The Impact of Social Media on Employees Performance and Productivity

Running head: IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE
THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE AND
PRODUCTIVITY; A CASE STUDY OF THE INDUSTRIAL SECTOR IN
AUSTRALIA.
TITLE OF THE WORK
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Institution
Course
Date

IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE 2
THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE AND
PRODUCTIVITY; A CASE STUDY OF THE INDUSTRIAL SECTOR IN
AUSTRALIA.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................2
PROBLEM STATEMENT....................................................................................................................3
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES, AIM AND QUESTIONS........................................................................4
JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROJECT..................................................................................................5
EXPECTED OUTCOME OF THE STUDY.........................................................................................5
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS..................................................6
HYPOTHESIS.......................................................................................................................................8
METHODOLOGY................................................................................................................................9
Organization of the study....................................................................................................................10
Budget.................................................................................................................................................10
Project activities..................................................................................................................................11
Gantt chart...........................................................................................................................................12
References...........................................................................................................................................13

IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE 3
SECTION I
INTRODUCTION
In the last few decades, technology has significantly manipulated the way the world operates,
right from communication to shopping. The world is connected than ever before, communication has
been made easy as people are able to communicate or convey information effortlessly to friends,
families and governments all over the world in just microseconds. This has been made possible by the
invention of social media platforms, an idea that was introduced by mark Zuckerberg in the early
2004. Since its introduction, there has been a rapid development of other social media platforms and
is currently deemed most popular, cheap and fast way of communication among people of far
distances (Bolton, et al., 2013, p.247). In other words, Social media is a platform for interaction
among people in the world where people can express their interests, careers and share information
freely. Social media uses internet-based application technology to ensure information sharing. Social
media applications such as Facebook, WhatsApp, twitter, Instagram, viber, among others are accessed
by people on their smartphones, tablets, computers and desktop. This has been accelerated by the
rapid growth of mobile technology and devices such as smartphones that enables all/ most employees
working different stations and position, have the accessibility to smartphones and internet to share
information and chart with their dear ones both in the same working commerce and other outside
industries (Treem, & Leonardi, 2013, p.189).
However, the development of such trend has raised issues at the work, whether it is boosting
the performance or rather depreciating. It is believed that the productivity of all the industries in the
world is dependent on the output of the employees working in them but the dilemma here is that due
to technological advancement and introduction of social media that people can access on
smartphones, almost all the time is spent on these platforms. This has greatly impacted on the success
and growth of some of these industrial sectors (Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield, 2013, 15).

IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE 4
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Since the time of its invention, social media has gained popularity at a rocket’s speed, over
billions of people are using social media around the world. this is evidenced by the number of
applications download from the app stores. Nonetheless, the use of social media by the employees in
the industries during the working hours are increasingly raising concerns towards productivity
(Majchrzak, Faraj, Kane, & Azad, 2013, p.55). In other way, research has indicated that employees in
Australia spend too much time on the social networks like Facebook, Instagram twitter, WhatsApp
among others sharing information. This is deemed unprofessional by many scholars as it is assumed
that confidential information from the respective firms can easily be linked/ breach of confidentiality.
Furtherly, productivity and employer-employee relationships is also believed to have been hampered.
According to research that was made in 2012, it was specified that the employees spend a lot of time
on social media chatting with friends family members and co-workers and this affects their
productivity (Dabbagh, & Kitsantas, 2012, p.3)
On the other hand, social media use is continually being encouraged as a strategy of
engagement during working hours. More time and costs are saved as confidential messaged can be
delivered among the working community of a company at a reduced cost. The used of social media
groups have also acted as discussion forum, which in turn, has stimulated good relationship among
employees (Williams, Crittenden, Keo, & McCarty, 2012, p.136)
It is therefore unjustifiable if social media is a boost to employee performance or rather a
destruction. An absolute intuition is induced, intended to examine how the use of social media in the
workplace has affected the productivity of employees in different industries.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES, AIM AND QUESTIONS
The main aim of this research study is to find out and investigate how using social media at the
workplace has impacted on the employees, performance in the industrial sector. In simple terms, the
following are the objectives of the study;