Use of Social Media in the Workplace: Contradictions and Unintended Consequences

Even though social media technologies have been increasingly adopted in the workplace, few studies have looked at the consequences and contradictory outcomes of this adoption. This exploratory case study seeks to understand how organizations are using social media and what the consequences of this adoption are, from the perspective of managers and users. Ten in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers and social media users of a large professional association in the US (Pro-Org, a pseudonym). Preliminary findings suggest that adoption of social media is not a controlled process, and contradictory expectations among management and coping strategies from users may undermine organizational capacity to achieve its outcomes regarding social media.