Examining the effects of internal social media usage on employee engagement

This study explores whether and how internal social media influences employee engagement, a top priority for those working in public relations. Specifically, it proposes and tests a conceptual model that links employee use of internal social media, perceived organizational transparency, and organizational identification, to employee engagement. Through an online survey of 1150 employees from various organizations in the United States that had adopted internal social media, results show that employees’ use of internal social media contributes to an enhanced level of perceived transparency of the organization and organizational identification, which in turn, leads to employee engagement. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

On the social control of industries

One of the master trends of modern society is the emergence and growth of large, differentiated industry complexes. Yet out theory of social control is largely focused on the control of individuals, not industries. Understanding the processes of control requires integrating perspectives of several disciplines--economics, law, political science, and sociology. A relatively comprehensive theoretical framework of the middle range is proposed consisting of five main conceptual clusters, norms, performance curves, structural context, compliance capability and readiness, surveillance and sanction capacity of control agent. The framework helps us identify areas for further research and conceptualization, stakes out a sociological claim for involvement in an area of great policy relevance, and helps bridge the gap between two levels of analysis, society and complex organization.     

Fetishism and the social value of objects1

The idea of the fetish has a particular presence in the writings of both Marx and Freud. It implies for these two theorists of the social, a particular form of relation between human beings and objects. In the work of both, the idea of the fetish involves attributing properties to objects that they do not ‘really’ have and that should correctly be recognised as human. While Marx's account of fetishism addresses the exchange-value of commodities at the level of the economic relations of production, it fails to deal in any detail with the use-value or consumption of commodities. In contrast Freud's concept of the fetish as a desired substitute for a suitable sex object explores how objects are desired and consumed. Drawing on both Marx and Freud, Baudrillard breaks with their analyses of fetishism as demonstrating a human relation with unreal objects. He explores the creation of value in objects through the social exchange of sign values, showing how objects are fetishised in ostentation. This paper argues that while Baudrillard breaks with the realism characteristic of Marx's and Freud's analyses of fetishism, he does not go far enough in describing the social and discursive practices in which objects are used and sometimes transformed into fetishes. It is proposed that the fetishisation of objects involves an overdetermination of their social value through a discursive negotiation of the capacities of objects that stimulates fantasy and desire for them.     

Exploring the unknown aspects of Roma community in Cyprus and the role of social work practice

The status quo of Roma communities in Europe is strongly marked by marginalisation and discrimination. Roma people tend to face social exclusion and segregation leading to lack of education, chronic unemployment and limited access to healthcare, housing and public services as well as widespread poverty. Very few studies have been conducted as far as Roma community in Cyprus are concerned and almost none has explored quality of life of this ethnic minority. Therefore, this article examines quality of life dimensions in approximately half of the population (n?=?156) residing in the catchment area. Both quantitative and qualitative results showed poor standards of living, high school dropout rates and high levels of marginalisation. Social work as discipline can foster a more empowering and coordinating role as to enhance Roma’s distinctive identity and improve standards of living.     

On the informational basis of social choice

The notion of informational basis in social choice can be broadened so as to cover not only the standard notions related to interpersonal utility comparisons, but also information about utilities or preferences at (ir)relevant alternatives, non-utility features of alternatives, personal responsibility, unconcerned subpopulations, and feasibility constraints. This paper proposes a unified conceptual framework for all these notions, and analyzes the kind of information retained in each case. This new framework yields a deeper understanding of the difficulties and possibilities of social choice. New welfarism theorems are also obtained.I am indebted to W. Bossert, W. Gaertner, F. Gaspart, L. Gevers, N. Gravel, S. Kolm, M. Le Breton, Ph. Mongin, P. Hammond, K. Suzumura, K. Tadenuma, A. Trannoy and J. Weymark for many conversations on topics related to this paper. I have benefited from reactions of the audience at the conference in honor of Louis Gevers, Namur 1999, and at a seminar at the LSE, and from comments by two referees and the editor, F. Maniquet. None of them is responsible for the shortcomings of the paper.     

On the limiting properties of social indicators

Characteristics of the population and economic measures that constitute traditional social indicators are compared with more recent “quality of life” measures to demonstrate that social indicators are always value statements at the policy level. The possibility of alternative perspectives is illustrated. It is suggested that an awareness of the assumptions implicit in any given indicator is as important as the data they provide.     

On the manipulation of social choice correspondences

Duggan and Schwartz (Soc Choice and Welfare 17: 85–93, 2000) have proposed a generalization of the Gibbard–Satterthwaite Theorem to multivalued social choice rules. They show that only dictatorial rules are strategy-proof and satisfy citizens sovereignty and residual resoluteness. Citizens sovereignty requires that each alternative is chosen at some preference profile. Residual resoluteness compels the election to be single-valued when the preferences of the voters are “similar”. We propose an alternative proof to the Duggan and Schwartz’s Theorem. Our proof highlights the crucial role of residual resoluteness. In addition, we prove that every strategy-proof and onto social choice correspondence concentrates the social decision power in the hands of an arbitrary group of voters. Finally, we show that this result still holds in a more general framework in which voters report their preferences over sets of alternatives.     

Relationality and social interaction1

This paper explores Bourdieu's account of a relational social space, and his relative neglect of social interaction within this framework. Bourdieu includes social capital as one of the key relational elements of his social space, but says much less about it than economic or cultural capital, and levels of social capital are rarely measured in his work. Bourdieu is reluctant to focus on the content of social networks as part of his rejection of substantialist thinking. The neglect of substantive networks creates problems for Bourdieu's framework, because many of Bourdieu's core concepts rest upon assumptions about their interactional properties (in particular, the prevalence of homophilous differential association) which are left unexamined. It is argued here that Bourdieu's neglect of the substance of social networks is related to the criticisms that Bourdieu's framework often encounters, and that this neglect bears re‐examination, since it is helpful to think of the ways in which differentiated social networks contribute to the development of habitus, help form fields, and so constitute the intersubjective social relations within which sociality, and practice more generally, occur.     

Goal specific social capital and job satisfaction: Effects of different types of networks on instrumental and social aspects of work

This paper addresses the question “To what extent can job satisfaction be explained as the revenue of social capital?” By conceiving someone’s social network as social capital we specify conditions under which social ties do lead to job satisfaction. We inquire into the idea of goal specificity of social capital, which implies that a network with a given structure and content will have different impacts on various aspects of job satisfaction. If the content of the ties and the structure of the network at the job engender material well-being or produce social approval, satisfaction with the corresponding job aspects increases. Data were collected in 1993 using written questionnaires in two Dutch governmental agencies, one with 32 and the other with 44 employees. These workers’ networks were charted using nine name-generating questions.Social capital, it turns out, is not an all-purpose good but one that is goal specific, even within a single domain of life such as work. Three effects stand out: First, the structure of the network and the content of the ties do matter. Networks of strategic, work-related ties promote an employee’s satisfaction with instrumental aspects of the job, like income, security, and career opportunities. Second, closed networks of identity-based solidarity ties improve an employee’s satisfaction with social aspects of the job, like the general social climate at work and cooperation with management and colleagues. Third, a network with a bow–tie structure (i.e., where a focal actor is the link between two or more mutually exclusive cliques) generally has strong negative effects on satisfaction with the social side of the job; although a bow–tie type network of trusting ties does increase satisfaction with the social side. This implies that Krackhardt’s hypothesis on the unpleasant feelings produced by bow–tie type networks has to be specified for the content of the ties that constitute such a network. The most important conclusion of our analysis is that goal specificity of social capital has implications for both structure and content of social networks. Achievement of a particular goal, such as satisfaction at work, requires not only networks of a certain structure or ties with a particular content, but specifically structured networks of ties with a particular content.     

Star wars: aspects of the social construction of citations in Anglo-Canadian sociology*

Il ressort clairement de la lecture des textes en sociologie de la connaissance et de la science que les savants élaborent leurs interprcctations de la réalité en tant que membres de groupes et de réseaux sociaux. Autrement dit, les savants ne réagissent pas uniquement en fonction de la problématique à l'étude ou de normes scientifiques largement diffusées. D'où l'hypothèse selon laquelle les sociologues canadiens citeront les études de leurs collègues en fonction de l'emplacement géographique des universités de ces derniers et des contacts sociaux qui en découlent. L'auteur analyse les citations de deux livres, From Culture to Power de Brym et Fox et Sociology de Stebbins. L'analyse révèle que les auteurs de l'Ouest sont sous-représentés dans les références de From Culture to Power, qui surreprésentent ceux des grandes universités ontariennes, tandis que Sociology accorde une plus grande attention aux ouvrages d'auteurs des Prairies et de 1'Ouest. Writing in the sociologies of knowledge and science makes it clear that scientists construct their interpretations of reality as part of social groups and social networks. That is, scientists do not react solely to the research problem at hand or to widely diffused scientific norms. This view leads to the hypothesis that, in Canadian sociology, authors will cite others' studies as a function of the geographical location of their universities and resulting social contacts, emphasizing the latter. Analyses are conducted for citations in Brym and Fox's From Culture to Power and Stebbins' Sociology. Results show that references in From Culture to Power underrepresent scholars in the West and overrepresent scholars from Core universities in Ontario, while Stebbins' book gives greater attention to works from the Prairies and the West.     

The role of service users in problem formulation and technical aspects of social research

The importance of the practitioner-researcher relationship in problem formulation derives from the need for relevance to the issues faced by practitioners. This paper argues that if research is to be relevant to the issues faced by service users, they too must be involved in problem formulation. There is a substantial literature on the moral case for user involvement in research but relatively little about the technical benefits. The paper sets out some distinctions in the meaning of user involvement in different models of social research, and, drawing on examples of user-led and user-controlled research, suggests not only that problem formulation benefits from user involvement but that several other key technical aspects of social research may also be improved.     

Between fact and interpretation: On the social misconstruction of reality

Theory and Society -