What could possibly go wrong? A multi-panel Delphi study of organizational social media risk

Abstract

The growth of social media has crossed the boundary from individual to organizational use, bringing with it a set of benefits and risks. To mitigate these risks and ensure the benefits of social media use are realized, organizations have developed a host of new policies, procedures, and hiring practices. However, research to date has yet to provide a comprehensive view on the nature of risk associated with the use of social media by organizations. Using a multi-panel Delphi approach consisting of new entrants to the workforce, certified human resource professionals, and certified Information Technology auditors, this study seeks to understand organizational social media risk. The results of the Delphi panels are compared against a textual analysis of 40 social media policies to provide a comprehensive view of the current state of social media policy development. We conclude with directions for future research that may guide researchers interested in exploring social media risk in organizations.

A multi-perspective lens on web assurance seals: contrasting vendors’ intended and consumers’ perceived effects

“…2). We chose the ranking-type Delphi approach (over other approaches such as best-worst scaling) because it enables an iterative and controlled feedback consensus mechanism among a group of experts [14,46]. Besides allowing to identify web assurance seals' effects on consumers as well as intentions to acquire web assurance seals, this type of Delphi approach also provides insights about the relative importance (or ranking) of these effects and intentions.…”

“…We utilized a multi-panel design [14], with each panel designed to obtain unique perspectives on web assurance seals. We used three independent panels for our study to satisfy the multi-perspective nature of web assurance seals: an e-commerce consumer panel (representing consumers' perceived effects of web assurance seals) and a vendor panel consisting of e-commerce experts that operate online shops as a sales channel within their organization (representing the vendors' intentions to acquire web assurance seals).…”

Science and Social Media

“…This would represent a significant change, and we should expect a confusing and challenging transition. A range of macro‐level hurdles would need to be navigated, from promoting openness in the context of government censorship to navigating for‐profit instincts toward trade secrets .…”

Enhancing Organisational Competitiveness Via Social Media - a Strategy as Practice Perspective

“…The tactical choice is significant especially when considering that social media can be deployed by multiple departments within the organisation such as customer service, marketing, public relation and design (Bharati et al 2014). Nonetheless, the use of social media in multiple functions has the potential of exposing organisations to social media risk that can have detrimental impacts on the organisation (Gangi Di et al 2016), with issues such as privacy and security (Muhammad et al 2017). Upon reflection of the literature and in light of the three main areas of focus of existing studies examining social media as aforementioned -social media marketing, social media and predictive power and social media strategy -it is fair to say that insofar, organisations have tended to take a more functional approach when it comes to social media and strategy (Bharati et al 2014).…”

“…Firstly, an organisation needs to promote the coordination of use; for instance, providing links of their social media platforms from their websites. Secondly, an organisation needs to address risk management issues; for instance, by developing a policy of social media use (Gangi Di et al 2016). Lastly, an organisation needs to develop procedures to process unstructured transactions, for instance, linking social media with customer service.…”