Social Media and Management

The editors for Emerald's Advanced Series in Management proudly (pre-)announce the following two volumes on Social Media and Management currently in progress --when the volumes are made available for sale (expected: mid- to late-2013), you will be able to find them here!  Thank you for your interest in this exciting topic!!!

Social Media in Strategic Management

Advanced Series in Management, vol. 11

Miguel R. Olivas-Luján and Tanya Bondarouk

•              Social media are changing the way businesses interact in technology-mediated ways with most of their stakeholders.  Strategically-minded managers, researchers and students cannot afford to ignore the new ways in which interactions with customers, employees, shareholders, and many other important constituents are taking place as a result of the widespread availability and creative use of these new technologies. Conventional wisdom is being challenged and virtual workspaces that had never been conceptualized are opening at blistering speed.  This volume in the Advanced Series in Management bridges empirical and theoretical approaches to identify and demystify this set of emerging, exciting new family of user-generated content technologies.

•              With contributions from and about a wide diversity of countries, from emerging to established, researchers and informed practitioners will find intriguing, diverse perspectives on how the social media revolution challenging managers and management scholars. Involving disciplines as different as management, communications, information technology, personnel, finance and others, contributions in this book will be cited in future research projects or used in classrooms and other training settings by those more likely stay in the leading edge of this family of innovative tools.  

Tentative Table of Contents

Strategic Management in Social Media: The Leading Edge 

Miguel R. Olivas-Luján and Tanya Bondarouk

Digital Behaviours and People Risk: Challenges for Risk Management

Prof Andy Phippen and Dr Simon Ashby

Leveraging Social Media Technology for Business Transformation: The Case of Corporate Social Communities

Richard L. Gruner, Damien Power and Paul K. Bergey

Strategic Management and Social Media: An Empirical Analysis of Electronic Social Capital and Online Fundraising

Ray Henry and Lisa Bosman

Disentangling the Strategic Use of Social Media in the Insurance Industry: A Value Co-creation Perspective

Emanuele Castriotta, Paola Barbara Floreddu, Maria Chiara Di Guardo and Francesca Cabiddu

You Might Be Admired but Are You ‘Liked’? Orchestrating Corporate Reputation Co-Production on Facebook

Anna Zarkada and Christina Polydorou

Social Media as a Strategic Tool: Going beyond the Obvious

Poonam Arora and Carolyn E. Predmore

Increasing Dynamic Capabilities of Health Organizations with Social Media

Ricky Leung

Social Media Champions – Drivers and Sophistication Process of Social Media in Strategic Management

Lukasz M. Bochenek and Sam Blili

Innovation Management, Lead Users and Social Media – A Conceptual Framework

Markus Ernst, Alexander Brem , and Kai-Ingo Voigt

Social Media as Enabler of Crowdsourcing Business Model

Ivan Župič

Social Media as Marketing Strategy: An Exploratory Study on Adoption and Use by Retailers

Carlota Lorenzo-Romero, Efthymios Constantinides and María-del-Carmen Alarcón-del-Amo

Culture and Social Media: Differences between the U.S. and Japan

Satoko Suzuki and Kosuke Takemura

Social Media in Emerging Markets: India and Mexico

Pramila Rao

Social Media in Human Resources Management

Advanced Series in Management, vol. 12

Tanya Bondarouk and Miguel R. Olivas-Luján

•              Social media have radically shifted the way people relate with each other and with organizations in technology-mediated ways; few areas are being impacted more strongly than Human Resources or Personnel Management.  Attraction of candidates, internal communication with employees, communication with and among people; creation, design, testing and promotion of new services, new ways of organizing are appearing and changing the landscape at record speeds.  This volume in the Advanced Series in Management utilizes empirical and theoretical approaches to shed light on this exciting set of emerging, stimulating new uses of technology that stretch creativity beyond conventional limits.

•              Experts from around the world have joined efforts to share their findings in this volume dedicated to students, researchers and informed practitioners. This variety of perspectives will enable a better understanding of how the social media revolution is pushing boundaries and challenging anyone involved in the management of people, the most unique of resources available to any organization. Diverse disciplinary views contribute to this book that will be cited in future projects, as well as used in classrooms and other training settings by those closer to the leading edge of adoption and use of these tools.  

Tentative Table of Contents

Introduction: Social Media in Human Resources Management

Tanya Bondarouk and Miguel R. Olivas-Luján

Employer Branding and its Effects on Organizational Attractiveness

Tanya Bondarouk, Huub Ruel and Wendy Weekhout

Managing Entitativity through Social Media

David A. Askay, Anita Blanchard and Jerome Stewart

Personae of Interest - Managers’ Identities and the Online Mirror

Giulia Ranzini and Christian Fieseler

Recruiting Gen-Yers through Social Media: Insights from the Italian Labour Market

Rita Bisola and Barbara Imperatori

Social Media and Recruitment: a Delphi Study

Aurélie Girard

Social Media as a Mechanism for Engagement?

Emma Parry and Adriano Solidoro

Social Media in Internal Communications: A View from Senior Management

Tanja Sedej and Gorazd Justinek

Social Network Screening: Pitfalls, Possibilities, and Parallels in Employment Selection

Donald H. Kluemper

The Integration of Online Face-to-face Social Networking: The Need for Managerial Reconfiguration

Barbara Imperatori and Dino Ruta

The role of Social Networking Site in the Global Talent Management

Huub Ruël

Towards the Development of a Social Information System Research Model

Opal Donaldson and Evan Duggan

Using Social Media for Job Search: Evidence from Generation Y Job Seekers

Lax Manroop and Julia Richardson

…bullying at work

It might be the winter, some research I have been working on, or something else, but this month, I chose to write about a theme that is rather “dark” or unpleasant.

One of the groups in which I collaborate has been focused on increasing our understanding of workplace harassment, also known as “bullying” or “mobbing.”  It is unfortunate, but for many individuals, being pushed around, shoved and otherwise physically intimidated by peers (or others) is not a distant memory from middle school; it is a present reality that occasionally even makes it to the media headlines.  There are also subtler types of bullying, such as impossible deadlines or tasks, resource restrictions that make assignments unattainable for employees, and other kinds of actions that we might consider a “constructive discharge” when they are originated by the employer, or “relational aggression” when they come from individuals at similar –or even lower—hierarchical levels.

Regardless of its origin or whether the harassment is corporeal or purely emotional, employees who experience bullying simply cannot be as productive as those whose work experience is free from aggression.  In fact, there is evidence suggesting that intent to stay, engagement and commitment scores decrease significantly in individuals who are victims of these undesirable behaviors.

As you may imagine, there seem to be a number of differences among countries, industries, hierarchical levels, and other demographic descriptors.  A few studies have shown that in some countries, some degree of “assertiveness” –if not outright aggressiveness—is expected of supervisors in order to fulfill their expectations.  Other studies document how behaviors that are OK in some countries (say, hugging or commenting on a coworker’s attractiveness) may be considered out of line in others; a similar argument can be made about industries and even about regions within countries.

My colleagues and I have been surveying management professionals in about eighteen countries, and we have been analyzing the data to write and share our findings.  The multicultural nature of this group has helped me realize that there are strong differences in how countries approach this problem.  Several countries such as Australia, Canada and Norway, have legislation that attempt to reduce bullying, while the United States may be said to focus only on harassment that can be constructed as discriminatory of a protected class.  In other words, if the bullying behaviors can be linked to differences in sex, race, nation of origin, color, religion, pregnancy, disability status, or being over 40 years of age, there are legal provisions against it; but when there is no such link, our federal legislation offers no protection (though some states might).

Our studies have found interesting relationships between different cultural characteristics and a propensity to find bullying acceptable.  I know this might sound obvious, but it is one thing to have “a hunch” that something is happening, and a different thing to find tangible evidence to support it.  I have also found that there are several companies that offer consulting services to help organizations deal with these problems through education, assessments and other interventions.  Let me suggest that this might not only be an interesting topic for a course project (if you are currently studying your master’s degree), but also something worth implementing in your company.

What do you think?  Have you ever seen or had any of these experiences?  Are there any additional issues that we should take into account to understand this phenomenon? Or –even better—, to stop it or prevent it from occurring?  Please send me your comments via email to drolivaslujan@gmail.com or by posting a comment on my facebook profile.  I look forward to hearing from you!

¡Hasta la próxima!


To learn more on workplace bullying, check the following:

-    Einarsen, S.E., H. Hoel, D. Zapf, & C.L. Cooper (2003). Bullying and emotional abuse in the workplace. International perspectives in research and practice. London: Taylor & Francis.
-    Fox, S., & Spector, P., (2005). Counterproductive Work Behaviors. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
-    Liu, C., Nauta, M. M., Spector, P. E., & Li, C. (2008). Direct and indirect conflicts at work in China and the US: A cross-cultural comparison. Work & Stress, 22(4), 295-313.
-    Loh, M.I., Restubog, S.D.L., & Zagenczyk, T.J. (2010). Consequences of workplace bullying on employee identification and satisfaction among Australians and Singaporeans: exploring the moderating role of power-distance. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 41, 236-252.

...multiple commitments

Is it possible to be committed to two opposite units? For example, can employees feel identified with both their union and their management? What about headquarters and a branch office? Or to more than one country? And what types of commitments are those?

The answer to these questions is intriguing at many levels and for many audiences! Corporations, unions, headquarters, subsidiaries, even countries are at some time or another pitted against each other and loyalty from individuals from these places is often questioned by “the other side.” The answer seems to be a categorical “yes,” though, as is for many other topics in business, “it depends.”

Yes, even though there is great potential for conflict between unions and companies, it is possible for workers to feel attached to and interested in remaining members of both organizations. Yes, it is also possible for people to be loyal to apparently opposing foci of commitment such as headquarters and branch offices, even when their interests may be at odds, as in the case of a divestiture or other tough choices that often have to be taken in business. And YES, it is possible for people who have reasons to feel as part of two (and even more) countries to be patriotic about both. My guess is that many NSHMBA members –and their families--have experienced the latter in a very personal manner.

Of course, when expectations (the “psychological contract” that is created inside individuals' minds) are not met by one of these entities, it is not hard for the corresponding attachment to dwindle. For example, employees who feel “taken” by management or perceive that unions’ dues are not worth the services received from them, are more likely to detach themselves from that focus of their commitment.

Also importantly, there are at least two distinct types of commitment empirically documented by work psychologists: affective and continuance -or calculative. Affective commitment deals with the feelings of identification with and attachment toward an organization, manager, workgroup, etc. This is the type of commitment that we, as managers want to elicit in our coworkers and associates, as it seems to relate to a more cohesive and pleasant work climate, as well as to a more satisfied workforce. Continuance commitment, on the other hand, is more of a cost-benefit analysis that individuals sometimes keep in their mind to assess whether there are alternatives to their current employment. In the first case, employees are committed because they “feel good” to be associated to their workplace, while in the latter case they are committed because they do not perceive a desirable alternative, a situation that may breed cynicism, disengagement, and other unwelcome circumstances.

A meta-analysis –a “study of studies” see Johnson et al. (1999)—analyzed 31 studies with over twenty-two thousand employees in seven countries. Their findings include the existence of commitment toward both union and company, but cultural work values and industrial relation systems on those nations made a difference!

If you are interested in the scientific evidence for this theme -I am sure many of my colleagues would be interested in a research project on this topic, or simply for your own, professional development--, I have added a few references at the end of this column. Also, you may want to read some of the studies that were generated on this topic; all you have to do is search the term “dual commitment” or “dual allegiance” on a scholarly database, and you will find a wide variety of articles that dealt with this puzzle.

What do you think? Do you ever worry about how committed your employees (or your employer!) will be "when the rubber meets the road"? Do you find as ridiculous as I do all those commentators that try to pit Hispanics against main stream America? Feel free to post your comment on my facebook page or send me an email.

¡Hasta la próxima!

To learn more:

• Gregersen, H.B. & Black, J.S. (1992). Antecedents to commitment to a parent company and a foreign operation. Academy of Management Journal, 35 (1), 65-90.
• Hoff, T.J. (2001). Exploring dual commitment among physician executives in managed care. Journal of Healthcare Management, 46 (2), 91-109.
• Johnson, W.R.; Johnson, G.J.; & Patterson, C.R. (1999). Moderators of the relationship between company and union commitment: a meta-analysis. Journal of Psychology, 133 (11), 85-103.
• Liden, R.C.; Wayne, S.J.; Kraimer, M.L.; & Sparrowe, R.T. (2003). The dual commitments of contingent workers: An examination of contingents' commitment to the agency and the organization. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24 (5), 609-625.