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Bridging the work/social divide: the emotional response to organizational social networking sites

  • Research Article
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European Journal of Information Systems

Abstract

Organizations seem to be split on their policies governing social networking sites (SNSs) in the workplace. Recent surveys indicate that while many organizations severely restrict or ban SNSs (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) at work, a large majority are actively using, or evaluating the use of SNSs. The purpose of this study is to investigate the implementation of an internal SNS designed to help a large financial institution's IT new hire program. On the basis of a case study informed by boundary theory and the theory of positive emotions, the research describes the SNS, its uses and how it impacted both the employees and the organization. We found that SNSs blur the boundary between work life and social life and that this boundary blurring creates positive emotions for the employees that use the system. These emotions create personal resources, which then have organizational impacts. While some of the non-users of the system, the IT middle managers, experienced isolation, frustration and resentment, the executives overseeing this SNS attribute improved morale, better employee engagement and even reduced employee turnover to the internal SNS.

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Notes

  1. The name of the organization and the SNS are pseudonyms.

  2. On-Board is a psuedonym.

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Correspondence to Hope Koch.

Appendices

Appendix A

This appendix organizes IS studies leveraging boundary theory, boundary spanning, role theory and role conflict into these four categories.

We searched for these studies using the AIS E-library, ABI/Inform, Business Source Complete and each individual journal listed in IS World's market basket of top journals. These journals are: MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, European Journal of Information Systems, Information Systems Journal, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of the Association of Information Systems, Journal of Strategic Information Systems and the Journal of Information Technology.Table A1

Table A1 Boundary Theory, Boundary Spanning, Role Theory and Role Conflict in IS Research

Appendix B

Table B1

Table B1 Interview guide: SNS user (i.e., New Hire/Intern)

Appendix C

Table C1

Table C1 Interview guide management level

Appendix D

Table D1

Table D1 Interviews conducted

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Koch, H., Gonzalez, E. & Leidner, D. Bridging the work/social divide: the emotional response to organizational social networking sites. Eur J Inf Syst 21, 699–717 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2012.18

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