Enterprise social media: a study from digital natives’ perspective

Abstract

This study aims to ascertain digital natives’ perceptions regarding internal social media (ISM) use in corporate contexts. Consulting company surveys, although limited as scientific evidence, revealed that digital natives would, if they had choice, quit their jobs in the next two years, showing that engaging them is already a challenge. However, there is a gap in the literature as digital natives’ workplace behaviors remain unexamined, singling out this study as a unique assessment of digital natives with exposure to the workplace and its practices. An exploratory study was performed by applying content analysis of semi-structured interviews with recently employed digital natives. The findings suggest that the lifespan aspect may impact how social technologies are used for communication in organizational contexts; and that digital natives believe in a participatory culture created on social systems that impose a high level of contribution within the company. They recognize the adverse effects of ISM but consider that its advantages predominate, indicating an optimistic view. Whereas internal communication (IC) has been explored in multiple contexts, few studies address ISM influence on organizations. As such, this study contributes to the IC literature with a more granular understanding of enterprise social media’s role from the perspective of the most current workforce. It also contributes to the pragmatic field by proposing that organizations can take advantage of ambiguos but tending to positive perception of ISM and leverage its use by digital natives to promote employee engagement.