The Impact of Internal Social Media Usage on Organizational Socialization and Commitment

Socializing new employees into the organization and building higher levels of organizational commitment poses a challenge to organizations of different sizes. Social media technologies present an opportunity for organizations to create value by facilitating interactions among employees. The purpose of this study is to investigate an internal social media tool that was designed and implemented as part of a new hire program. An online survey was administered to IT new hires in a military financial services organization. While work related social media use did not prove to have a significant relationship with socialization or commitment, this study suggests that social related social media use is associated with knowledge of organizational culture, social acceptance, and affective commitment. In this study, two types of social media use, four indicators of socialization and three indicators of commitment were analyzed. Our paper concludes with a discussion and the implications concerning internal social media use.