Using social media for work: Losing your time or improving your work?

Social Media have been gaining in popularity worldwide over the last years at an increasingly growing rate. The introduction of social media in companies enables a new method of communication among colleagues and with customers. Although social media are in the top of the agenda for many companies to date, there seems to be very limited understanding of the usage of social media for work purposes. In this study, we investigate whether employees make use of social media for work purposes, what values increase this usage, and if that usage is related with their performance. Responses from 1799 employees in the insurance industry were used to examine the impact of social media on work. Results confirmed that in the case of social media for work, employees make extended use of them no matter their age. We found also that both utilitarian and hedonic values influence employees to use more social media for their work, at least in the insurance sector. Last but not least, this study confirms that there is an important relation between the use of social media and the work performance. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.