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Over the past decade, the rapid evolution of social media has impacted the field of human resource management in numerous ways. In response, scholars and practitioners have sought to begin an investigation of the myriad of ways that social media impacts organizations. To date, research evidence on a range of HR-related topics are just beginning to emerge, but are scattered across a range of diverse literatures. The principal aim of this chapter is to review the current literature on the study of social media in HRM and to integrate these disparate emerging literatures. During our review, we discuss the existent research, describe the theoretical foundations of such work, and summarize key research findings and themes into a coherent social media framework relevant to HRM. Finally, we offer recommendations for future work that can enhance knowledge of social media’s impact in organizations.

HR professionals have identified the power of information sharing for employer branding that could be obtained through the rapid growth of social media usage. The growing interest in and power of social media seem to be important for companies that want to make themselves known as interesting employers and to recruit prospective employees, using techniques that are more common to job seekers and recruiters. This study aims to explore the immediate future of employer branding through social media, as envisioned by academics and HR practitioners.

To look into the future of employer branding, we use the Delphi technique for forecasting, planning, issue identification, and framework development (Bobeva & Day, 2002). Two groups of respondents participated in this three-part study: 11 academics and 20 HR professionals. They were selected because of their research into the integration of HRM and IT from the e-HRM Global mailing list. The panelists participated in the research via electronic communication. The data were collected in three rounds from November 2010 to April 2011.

Research has revealed differences in the opinions of academics and HR professionals on the impact of social media on employer branding. The academics see its general effect as the targeting of audience for recruitment, marketing/company brand, and ways of communication/HR competencies. The practitioners see the image of the employer, visibility of the company, and organization responsiveness. The study presents other findings within the boundaries of employer branding value proposition, internal and external marketing, and the role of HR professionals. According to the academics, HR professionals in the future will need to possess knowledge about marketing and communication studies and web-based applications/develop new skills. They think that social media will impact the image of HR in organizations. On the other hand, HR professionals think that the future of their activities will depend on their awareness of recruitment trends, HR innovative thinking, and HR networking skills. Although the object of their activity will remain recruitment, HR professionals will have to be continuously updated on what is new in the social media in terms of recruitment.

This study presents the results of the Delphi technique, which is itself considered an original research method and not widely accepted in the tough “publish or perish” world. The value of the research is its forecast about the future developments of employer branding through social media, as envisioned by academics and HR practitioners.

This chapter examines the use of social media within organizations in order to engage with both current and potential future employees.

It is commonly claimed that social media technologies can help organizations to engage with both current and potential employees. This chapter examines these claims through an examination of the use of social media within two organizations: a UK television company and an international UK telecommunications company. Data was gathered from the company websites and via 34 semi-structured interviews.

The two case studies confirm that social media has promise with regard to facilitating the engagement of existing employees. However, the findings suggest also that the use of social media to engage employees will not be successful unless the culture and leadership of the organization already embraces open communication and participation.

The findings are limited in that they rely on two case studies and therefore might not be applicable to other organizations. Despite the limitations, this chapter has significant implications for organizations considering the adoption of social media as a means to improve employee engagement. It suggests that when adopting social media for organizations, the very first step should be to assess the organizational readiness with a focus on culture and people rather than on the technology itself. This is because managerial behaviors and styles are central to the level of engagement individuals feel with an organization. For the same reason leaders need to be trained to lead collaboratively, and to be able to understand the new social practices.

The chapter makes an important contribution to an extremely sparse literature on social media as a means for engaging with employees through the provision of rare empirical data and is therefore valuable both for managers and for HR scholars and practitioners.

This study looks at how local grassroots organizations as well as international Women Non-Governmental Organizations (WNGOs) and multilateral organizations such as the United Nations utilize social media to empower women in Jamaica and Brazil. The researchers also evaluate how issues of socio-economic background as well as social media infrastructure influence the selection of entities with which the respective WNGOS connect.

This study uses NodeXL, a social media research tool, to analyze the information found on WNGO social media pages such as Facebook and Twitter. The authors also use content analysis to make sense of the data on WNGO Facebook pages. The study specifically uses summative content analysis, a method that translates the frequency of occurrence of certain symbols into summary judgments and comparisons.

Social media usage by WNGOs in Jamaica and Brazil show striking similarities regarding who gets reached or are connected to the networks. The study reveals that women of lower socio-economic backgrounds in both cases are not being reached via social media. Further, the outcomes of the observed current social media communication patterns on WNGO social media sites suggest the occurrence of what the authors refer to as the “noticeboard” effect, wherein communication patterns are top-down, exclusive, and non-reciprocal in nature.

While social media offer less centralized ways of engaging in communication with local communities, inherent in social media infrastructure are issues of race, gender, and social class that affect how these communication platforms are used, potentially another dimension of the “Mathew Effect” in the context of social media usage for purposes of achieving national development objectives.

With the rise in internet penetration in both countries, WNGOs are increasingly incorporating social media into their communication strategies to accomplish development goals. This study is the first to compare both countries in this respect and so adds new insights to this area of the communication field.

The purpose of this paper is to present how organisations in South Africa are using social media. The paper further explores the value of social media to South African organisations and if it is important for an organisation to have a social media presence.

The study used quantitative research methods to answer the main research question and sub-questions.

The data collected revealed that most organisations in South Africa are using social media for free advertising, CRM and marketing. The popular social media sites used by these organisations are Facebook and Twitter, with LinkedIn increasing in popularity. The data further revealed that social media is important in organisations for relationship building, contact keeping advertising, marketing, attracting customers, brand management and information gathering.

The role of social media is changing, it was initially a marketing tool, but the findings revealed that majority of organisations are using social media for free advertising, CRM and marketing. Social media is an easy CRM tool that offers effective and efficient capabilities.

It is important to use integrate social media with the organisations processes to market and advertise new products, it is an instant and cost-saving way of communicating with customers, and helps in reaching and attracting new customers.

Social media is important for keeping contact and building relationships with customers, advertising and marketing, way to attract customers, brand management tool and gathering information.

The study provides guidance to how organisation can use social media, identifying the value of using social media and highlighting the importance of social media in an organisation in the South African context.

As social media technologies permeate public life, the current forms of collaboration between government and non-government stakeholders are changing. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how social media use reconfigures the organizing practices around such collaboration. A case study of a collaborative e-government project showcases how emergent organizing practices through external social media differ from existing ones along the dimensions of time, task, team and transition.

This paper presents a case study of a collaborative e-government project on open data, organized by Shanghai Municipality, local businesses, universities and non-governmental organizations, using an external social media platform, WeChat. Adopting the theoretical lens of temporary organization, the paper identifies the key aspects of change emerged in the organizing practices of this collaboration.

The findings outline how the use of external social media reconfigures the collaboration between government and non-government stakeholders along the four dimensions of time, task, team and transition. The new form of collaboration is reconfigured along the lines of (1) an ad hoc and non-linear management of time; (2) discursive task creation, assignment and engagement among stakeholders; (3) a serendipitous engagement of team members based on expertise; and (4) a shift in formal and informal organizing practices.

This paper provides insights on the use of external social media for collaboration in e-government research and develops the concept of temporary organization in a sociomaterial setting. It also provides practical suggestions on how to manage new forms of public projects leveraging on the capacity of external social media.

The rise of social media such as Facebook and Twitter has provided employees with means to share work-related information. Increasingly, social media governance policies are implemented to negotiate the risks and opportunities of such behaviors. The purpose of this paper is to unveil the motivations behind managers’ attempts to govern these behaviors.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten communication managers of various organizations. Higgins’ regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) was used to examine whether managers adopted a prevention or promotion focus to social media, and whether regulatory focus affected the measures taken toward social media governance.

Prevention and promotion foci were both observed among managers, and differed per communication model. Managers who employed dialogic models of communication were primarily promotion-focused and emphasized opportunities to improve stakeholder relations, while managers who employed one-way models were primarily prevention-focused and highlighted the risks of social media (e.g. the risk of employees publishing messages that contradict corporate communication and confuse stakeholders). Social media governance differed depending on regulatory focus. In the prevention scheme managers usually attempted to regain control by restricting social media to private use only, while in the promotion focus managers trained and facilitated employees for work-related social media use, to various extends.

By examining the interplay of regulatory focus, communication models and governance, this paper sheds light on the rationale behind social media governance policies that are implemented in organizations.

The purpose of this paper was to examine how small- and medium-sized hospitality organisations engage with social media and how social media data are used by their managers to inform business decisions.

A qualitative approach was used in this research in which interviews were conducted with top management, comprising the owners/directors and other key managers from small- and medium-sized organisations based in Penang, Malaysia. Fan and Gordon's (2014) categorisation of the social media data analysis process and Simon's (1995) concept of the interactive and diagnostic usage of data were used in the analysis of data.

The managers of small- and medium-sized hospitality organisations engage with social media for customer relationship management and the understanding of key main competitors. Social media is used to understand, build and manage relationships with current and potential customers; these activities are also linked to actions taken to protect a company's reputation. Even though, for the companies concerned, data gathering is still at the capture stage with no formal procedures and processes in place, the data are utilised in an interactive way to inform two areas’ major business decisions-making, i.e. those related to pricing and promotion and the strategic formulation and reorientation of the business.

The respondents of this study were mainly from smaller hospitality organisations. Hence, the insights gained are limited to the context of smaller hotels.

A significant number of social media studies within the hospitality sector have focussed on marketing aspects. This study explored the wider use of social media in the case of smaller hospitality organisations and how they compete and position themselves in the competitive hospitality industry.

Based on the system of value chain theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of social media usage on the performance and the entrepreneurial orientation of the organizations.

A total of 174 organizations responded to the survey.

The result of the study showed that social media usage has a very strong positive impact on organizations’ performance, in terms of cost reduction, improved customer relations, and enhanced information accessibility.

In the study, social media usage was categorized into three sub-constructs such as social media usage for marketing, social media usage for building customer relations, and social media usage for information search. This study investigated the usage of social media and its impact as a whole, considering all social media tools together. Finally, this study used a cross-sectional sample to collect data.

The result of the study benefits the managers to understand the various areas of organizational performance that can be improved by social media usage.

The study also provided evidence that social media usage has strong positive influences on enhancing the entrepreneurial orientation of the organizations.

This study provides a clearer idea on the real importance of social media and its benefits. This study demonstrated the various areas of organizational performance that can be improved through social media usage.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the drivers, practices, and outcomes of social media use in the management of organizational supply chain.

Online questionnaire survey was used to collect data from 285 organizations representing different industries in China. The data then were analyzed with structure equation modeling using SmartPLS.

The results indicate that key antecedents such as external pressures, internal readiness, expected benefits, strategic goals, and perceived risks influence organizational social media use, which subsequently impact organizational performance outcomes in operation and marketing as well as the satisfaction level of both internal and external constituents, such as customers, employees, partners, and suppliers.

The study obtained data about one organization from only one respondent and did not used random sampling.

This study provides insights on why and how companies should use social media for relationship building and business outcomes.

Drawing from the resources-based view, social networks, strategic choice theory, and technology organization and environment framework, a new social media utilization model for business outcome was established and testified using empirical data. This study is one of the first studies that adopts technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework of technology adoption theory to study organizational social media use. The findings in this study confirm the validity of the TOE framework for analyzing social media adoption and use in various organizations.