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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.

It is widely established that many hiring managers view social networking websites (SNWs) such as LinkedIn and/or Facebook in the employment selection process, leading to the acceptance or rejection of job applicants. Due to the rapid evolution of social media, scientific study of SNWs has been substantially outpaced by organizational practice. This chapter focuses on a wide range of issues related to SNW screening relevant to research and practice.

The chapter: (1) reviews the current state of SNW screening practices, (2) describes a wide range of HR issues that should be considered such as privacy, discrimination, negligent hiring, validity, reliability, generalizability, impression management, applicant reactions, and utility, (3) draws connections to related issues already addressed by established employment selection methods to inform SNW screening, (4) discusses pros and cons of potential SNW screening approaches, and (5) provides a framework of best practices that should be incorporated into social network screening policies.

As an emerging employment selection approach, SNW screening demonstrates potential as a rich source of applicant information, but includes numerous legal and ethical issues. Further, these potential benefits and risks vary widely depending on the approaches used.

Provides HR practitioners with a wide range of information necessary to develop an effective social network screening policy, while making the case for academics to pursue research in this nascent area.

The increased popularity in using online social networks by recruiters has received much positive attention, particularly in the popular press. Using social network theory this paper aims to examine how the structure and governance mechanisms of these networks can assist this process. The authors ask: how do recruiters use online social networks to effectively attract and screen prospective job applicants?

The semi‐structured interview approach is used to gather data from 25 recruitment specialists.

The connector role is identified as a specific attraction mechanism recruiters use to create numerous weak ties, where some are so weak they barely constitute ties at all. The authors then identify branding, transparency and data specificity as three mechanisms recruiters use to strengthen these ties when performing the attracting and screening functions.

This is the first paper to analyse online recruitment, using social network theory, and hence it has important implications for both academic and practitioner audiences involved in recruitment.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the roles of social networks and intermediares in recruitment and as instruments to control the workforce in lower end urban labour markets in developing countries. The existing literature favours explanations where networks and middlemen are vehicles to disburse information about vacant jobs or screening mechanisms that improve worker‐job matches. Intermediaries may also enable employers to evade labour regulations. This paper highlights instead their roles as incentive providers or mechanisms that alleviate behavioural risks in work relations. A novel aspect of this approach is that behavioural risks on both sides of the work relation are considered.

After reviewing the literature, a simple agency model is introduced to suggest new ways to identify whether networks and middlemen alleviate incentive problems in labour relations.

Studies of disparities in labour market access and outcomes are usually anchored in ideas of discrimination. A key insight is that the access to and performance of urban labour markets depend critically on the specific “services” networks and intermediaries extend to workers and employers. This adds an important complication to the evaluation of opportunities for income diversification through rural‐urban migration. Under some circumstances, both “institutions” may give rise to strong and persistent exclusion that is likely to vary systematically across sectors of the urban economy. In other circumstances, access restrictions can be remedied through simple policy interventions.

This paper introduces a new and important dimension to the study of urban labour markets as level playing fields.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how HR professionals use social networking website information to evaluate applicants’ propensity to engage in counterproductive work behaviors and suitability for hire.

Using an experimental design, 354 HR professionals participated in a two-part study. In part 1, participants viewed a fictitious resume and rated the applicant’s likelihood to engage in counterproductive work behavior as well as likelihood of a hiring recommendation. In part 2, participants viewed a fictitious social networking website profile for the applicant and repeated the ratings from part 1. The authors analyzed their responses to determine the effect viewing a social network website (SNW) profile had on ratings of the applicant.

Unprofessional SNW information negatively affected ratings of applicants regardless of applicants’ qualifications, while professional SNW profile information failed to improve evaluations regardless of qualifications.

Anecdotal reports suggest that many employers use SNW information to eliminate job applicants from consideration despite an absence of empirical research that has examined how SNW content influences HR recruiters’ evaluation of job applicants. This study represents one of the first attempts to understand how HR professionals use such information in screening applicants. The findings suggest that unprofessional SNW profiles negatively influence recruiter evaluations while professional SNW profile content has little to no effect on evaluations.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the elements of a LinkedIn profile that hiring professionals focus on most, and then examine LinkedIn profiles in terms of these identified elements across different industries.

The methodology was comprised of two phases. In the first phase, researchers interviewed hiring professionals to determine their usage of LinkedIn. In the second phase, LinkedIn group member profiles from three industries – HR, sales/marketing and industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology – were compared on the 21 variables identified in Phase 1 (n=288).

χ2 and ANOVA tests showed significant differences with respect to ten of the LinkedIn variables in how people presented themselves across the three groups. There were also several gender differences found.

A general limitation was the use of a qualitative research approach. A limitation of Phase 1 was that only a small sample of New York City-based hiring professionals was interviewed. Perhaps a wider, more diverse sample would have yielded different variables. In terms of Phase 2, it is possible that just utilizing the second connections of the researchers limited the generalizability of findings.

User unwillingness to fully complete the LinkedIn profile suggests that it may not have replaced the traditional resume yet. Sales/marketing professionals were more likely than HR and I/O psychology professionals to complete multiple aspects of a LinkedIn profile. Women were also less likely than men to provide personal information on their profiles.

Most of the empirical research on social networking sites has focussed on Facebook, a non-professional site. This is, from the knowledge, the first study that systematically examined the manner in which people present themselves on LinkedIn – the most popular professional site used by applicants and recruiters worldwide.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model to understand how and when employees’ perceived privacy violations and procedural injustice interact to predict intent to leave in the context of the use of social networking sites (SNSs) monitoring.

This study was conducted in a field setting of Facebook to frame the hypotheses in a structural equation model with partial least squares-structural equation modeling. Variables were measured empirically by administering questionnaires to full-time employed Facebook users who had experienced SNS monitoring.

The results showed that when an employee believed that he/she had more ability to control his/her SNS information, he/she was less likely to perceive that his/her privacy had been invaded; and when an employee believed that the transparency of the SNS data collection process was higher, he or she was more likely to perceive procedural justice in SNS monitoring.

This research draws attention to the importance of intent to leave in the absence of perceived procedural justice under SNS monitoring, and the partial mediation of the perception of justice or injustice by perceived privacy violations.

For employers, the author recommends that employers come to know how to conduct SNS monitoring and data collection with limited risk of employee loss.

For employees, the author suggests that SNS users learn how to control their SNS information and make sure to check their privacy settings on the SNS that they use frequently.

This study provided an initial examination and bridged the gap between employer use of SNS monitoring and employee reactions by opening a mediating and moderating black box that has rarely been assessed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how simultaneous use of devices such as personal computers, tablets and smartphones impacts the sponsors that receive brand integration during the broadcasts. Advances in technology now allow fans to consume broadcasts of televised events almost anywhere via personal computers, tablets and smartphones. These devices are also frequently utilized as “second screens” to communicate with fellow consumers on social media, access additional content or otherwise multitask during televised consumption.

An initial study served to test the applicability of the theoretical framework of a dual coding theory in this new context, followed by a 3 × 2 between-subjects design utilized to advance understanding of the influence of second screens on brand awareness of the sponsors of televised events.

Results demonstrated that both brand recognition and recall were reduced by second screen activity across nearly all audio or visual consumption experiences. Further, while second screen use in an audiovisual setting did not interfere with consumers’ ability to recognize brands, indicating they were able to multitask and were not distracted, it inhibited their ability to recall brands from memory. This result provides evidence that second screen use may interfere with elaborative rehearsal and reduce cognitive capacity.

Given that marketers are investing more resources than ever to achieve brand integration during televised events, these findings suggest that brands face challenges in achieving a requisite return on their investments.

This study represents the first empirical investigation of the impact of consumers’ use of second screens in the academic literature, and has important implications for the sponsors of televised events.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the mediating role of collective action in the relationship between financial intermediation and financial inclusion of the poor in rural Uganda.

The paper uses structural equation modeling (SEM) through bootstrap approach constructed using analysis of moment structures to test for the mediating role of collective action in the relationship between financial intermediation and financial inclusion of the poor in rural Uganda. Besides, the paper adopts Baron and Kenny’s (1986) approach to establish whether conditions for mediation by collective action exist.

The results revealed that collective action significantly mediates the relationship between financial intermediation and financial inclusion of the poor in rural Uganda. The findings further indicated that the mediated model had better model fit indices than the non-mediated model under SEM bootstrap. Furthermore, the results showed that both collective action and financial intermediation have significant and direct impacts on financial inclusion of the poor in rural Uganda. Therefore, the findings suggest that the presence of collective action boost financial intermediation for improved financial inclusion of the poor in rural Uganda.

The study used quantitative data collected through cross-sectional research design. Further studies through the use of interviews could be adopted in future. Methodologically, the study adopted use of SEM bootstrap approach to establish the mediating effect of collective action. However, it ignored the Sobel’s test and MedGraph methods. Future studies could adopt the use of alternative methods of Sobel’s test and MedGraph. Additionally, the study focused only on semi-formal financial institutions. Hence, further studies may consider the use of data collected from formal and informal institutions.

Policy makers and managers of financial institutions should consider the role of collective action in promoting economic development, especially in developing countries. They should create structures and design financial services and products that promote collective action among the poor in rural Uganda.

Although several scholars have articulated financial inclusion based on both the supply and demand side factors, this is the first study to test the mediating role of collective action in the relationship between financial intermediation and financial inclusion of the poor in rural Uganda using SEM bootstrap approach. Theoretically, the study combines the role of collective action with financial intermediation to promote financial inclusion. Financial intermediation theory ignores the role played by collective action in the intermediation process between the surplus and deficit units.