The Impact of Social Media Usage on Work Efficiency: The Perspectives of Media Synchronicity and Gratifications

Abstract

As prevail of mobile networking, social media became ubiquitous in either work or our personal life. Based on Media Synchronization Theory and transformational framework, this study proposed a research model and examined how the social media' attributes impacting the work effectiveness through the work-oriented or social-oriented usage. The data of 322 valid questionnaires from respondents was analyzed by SmartPLS 3.2.8. The results indicated that the features of social media including availability and symbol variety had the significant influences on their work efficiency through work-oriented usage of social media. Publicness and symbol variety had impact on work efficiency via social-oriented usage of social media. In addition, both social media for work-oriented and social-oriented usage influenced employees' work efficiency. There were different considerations when people selected social media for work or for social purpose. Managers or companies could guide their employees to use the social media in a right way to increase their work features to complete their work efficiency, and create groups for employees so the work information could be shared efficiently.

What is holding back business process virtualization in the post-COVID-19 era? Based on process virtualization theory (PVT)

“…The conveyance process means a large amount of information is exchanged between workers, and the convergence process involves consensus on these messages. Higher synchrony among team members means smoother social interaction, which is conducive to improving the cohesive social capital of employees, all of which positively impact work efficiency ( Jong et al, 2021 ). In the face-to-face physical space, organization members can see colleagues and communicate anytime, quickly exchanging the necessary information to meet people’s synchronization needs.…”

How does social media use affect thriving at work? The roles of knowledge sharing and locus of control

“…Employees can utilize social media to increase their interaction and understanding of each other in the organization, thus improving team communication and collaboration (Ma et al 2021). Social media can overcome the traditional limitations of time and space, realize information sharing and knowledge transfer, and thus increase employees' work efficiency (Jong et al 2021). Further, social media use is beneficial to shortening the psychological distance between employees, improving the quality of interpersonal relationships (Leonardi and Vaast 2017), creating a harmonious working atmosphere, and helping employees realize benign knowledge sharing.…”

“…According to previous studies, social media use can be divided into workrelated use and social-related use (Zhang et al 2019). Work-related use refers to employees' use of social media to organize activities to promote resource generation, team collaboration, and exchange of core work information and content (Benitez et al 2018;Jong et al 2021). Social-related use refers to employees' use of social media to maintain and establish new social relationships to facilitate the exchange of social and personal information and to provide social and emotional support (Song et al 2019;Zhang et al 2019).…”

Understanding the effect of social media marketing activity for promoting intention to participate in martial arts

“…Social media marketing activities Jong et al (2021) analyzed how social media use affects work performance. The study mentions that social media can be used to meet people with similar interests, to connect with friends you know, and to meet new friends.…”