The Effect of Social Media on Employees Perception of Psychological Empowerment

Abstract

In recent years, social media is one of the most common instruments which plays an important role in our lives. Generally, studies on social media concerns the structure of social media or items that are the subject of social media. This study, by defining social media users, aims to analyze what kind of activities they take part in actively, in the context of university workers. The number of individuals using social media are gradually increasing. The main hypothesis of this study is that, the perception of psychological empowerment of the individuals who take part in these platforms plays an active role in presenting their organizational commitment. The aim of the study is to identify whether social media affect the perceptions of psychological empowerment of employees. For this study, the influence social media on the relevant dimensions of the perception of psychological empowerment (meaningfulness, competence, self-determination, impact) of the faculty and staff of Istanbul Geli?im University, whom are selected by purposive sampling, via survey method. The main result is that, there is a relation between active or passive use of social media and the perception of psychological empowerment. Findings that are obtained by the results of regression analyses which are conducted concomitantly with the factor and reliability analyses reveal that social media, as an advantage of the advancement and proliferation of technology and the convenience that technological devices provide, have an impact on the relevant dimensions of the perception of psychological empowerment in various degrees To measure ?psychological empowerment?, Spreitzer?s Psychological Empowerment Scale (PES) is used. Findings are analyzed via SPSS 16.0 in the framework of the theses that take place in the literature.