical analysis
Journal of International Education in Business
ISSN: 2046-469X
Article publication date: 6 November 2017
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the constructs – utilitarian, hedonic and social value on the perceptions of the full-time instructors related to their social media technology (SMT) management for learning and teaching practices at workplace.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey is used to gather the data from 180 instructors (full time) working at one of the colleges owned by the ministry of manpower, Oman. This paper uses reliability analysis to determine Cronbach’s α and analysis of variance for the empirical investigation of instructors’ perceptions on SMT management.
Findings
The analysis shows that 98 per cent of the instructors use SMTs at their workplace. Social influence is found more dominating than utilitarian and hedonic constructs in impacting on instructors’ intention for SMT use. Findings also claim that higher the use of SMT at workplace stronger the influence on learning and teaching practices of higher education instructors.
Practical implications
The findings of this study can be used as the recommendations for all the faculty members to use SMTs for their educational, learning and teaching practices. The administration can develop policies to motivate instructors to manage such technologies for professional and personal development to enhance learning and teaching environment at workplace.
Originality/value
This study is perhaps the leading attempt to use utilitarian, hedonic and social value perceptions of the instructors to investigate the management of SMTs in an academic culture and settings of the developing country in the Middle East (Oman).
Keywords
Acknowledgements
First, the authors would like to thank Dr Khalifa Zayid, Head of Sections and Research Coordinator – IT Department, for providing his sincere support during the course of this study. They are also grateful to the Head, IT Department Dr Rolando Lontok Jr, and other heads of the departments of business, engineering and ELC, for showing their sincere interest in getting the survey responses from the staff members of their respective departments. Finally, they would like to extend their thanks to all the instructors and colleagues for completing the surveys and providing genuine feedback during the pilot study. The study described in this paper did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Citation
Sharma, H. and Pillai, S.P. (2017), "Social media technology management in College of Technology in Oman: An empirical analysis", Journal of International Education in Business, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 147-163. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIEB-09-2016-0029
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited