The relationship between social media co-worker connections and work-related attitudes

Many people have social media connections with co-workers. An important question that arises is how such connections impact important organizational factors. This study begins to look at such impact by examining how a user's total number of co-worker social media connections and the percentage of total social media connections that are co-workers impacts perceptions of organizational support and organizational spontaneity. In a sample of 106 union members across a number of organizations it is found that percentage of co-worker social media connections has a significant positive relationship with both perceptions of organizational support and organizational spontaneity. Total co-worker social media connections was not related to either organizational support or organizational spontaneity. Implications and reasons for these results are discussed, as well as important directions for future research. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.