Work-related social media use: The mediating role of social media communication self-efficacy

Social media use has become an indispensable part of knowledge work. Employees posting work-relatedcontent on social media are considered credible sources of information and have significant importancefor how stakeholders, such as potential customers and future employees, perceive the organization.Therefore, employees’ability to communicate about their work on social media has become a compet-itive advantage both for individual employees and for their organizations, especially in the professionalservice sector. Hence, understanding the role of employees’ability to use these social media profes-sionally is crucial for understanding the communicative behaviors of contemporary knowledge workers.In this study, we draw on social cognitive theory and focus on the antecedents and consequences of self-efficacy in individuals’work-related communication on social media. The results show that perceivedorganizational commitment, clarity of communicative role, social media training, and prior experiencewith social media serve as antecedents of communication self-efficacy and subsequent work-relatedcommunication on social media. Thus, organizations and particularly management, have several as-pects directly within the scope of their control that may aid employees in engaging in the professionaluse of social media. The paper contributes to the literature on employees’communication behavior andprovides important and actionable insights for management and the development of human resources.