Professional Reputation Management & Social Media

Chris James CarterSupervised by Claire O’Malley & Lee Martin

1. Overview of professional reputation & social media

2. Research to date…

3. … Research to come!

4. Questions/feedback/ideas/experiences

Presentation Overview

Reputation, Reputation, Reputation!

“Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of - for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again.”

Socrates, 469 – 399 BC (and two World Cups)

Reputation: A Social Psychological Perspective

• Shared judgments within a specific community

“A distribution of opinions (the overt expressions of a collective image) about a person or other entity, in a stakeholder or interest group” (Bromley, 2001, p. 317)

• ‘Ownership’ of a social representation“[Reputation is] a collective phenomenon and a product of social processes, and

not as an impression in the head of any one individual” (Emler, 1990, p. 175)

• Behavioural consistency“The estimation of consistency over time of an attribute of an entity” (Milewicz &

Herbig, 1994, p. 41)

Reputation Management: From Duels to Deletion

39% employers monitor the social media activity of their employees (on company-owned computers/mobile devices)

33% disciplined employees for violating social media policy

(n = 441; Society for Human Resource Management, 2011)

Why Study Digital Reputation Management?

Increasing role of digital professional reputation…

94% recruiters use social media to support recruitment decisions68% positive online reputation influenced hiring decisions69% rejected candidates based on negative information Jobvite, 2013, n = 1600; Reppler, 2011, n = 300)

Study 1: Employees & Professional Use of Social Media

POST-publication

PRE-publication

ContentAudience

HE employeesn = 14Interviews

BSc friends

School friendsMSc friends

PhD friendsFamily

Former colleagues Current peers/clients

Reputation Management & Temperospatiality

Study 2: Students & Digital Reputation Management

RQDo students engage more frequently in digital reputation management behaviours the closer they are to making the transition to work?

Samplen = 257 full-time students

Scale itemsDigital reputation management behaviours on Facebook and Twitter, as informed by Study 1 findings

Scale responses(1) Never behave this way (5) Always behave this way

Item reductionPCA: 25 18 items

F1: Consideration of Professional Consequences (α = .87)

4 Items: e.g. ‘I take time before posting to consider how a potential employer might judge my actions’

F2: Self-Regulatory Control (α = .77)

5 Items: e.g. ‘I post first and then deal with any consequences later’ (reversed)

F3: Prevention of Threats to Image (α = .76)

5 Items: e.g. ‘I avoid posting in a way that might cause others to think of me as a negative person’

F4: Professional Self-Promotion (α = .69)

4 Items: e.g. ‘I post about things that I’m working on so that others might judge me to be a hard-worker’

Mean factor scores (n = 257)

2.67(1.09)

3.91(.78)

3.04(.86)

2.22(.76)

Stage of study (n = 166)

2.51

2.73

2.58

Sig. main effect of stage of study F(3, 153) = 3.41, p < .05, partial η² = .06 with sig. differences between middle year UGs and first year UGs (p < .05) and college students (p < .05)

F1: Consideration of Professional Consequences

3.15

• Students report relatively frequent self-regulation in their typical interactions with social media…

• … but are seemingly less frequently concerned with professional consequences (positive as well as negative) or audience

• Some evidence that UGs about to enter their final year tend to consider professional consequences more frequently than 1st Year UGs or College students (but not those at end of final year…)

Study 2 Summary

Study 3: Psychological Distance & Risk Perception

• Students and the imagined boss of their future

• Construal Level Theory & psychological distance (e.g. Trope & Liberman, 2010)- Close - Distant- Concrete - Abstract- Temporal, Spatial, Hypothetical, Social

• Psychological distance and judgments of risk: the ‘closer’ a risky event is perceived to be, the greater the perception of risk, concern and intention to engage in preventative behaviour- Health (e.g. Chandran & Menon, 2004)- Climate change (e.g. Spence et al, 2012)

Study 3: Psychological Distance & Risk Perception

RQDo job-seeking students perceive the riskiness of ‘professionally inappropriate’ Facebook posts to be greater when the possibility of employers looking at their Facebook profiles is perceived to be psychologically closer?

Temporal distancee.g. “I expect employers to be looking at my Facebook profile in the very near future, if not already”

Hypothetical distancee.g. “It is almost certain that employers will be looking at my Facebook profile to judge my suitability as a potential employee”

Social distancee.g. “Employers are most likely to look at the Facebook profiles of people seeking a similar type of job as me”

Professionally ‘Risky’ Facebook behaviours (Part I)

Profanity Drink/Drugs

Professionally ‘Risky’ Facebook behaviours (Part II)

Work-related Criticism Spelling/Grammar

Derogatory Comments

Thank you! Questions?

email:

psxcc@nottingham.ac.

uk

visit:

www.chrisjamescarter.

co.uk

follow: @chriscarter83