Unpacking the Drivers of Stakeholder Engagement in Sustainable Water Management: NGOs and the Use of Facebook

Abstract

The number of people worldwide without access to safe drinking water or adequate sanitation is an unresolved and growing concern, with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) playing an important role in mitigating the effects of water shortage. These organizations utilize the communication mechanisms at their disposal, such as social media, to help spread their social message and to achieve the commitment of society to their cause. In this context and based on dialogic and the resource dependence theory framework, the main aim of this research is to analyze how organizational structure, resource allocation and communication policies of NGOs focused on water management influence the online commitment of their stakeholders. Exploratory results show that these NGOs are not taking enough advantage of social media to engage with their potential donors and volunteers because of the remarkable difference between the management of Facebook posts and users’ behavior. Using multivariate lineal regression, our findings show that certain structural (namely, size, reputation and board size), economic (fundraising expenses) and social media (number of Facebook fans) characteristics positively influence stakeholder engagement, while administrative spending and a broad presence in many social networks straitens the ability of these type of NGOs to attract and retain stakeholders’ commitment through social media.

Committed to Health: Key Factors to Improve Users’ Online Engagement through Facebook

“…This study applies ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation process using IBM SPSS Statistics version 26(International Business Machines, New York, United States). The degree of users' online is proxied by the online engagement index (E) ( Table 2), built from a set of metrics identified in the literature [45]. The index measures the users' engagement through interactive behaviors: number of likes, comments and shares of a post, which define the three main dimensions of the indicator: popularity (P), commitment (C) and virality (V).…”

“…Different software programs are available for social-media data gathering and quantitative analysis; others are designed to analyze the data from a linguistic point of view, specifically regarding content and emotions [62]. Despite the existence of these, the authors and their research group have developed an ad hoc tool (called "Facebook data model") for this type of research, based on Microsoft technology and previously tested and used in other studies [45,63].…”

“…In line with previous studies [45], the size of the online community has been quantified based on the number of fans of each fan page during the period of study. The number of posts for each format is provided directly by the social network and collected through the extraction module.…”

“…Similarly, [44] point out that organizations with a limited budget have found in social media an affordable way to communicate with their members, since one of the motivations for Internet use is to improve the quality of health care but also for cost reduction [8]. In addition, smaller organizations are an example of how social media can be used strategically to involve and engage stakeholders with their goals [45].…”

“…However, size should not represent a barrier to the generation of online engagement, since smaller organizations, and with a smaller budget, have an opportunity to use social networks to connect with their users at a reduced cost [44]. As the results of [45] show, smaller organizations are an example of how organizations with very little capacity have to implement and use new technologies and how social media can be used strategically to involve and engage stakeholders with the organizations goals.…”