Issues of Utilizing Social Networking as an Informal Organizational Communication Channel: Evidence from China

Abstract

Social networking has been increasingly used by both individual and organization in the workplace. This paper addresses gaps in the current literature and tries to demonstrate the negative impacts and consequences of social networking. Qualitative study is applied in this study, including the conduction of user survey, interviews and case studies, which are conducted in the context of China. The article reports on work in progress on the research. The early findings highlight that despite the benefits generated by social networking, issues are also obvious, including such as data security, privacy protection, work-life imbalance, increased work pressure and stress, boundary and role ambiguity. Such findings contribute to organizational policy making and generating modern management practice in the context of information society.