Unit III Scholarly Activity

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THE IMPLICATIONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA USE BY

EMPLOYEES ON ORGANIZATIONAL REPUTATION

AND PRODUCTIVITY

Duaa Mukhayer and Sophie Bennett

Aberystwyth University, United Kingdom

Abstract

Employee use of social media networks during working hours is an increasing concern

for companies. Reports show that billions in lost revenue is due to employees’

cyberslacking (Young, 2010). Previous literature in this field suggests that employee

usage of social media during working hours affects their productivity as well as the

organization’s reputation (Young, 2010; Aguenza et al., 2012; Molok et al., 2012).

Limited research has been conducted on employee use of social media networks

during working hours specifically in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Therefore this

paper investigates the employee usage of social media and its relation to productivity

and organizational reputation within the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu

Dhabi. Interviews were conducted with 15 employees of the Department of Culture

and Tourism. The findings suggest that using social media is not necessarily conductive

to lower productivity, however low levels of employee satisfaction appear to be, as

lower job satisfaction is linked to a higher use of social media. In addition, participants

reported a lack of differentiation between personal and professional social media

posts, presenting a potentially risky situation in which organisational reputation may

be compromised. Based upon these findings, a set of recommendations are presented

which include mandatory training for employees and managers to increase awareness

of social media policies, the implementation of policies and procedures to protect

organisational reputation and, finally, the introduction of regular job satisfaction

surveys. Rather than limiting employee access to social media over organisational

networks, this paper presents a more balanced approach, acknowledging the potential

benefits of social media, but encouraging responsible use of these sites.

Keywords: Social Media, Employee, Reputation, Productivity, Behaviour.

Journal of Information System Security

is a publication of the Information Institute. The JISSec mission is to

significantly expand the domain of information system security research to

a wide and eclectic audience of academics, consultants and executives who are involved in the management of

security and generally maintaining the integrity of the business operations.

Editor-in-Chief

Gurpreet Dhillon University of North Texas, USA

Managing Editor

Filipe de Sá-Soares University of Minho, Portugal Publishing Manager

Mark Crathorne ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

ISSN: 1551-0123

Volume 17, Issue 2

www.jissec.org

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Introduction

This paper focuses on the implications of social media usage by employees on

organizational reputation and productivity specifically in the United Arab Emirates

(UAE). The research aims to analyse the behaviour of the employees and provide

recommendations to protect the organization’s reputation and ensure its

productivity. Current literature by Zoonen et al., 2016; Dreher, 2014; Treem and

Leonardi, 2012; Vitak, J. et al. 2011, shows that that there is a lack of information

available about employee’s behaviour in the world and there is no evidence of studies

in this area taking place in the Gulf region and the UAE; instead most of the available

literature covers United States, Europe and Taiwan (Wang et al., 2016; Walden, 2016;

Opgenhaffen and Claeys, 2017). Hence, this research aims to provide insight into

employee psychology within the UAE and the potential impact of employee actions

on the organization’s involved. In addition, it provides recommendations based upon

the results of this paper for organizations operating within the UAE, with guidance

for ensuring employee loyalty and awareness about their actions.

Social media channels were originally developed for private and personal

conversations to have easy access and interactions with others (Cilliers, 2013; Bertot,

Jaeger and Hansen, 2012). However, companies are increasingly utilizing these

channels, creating a blurring of boundaries between social and professional life.

According to the Global digital report 2018, the number of social media users is

increasing 13% every year, with 3.196 billion users in January 2018 (Global Digital

Report 2018). These channels give the power and opportunity to users to generate

content over the web and be able to share it with millions of people with a click of a

button (Ryan, 2017). The main challenge for organizations is that not many people

differentiate between sharable and confidential information, leading to organizational

information leakage.

In the working environment, employees use social media for personal as well as

professional purposes which may have a positive or negative affect on organizational

reputation and productivity (Young, 2010; Dreher, 2014; Leftheriotis and Giannakos,

2013). With the power of social media as a free space to share and express individuals

thoughts, employees can either be a great ambassadors of the organization in

representing its values, amplifying its messages and sharing knowledge; or they could

disseminate negative information, leak company details and damage the reputation

and the privacy of the organization (Dreher, 2014; Behringer and Sassenberg, 2015).

The use of social media during working hours for personal purpose also has an impact

upon employee productivity. The current literature provides contrasting views in

relation to this; Leftheriotis and Giannakos (2013) argue that social media is

correlated positively with employees productivity, while on the other hand

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researchers such as Turban et al. (2011) and Dreher (2014) believe that these

channels are wasting time and reducing productivity.

The purpose of this research, therefore, is to explore the behavior of the employees

within the UAE who use social media channels at work and consider what impact this

may have on employee productivity. Three factors that affect productivity are

examined in this paper: motivation and happiness (identified in this paper as job

satisfaction and manager’s appreciation), workload (identified in this paper as the

amount of free time the employees has), and awareness (identified in this paper as

the level of the awareness the employees has about social media usage and best

practices). In addition to this, the implications of sharing information upon the

organization’s privacy and reputation will be considered, looking into the different

aspects of information sharing, such as being a brand ambassador, amplifying the

messages and the values of the organization and oversharing. A qualitative case study

approach is followed, using interviews with 15 employees of the Department of

Culture and Tourism.

Social media usage and productivity

It is important for companies to understand how the use of social media networks

can affect employee productivity levels. In most of organizations, the internet is

available to all employees, which provides them with an easy access to all websites,

including social media. Few organizations limit the access of websites depending on

the nature of its business and some governments. Some, like Taiwan, ban civil servants

from accessing Facebook at work completely (Gunnlaugsdottir, 2015; Lin et al., 2012).

Employees can reach to their social media channels easily at any time; this is a major

organizational concern as it indicates employees could misuse working hours through

social media.

Cyberslacking, or cyberloafing as it often referred to, is a new term that was

introduced to describe the use of internet during working hours for personal

purposes (Vitak et al. 2011; Akbulut et al. 2017). Cyberslacking affects both

organizational productivity and the economy (Akbulut et al. 2017). Salary.com

published a study showing that employees spend at least 1 hour on personal usage of

the internet during the working day and research by Zelizer, (2010) showed that over

50% of social media updates are performed during working hours. Additional studies

showed that use of social media channels, such as Facebook, during the working hours

can affect worker productivity by almost 1.5% (Lee and lee, 2018). Such behavior has

an economic impact on organizations, as it is estimated that it costs $54 billion

annually in lost productivity (Young, 2010; Stewart, 2003).

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According to Syrek et al. (2017), employees use the social media channels for non-

work when they lose interest in the work they are doing, instead of spending up to

two hours daily on non-work related activities related to lower levels of productivity

(Syrek et al. 2018). Therefore, motivation to work is clearly affected by social media

usage (Wang et al., 2016; Syrek et al., 2017; Banghart et al., 2018). Dissatisfaction,

lack of fairness, loss of interest and stress are all major reasons for employee usage

of social media during working hours (Wang et al., 2016; Syrek et al., 2017; Banghart

et al., 2018; Andreassen et al., 2014; Robertson et al., 2017; Holland et al., 2016).

Interesting work, it is suggested, decreases employees’ desire to cyberslack.

Andreassen et al. (2014) and Robertson et al. (2017) argue that if employees are

challenged in their work with new things consistently, then the temptation to engage

in personal social media during working hours is reduced. In this respect, job

satisfaction and motivation are an important part of decreasing employees desire to

spend working hours on social media (Robertson et al. 2017). Fairness and justice,

according to Akbulu et al. (2017), are also important in reducing this desire; as

employees engage with such behavior as a reaction to the lack of fairness they are

receiving at work. Given these findings from previous studies, this paper intends to

explore job satisfaction, motivation, and job fairness in relation to UAE employee

usage of social media.

Blurred identities

As the social media channels entered the daily lives of people, the boundary between

personal and professional lives are almost blurred. The mix between personal and

professional boundaries triggers the question of work-related privacy. It is very

important for employees not to mix these two identities while using the social media

channels; instead, it is crucial that they know and respect the privacy of their

organizations (Walden, 2016). Recent studies showed that 79% to 82% of users use

social media sites at work for business and personal reasons respectively (Wang,

2016). With the technological developments of the social media channels and being

connected all the time, the boundaries between personal and professional identities

have vanished (Van Zoonen et al., 2017). The previous literature identifies four

affordances for social media: visibility, persistence, editability and association (Vaast

and Kaganer, 2013). According to Van Zoonen et al. (2017), these affordances

presents tension in identifying the thin line between personal and professional

identities and demands. The literature agrees that usage of social media during the

working hours could result in a conflict between personal and professional identities

which could lead to some privacy issues (Van Zoonen et al., 2017). In response to

this, many organizations and countries have implemented cyber security laws and

digital policies to ensure the safety of their data including, the USA, UAE and France.

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Policies and guidelines

Social media channels make it easy to send and receive updates, which is risky for

organizations (Abdul Molok et al., 2010; Dreher, 2014; Treem and Leonardi, 2012).

The leakage of organizational information could provide ideal pathways for cyber-

hackers to hijack data that could affect the company in the long term or potentially

breach privacy boundaries due to the emergence of social media usage in the daily

routines of employees, which blurs the line between personal and professional

information (Gudaitis T., 2010). This is a real threat to organizations and, in some

cases, may be considered a national security issue. For example, the Israeli military

exposed the location and time of their upcoming raid on a Facebook status update

which caused the Israeli military to cancel the operation; elsewhere similar cases have

occurred in the United Kingdom by the employees of the Ministry of Defence, who

shared information on the public domain through Facebook and Twitter (Abdul

Molok et al., 2010). This demonstrates that the need for the regulation of social media

in organizations is, in extreme cases, not simply an organizational-only concern. In

fact, the matter has been widely debated as, while wider implications involve the

threat to national security, at the organizational level the perceived threat to the

freedom of speech is often levied against the potential for damage to organizational

reputation. Therefore, the need for social media policies is considered controversial

and may be met with criticism (Opgenhaffen and Claeys, 2017). Given this situation

it is important to create the right regulatory balance, Dreher (2014) suggests this can

be achieved if organizations give up the concept of controlling social media as it is an

impossible task and instead raise employee awareness of associated risks. On the

other hand, Banghart et al. (2018) highly recommends having social media policies in

place to differentiate between the different identities the employees should have and

protect both organizational information and employee freedom.

Gaps of knowledge and contribution

There is limited information available focusing on social media and its effect on

productivity and privacy in the Gulf countries, specifically the UAE. This is a cause for

concern as, while it is clear that professional and social boundaries are blurred in the

social media world, these boundaries may differ considerably for employees operating

in the UAE, considering the nature of privacy in the Gulf countries. Previous studies,

such as those by Miller, et al. (2016), Walden (2016), Wang (2016) and Dreher (2014),

provide relevant information about the blurring of boundaries for westernized

society, yet these do not necessarily apply to employees within the UAE, given the

very different cultural environments concerned.

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The cultural environment is a focus of previous studies by Bourdieu and Nice (1977),

Ram Mohan (2017), Qj et al. (2018), Power (1999), Andreassen C. et al. (2014) and

Vitak, J. et al. (2011) demonstrating the importance of understanding the varied

backgrounds of employees working in a multicultural environment in the UAE. These

international studies agree that the boundaries are blurred in the social media world,

but not how this might differ in different cultural situations. By exploring the behavior

of employees within in the UAE this paper contributes towards a growing body of

research into social media usage within varying cultural contexts. In addition, results

described in this paper assist in identifying best practice recommendations for

companies and employees operating within the UAE.

Method

The research followed an interpretivist, inductive approach, allowing theories to

emerge from the collected and analysed data which were then used to develop a set

of recommendations on social media usage for employees and organizations

operating in the UAE. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 15 employees

from the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi (DCT) from the period

between May and October 2019 to consider the effect of social media usage on the

employee’s productivity and their sociological behaviour of sharing information

online. Interviews lasted on average around 90 minutes, and included 29 main

questions which addressed social media usage within the working environment and

the employees understanding of the organizational reputation and privacy. The results

from the interview were analysed using Thematic Analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2002)

and used to build a framework of recommendations (Wisdom and Creswell, 2013).

The 15 interviewees were full time employees working in DCT and were divided into

8 females and 7 males. Judgement sampling was used to select participants from

different backgrounds and career levels which helped the researcher in understanding

the multi-cultural environment of the UAE. The majority of the participants identified

themselves as ‘daily active social media’ users. Their consumption of the social

networks varied between Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Most of the

participants shared personal experiences and stories about their beliefs of social

media usage during the working hours and some of the managers shared the actions

they had used to limit the misuse of social media by employees during working hours.

Following the interviews, thematic analysis was undertaken to identify the

implications of social media usage on organizational productivity and reputation

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Results

Phase 1 Explanation Details

Familiarizing

yourself with your data

In this phase, the researcher read all the

scripts and went through the recorded

interviews to be familiar with all the information.

An exploratory approach was

followed with themes emerging directly from the interviews.

Phase 2 Explanation Codes

Generating

Codes

During the familiarisation step, six topics

were repetitive and identified as the initial codes.

Education; Environment; Ethics;

Happiness; Managers; Time.

Phase 3 Explanation Initial Themes

Searching for

themes

A mind map was created with

explanations and relations.

Mind map available in the

appendix, Figure 2.

Phase 4 Explanation Themes

Reviewing

and refining themes

Codes with overarching themes were

grouped together. Sub-themes emerged.

The initial data analysis showed job

satisfaction, awareness, workload as influencing productivity levels.

Confidentiality; Content;

Distractions; Education; Ethics;

Personalities; Posting; Productivity; Restrictions; Work.

Phase 5 Explanation

Defining and

further

defining themes

This 4th step had two phases. First

themes were grouped into five main

areas, then overarching themes were

identified as directly answering the research question.

Phase 6 Explanation Themes

Identifying

final themes

and

producing the report

In this final step, final themes and sub-

themes were linked and related, helping

to know the implications of employee

usage of social media on productivity

and organization’s reputation. The final

analysis showed 4 main themes and 20 sub-themes (Fig. 1).

Awareness; Beliefs; Content; Productivity.

Table 1: Thematic analysis identified themes

The six-phase approach to thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) was used to

analyse the interview data. An outline of each step is provided above in the Table 1.

Discussion

Data from this research revealed four main implications of social media usage on

organizational productivity and reputation, which are explained in the following

themes: “Awareness”, “Content”, “Beliefs” and “Productivity”, described in Figure 1:

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Figure 1: Thematic analysis identified themes

1) Awareness: There is a lack of overall knowledge and awareness about the

potential risks social media usage poses for DCT or the current social media

policies this organization has put in place.

2) Productivity: While participants agreed that social media usage could have an

impact upon productivity, they suggest this could be both positive and negative.

In addition, other factors such as video games and catch-up TV, were just as

likely to have the same, or a similar, impact upon productivity.

3) Content: Where participants were aware of the risks posed by the use of social

media during work hours, there was a general feeling that this risk related only

to an individual’s own knowledge or his or her role, rather than overall

organizational information.

4) Beliefs: Employee actions and behaviour depends upon beliefs. Participants

who appeared to hold high morals had less social media use during work hours

and were more likely to be cautious about posting information on such sites.

The relationship between themes is described in Table 2.

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Theme Sub-theme Linked with… What the relation? Evidence from interviews

Awareness Confidentiality Morals & Ethics If the employees are

aware of the differences

between types of sharable

information they will

know the confidential

information and they

respect their

organization, they won’t

share it

“sharing information

depends on your ethics, if

you know it’s an internal

information and you still

share it then it means you

have ethical issues” (GK,

2019)

Productivity Workload Distractions When employees are

overloaded with projects

and tasks, they use social

media as a break or

distraction from the

workload

“my work involves a lot of

reading, I spend hours and

hours reading so I stop

sometimes and I check my

social media channels, it’s a

good break but sometimes

I get distracted and I don’t

feel the time” (NH, 2019)

Content Fake accounts Identities Employees can have

multiple identities on

the digital platforms and

other might create fake

accounts to share content

freely without

restrictions

Beliefs Morals & Ethics Confidentiality The behavior of the

employees is depending

on their beliefs & ethics. If

they are well aware of the

types of shareable

content and their role in

amplifying the content of

the organization they will

be more responsible

when sharing any content

online

Table 2: themes and sub-themes relationship

Productivity

Six of the interviewees explained that social media is not the only element which

affects their productivity during the working hours. Other distractors include: people

in the office, catch-up TV, video games etc. However, four of the interviewees believe

that using social media during working hours increased productivity. In this context

social media usage was described as an essential break from work, allowing them to

achieve a greater focus, and therefore higher productivity levels at other times. NH

(2019) said: “As an archaeologist, my work involves a lot of reading, I spend hours and hours

reading so I stop sometimes and I check my social media channels, it’s a good break but

sometimes I get distracted and I don’t feel the time”. Here, a minimal use of social media

was reported, however considered essential to their working day and seen as a type

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of freedom; their own space where they can relieve themselves from the workload

they have. NH (2019) added, “I take a break during my working hours and I check my

social media, I check the updates of my family and friends and chill, it gives me a peace of

mind before going back to my readings”. At the same time, participants agreed that a

break from work was not solely responsible for a change in productivity; other

factors, such as the encouragement they receive from their managers, shapes how

they work.

Where a high use of social media was reported during working hours, participants

also reported being less satisfied with their jobs, not motivated, or not involved. This

is a cause for concern as, in addition to the likely reduction in productivity, the nature

of the social media channels provides the employees with a space to express their

feelings and therefore posts by dissatisfied employees could negatively affect the

reputation of the organization. Where participants reported being less satisfied with

their jobs, not motivated, or not involved they often also reported disengagement

with their managers. For example, some employees described either hating or loving

their job because of their line managers. AE (2019), described her relation with work

as a “boring job”, “I’m not involved in lots of projects and my manager is not engaging

me with the latest’s things happening. Therefore, I come to work every day and

spend hours using social media. It’s the only thing that can keep me busy from this

work depression”. These results support the previous studies by (Wang et al., 2016;

Syrek et al., 2017; Banghart et al., 2018; Andreassen et al., 2014; Robertson et al.,

2017; Holland et al., 2016) which found the use of social media was directly related

to job satisfaction.

In addition to work satisfaction and disengagement with managers, organizational

focus (workload) is another factor effecting employees use of social media. When

employees feel engaged with their organization, they have less time to use social

media, they are busy being productive than engaged with other activities on social

media. While on the other hand, if employees are not engaged and not busy with

their organization, then they will spend hours on social media to pass the time. “I’m

too busy at work, I’m handling lots of projects that keeps me involved with my work and

organization all the time. I don’t have time to check my social media at work” (GK, 2019).

The findings of this paper are consistent with previous studies by Andreassen et al.

(2014) and Robertson et al. (2017), which shows that job role and involvement in

organizational operations plays an important role in encouraging employees to feel

valued by their organization. A balance is needed; too much work increases the

likelihood of burnout while repetitive tasks encourage lethargy. For participants in

this research, those who described having too much work reported low levels of

social media usage during work hours, while employees with less challenging work

were more likely to report high levels of social media usage during work hours.

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Awareness & Content

The majority of participants did not differentiate between personal and professional

social media posts. Only three of the interviewees focused on the importance of

differentiating the content they post on social media. While they understood that

using social media during working hours could affect the organization’s reputation,

they considered to be low risk, as they tended to view content rather than contribute

to existing content, consciously limiting the amount they posted and, where possible,

posting items outside of work time: “I drastically reduced the number of posts I publish

on my social pages and I understand the link between my work and personal life and I can’t

have both, I use social media to consume content more than produce content” (GK, 2019).

In addition, over half of the participants reported that they knew DCT had social

media policies, but had not read them or were aware of any misconduct cases

reported regarding the use of social media. This presents a risky situation in which

the leakage of information may occur, as explained by one participant:

“I saw the guidelines and I read them, but I don’t think many employees did, most people

tend to ignore reading internal emails, and the guidelines were circulated as an internal

update! If employees are not familiar with the guidelines and don’t have full awareness about

social media and ways of usage, we will have a lot of leakage and ethical issues” (NH, 2019).

Beliefs

The overall consensus from participants was that the use of social media depends on

an employee’s beliefs and their understanding of work ethics and morals. The

literature shows that culture and habitus play an important role in employee’s

behavior. Habitus is created through different social beliefs and it is ever-changing,

based on the beliefs the individuals builds over the years. The habitus plays a role in

explaining the behavior of the employees in the workplace, as their beliefs might affect

the way they interact on the social media channels and the way they express

themselves. Employees can either share the values and beliefs of the organization in

a positive way which can contribution to the organization’s overall image and

reputation, or ruin it if they are not aware of the regulations (Dreher, 2014; Leonardi

and Treem, 2012). During the interviews, GK (2019) said: “I rarely use social media

during the working hours, I mainly focus on my tasks which I’m overwhelmed with. Social

media distracts me and I’m here to work. Each person will think about it differently as it

depends on their beliefs and ethics” (GK, 2019).

GK (2019) said: “I used to post about everything I do in life, but since I joined DCT, I started

evaluating my content before sharing it with the public. I believe that my morals and beliefs

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helps me in taking decisions about what to share or not. I believe that my time during the

working hours should be dedicated for work, therefore, I don’t use social media during the

working hours. If employees have high morals and an understanding of work

confidentiality as well as the risks involved for DCT, then they are more likely to be

cautious in their social media usage, and therefore post a lower risk for the

organization.

Recommendations

Overall, the findings suggest that employee satisfaction with their role, and

relationship with their manager are both directly related with their use of social media

during working hours. In addition, an increased awareness of social media policies

and low risk methods of engagement are needed to help educate employees about

the best practices they should follow while using it. Job satisfaction was the main

reason behind employee’s behavior, and it is clear, therefore, that organizations

should invest in educating employees and managers about the social media usage

practices and types of content and the privacy issues, while also considering the

intrinsic value of job tasks to employees. Clearly, there is a joint responsibility issue,

where managers must also be made aware of their part in reducing employee use of

social media by developing relationships with their employees as well as providing

engaging tasks. As demonstrated in the findings, employees are confused with the

personal and professional identities they should have on social media and therefore

these personas must be well-informed, in order to protect both parties (employees

and organizations) from adverse consequences. Moreover, results suggest that

banning social media channels from the work network would not be conducive to

maintaining productivity and organizational reputation (Gunnlaugsdottir, 2015; Lin et

al., 2012), as some participants in this study reported achieving higher productivity

levels where the social media use provided a much needed break to re-focus.

Given these findings this paper recommends that social media training be provided

to both managers and employees, or current provision re-considered, in order to:

1. Increase awareness of the risks of social media. Mandatory training should

be given to employees, which covers all aspects of knowledge about social

media. The content of the training should be a mix between beginners and

advanced content to help employees in understanding all the aspects of usage.

2. Identify employees within the organization who demonstrate high

morals and engage in low social media usage as ambassadors for the

organization.

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3. Develop social media policies, or increase awareness of existing

policies, by implementing a disciplinary action plan which is followed through

when breaches are identified.

4. Acknowledge the potential benefits of social media use during work

hours by encouraging responsible use of these sites.

5. Specifically develop managers’ awareness of the link between a high

use of social media during working hours and worker disengagement.

The results of this paper show that job satisfaction was the main reason behind

employee’s behavior. Therefore, annual job satisfaction survey should be

conducted, Managers must be pro-active about increasing engagement in job

tasks to alleviate boredom.

The UAE introduced cyber laws in 2006 that covered regulations relating to all online

activities (UAE GOV Portal). From 2006 onwards, and with the emergence of the

social media channels, many amendments and developments took place on these laws

to adopt to these new communication tools. Organizations such as Department of

Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi (DCT), the National Media Council and the Abu

Dhabi Judicial Department have all developed social media policies that have been

adapted and inspired from the UAE main cyber laws. During this research,

participants highlighted several cases of misconduct relating to the use of social media

that took place in the department, with no serious action being taken. In most cases,

the problem was believed to be related to a lack of awareness about the classification

of sharable information. It is clear, therefore, that greater awareness of the risks

associated with social media use at work and relating to work is necessary. The

recommendations outlined above are intended to help counteract social media

misuse, raising awareness and consequentially reducing such cases and the potential

impact upon an organization’s reputation as well as its productivity.

Conclusion

This paper contributes towards a growing body of literature which identifies the very

real and increasing risk that social media poses to organizations’ reputation and

productivity. For many organizations, the easiest solution is to ban social media from

the organizational network or to apply social media laws to discipline employees who

use social media while at work (Gunnlaugsdottir, 2015; Lin et al., 2012; Zoghbi‐

Manrique‐De‐Lara and Olivares‐Mesa, 2010). This paper indicates that a softer, more

balanced approach would be more applicable for organizations operating within the

UAE, where increasing employee awareness of the potential risks could be combined

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with increasing manager awareness of the link between high levels social media use

during working hours and worker disengagement. Instead of imposing restrictions on

social media, a more effective approach is advocated, acknowledging the potential

benefits of social media by encouraging responsible use of these sites. This approach,

the findings suggest, could ensure employee productivity and protect the organization

from information leakage that may affect its reputation.

Although this paper identified four main themes, namely “Awareness”, “Content”,

“Beliefs” and “Productivity” which link the use of social media with organizational

production and reputation, there will always be additional psychological variables that

could be studied in the future. It might be fruitful for researchers to build upon the

research presented here by looking into the effect on productivity of the work

environment, employee values and mental state. In addition, further research could

involve quantitative methods of collecting data. While interviews allow for a greater

depth of information, it is possible that the lack of anonymity may have encouraged

some participants to underreport their use of social media during working hours.

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Duaa Mukhayer is DProf student at Aberystwyth University who specialises in

digital communication and human behaviour. Her research focuses on psychology,

implications of social media usage by employees on organizational reputation, and

productivity in Abu Dhabi, the capital of United Arab Emirates. Duaa’s research aims

to analyse the behaviour of the employees and provide recommendations, to protect

the organization’s reputation and to ensure its productivity. A main focus of her work

is considering the multi-cultural environment and the cyber laws applied in the UAE.

Dr. Sophie Bennett is a lecturer in Management and Business at Aberystwyth

University, specialising in Organisational Behaviour. Her teaching and research areas

are in organisational psychology and human resource management, specialising in

employee wellbeing and satisfaction. She is working with researchers in the UAE on

the impact of social media use on employee satisfaction and the role of workplace

happiness and wellbeing in improving organizational performance in the Federal

Demographic Council in the UAE. Her projects in the UK include employee wellbeing

and organisational change in the Welsh Assembly Government and research in the

use of art to enhance employee satisfaction and motivation. She co-ordinates the

Aberystwyth University DProf programme and is a Director of the CLaRE (Centre

for Creativity, Leadership and Regional Economies) Business School research centre.

APPENDIX

Figure 2: Initial themes and sub-theme in Phase 3 of the thematic analysis process

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