Social media use and employee outcomes: a meta-analysis

Abstract

Employees' social media use and its potential links with work-related outcomes have received significant scholarly attention in recent years. The existing studies, however, demonstrated mixed findings and the impact of social media use on employee outcomes remains inconclusive. The current debate on employees' social media use points to the need for a meta-analysis on this particular issue, as it could help provide a more conclusive summary to resolve the inconsistency across studies. This meta-analysis study reviewed empirical studies published in peer-reviewed journals from 2009 to 2018 with the aim to provide robust conclusions about the relationships between employees' social media use and employee outcomes (i.e., job performance, innovative performance, job satisfaction, work engagement, emotional exhaustion and work-life conflict) and to explore the moderators of these associations. A total of 29 journal articles were examined in this thesis. The results of the random-effects model suggested that social media use, in general, has positive and small effects on job performance, job satisfaction, work engagement, and work-life conflict. Its effect on emotional exhaustion, however, was significant but negligible. In addition, a positive but non-significant association was found between social media use and innovative performance. The sub-group and meta-regression analyses further identified the moderators among the positive associations found. Specifically, purpose of social media use and culture moderated the effects of social media use on both job performance and job satisfaction; job position moderated the association between social media use and job satisfaction. The theoretical and practical implications from the results of this study, the limitations of the present meta-analysis, and directions for future research were discussed.