Determinants of social organizational credibility: Towards a formal conceptualization

Abstract

Organizational credibility is an important component of organizational survival. The need to build and maintain organizational credibility in the social media context is specifically significant, largely due to the popularity of the medium in the current interactive communication environment. Social media, however, create a challenging environment for accurate information consumption, because it excludes the journalistic gatekeeper, are subject to misinformation and allow for information proliferation by both official and nonofficial users. For organizations to enhance their credibility in the social media context, it is important, firstly, to determine what constitutes social organization credibility. To establish an enhanced understanding of social organizational credibility and to build towards a formal conceptualization, this article quantitatively explored the preliminary identified determinants of social organizational credibility among active social media users. An exploratory factor analysis indicated that social organizational credibility consists of the determinants of trustworthiness, qualified resonance, homophily, personable interaction, informed conversation, and apt social word-of-mouth. Furthermore, the results also highlighted that an organization’s connections (including social media influencers and experts) are also a key determinant of social organizational credibility. This research provides guidance as to how social media users assess an organization’s credibility in the social media context, which could help alleviate the misinformation stigma that is associated with social media as an interactive communication platform. The identified determinants and the conceptualization of social organizational credibility extend existing organizational credibility literature and provide organizations with much needed guidelines to enhance their credibility in the social media context.

Development of decision-making technique based on sentiment analysis of crowdsourcing data in medical social media resources

“…Taking into account the role and functions of healthcare in the socio-economic system of each country, the effectiveness of the activities of medical institutions refers to the values such as satisfying the needs of the population for medical assistance, providing higher quality assistance at a minimum cost, early prevention of diseases, and promoting a healthy lifestyle [24]. Reviewing the improvement of the organizations activities in the context of social media, [25] introduces the concept of social organizational credibility, and evaluates the organization's social media activity and media relations as the main factor of its credibility, and shows the importance of paying special attention to the activity of staff members in social media. [13] demonstrates the significance of using social media platforms to strengthen relationships of cancer research institutes with stakeholders and to promote their brands, and justifies the need to integrate oncologists and nurses into the company's corporate communication initiatives.…”