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Enhancing employee advocacy on Enhancing

employee
social media: the value of internal advocacy

relationship
management approach
Yeunjae Lee Received 10 May 2020
Revised 21 July 2020
University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, USA, and Accepted 27 July 2020
Katie Haejung Kim
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Abstract
Purpose – To advance the theoretical understanding of employees’ advocacy on social media, this study aims
to propose and test an integrative model that incorporates individual and organizational antecedents. Drawing
from the relationship management theory in public relations and online behavior literature, the model
specifically examines the collective impacts of the social media-related behavioral motivations of individuals
and the quality of employee–organization relationship (EOR) on their positive information-sharing intentions
about their company on personal social media.
Design/methodology/approach – An online survey was conducted with 419 full-time employees in the USA
who use social media.
Findings – The results of an online survey with full-time employees in the USA showed that the EOR
influenced by symmetrical internal communication significantly increases employees’ advocacy intentions and
social media-related motivations. Considerable and distinct effects of individuals’ positive behavioral
motivations on social media (i.e. self-enhancement, altruism, enjoyment) on advocacy intentions are also found.
Originality/value – This study is among the first attempts to test the value of strategic internal
communication and relationship management approach in enhancing employee advocacy on the digital
environment, social media and their motives of using such channel for benefiting their company.
Keywords Employee advocacy on social media, Individual social media-related motivations,
Employee–organization relationship
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Employees’ role as brand advocates or informal spokesperson for organizations has been
long identified in the literature (Men and Stacks, 2014) as their personal words or messages
are often perceived as credible by external publics. With the growth of the internet and
diverse media platforms, employees’ power as organizational advocates in the digital
environment has been particularly emphasized (Miles and Mangold, 2014). Their advocacy
on social media can serve as a competitive advantage to the organization, when employees
promote positive organization-related messages or defend their organization against
criticism online (Dreher, 2014; van Zoonen et al., 2014). Considering that employees’
advocacy may impact greatly on improving corporate reputation and building a favorable
relationship with external publics (Kim and Rhee, 2011; van Zoonen et al., 2014), scholars and
practitioners are now becoming more aware of the importance of managing and guiding
employees’ supportive organization-related behaviors on social media (Walden, 2018).
In terms of fostering employees’ advocacy, public relations and communication scholars
have believed that organizations’ communication practices with employees in a symmetrical
manner increase the quality of a relationship between an organization and its employees, which Corporate Communications: An
International Journal
enhances employees’ likelihood of sharing positive information about their organization in their © Emerald Publishing Limited
1356-3289
personal networks (Kang and Sung, 2017; Kim and Rhee, 2011; Lee, 2018). That is, DOI 10.1108/CCIJ-05-2020-0088
CCIJ organizations’ communicative efforts help employees trust, feel committed to and be satisfied
with their company, which becomes positive motives to engage in voluntary advocative
behaviors for their organization.
What remains unclear, however, is whether these organizations’ efforts could encourage
or discourage employees’ motivations to share supportive organization-related information
in new media environments such as social media. Prior studies have attempted to understand
employees’ social media behaviors about their company such as “liking” or “sharing”
products- or events-related information (e.g. van Zoonen et al., 2018). However, few studies
have considered individuals’ voluntary motivations of advocating their company by creating
and sharing positive company-related content or actively defending the company with their
personal words in social media. Moreover, given the complicated nature of online users’
motivations of engaging in online environment (e.g. Henning-Thurau et al., 2004),
understanding individual employees’ social media-specific intrinsic motivations, in
addition to organizational factors, is also critical. Informed by symmetrical communication
model and relationship management theory in public relations, we attempt to argue that
corporate communication practices trigger employees’ intrinsic motivations of generating
and sharing advocative content on social media and their behavioral intentions. That is, the
value of internal communication and public relations, relationship management approach in
particular, should be noteworthy in understanding employees’ behavioral intentions on
social media.
Therefore, to understand employees’ motivational routes of social media behaviors,
especially their advocacy, this study aims to suggest a holistic model that integrates
individual and organizational determinants of employees’ behavioral intentions on social
media in relation with their organization. Drawing from the existing literature on public
relations, consumer psychology and online behaviors, this study attempts to explain when
and how employees are likely to become supporters of an organization to provide
organizations with guidelines of understanding and managing employees’ social media
behaviors.

Literature review
Employee advocacy on social media
Employees’ voices have been regarded as crucial organizational assets across disciplines,
including public relations, corporate management and business studies. Considering that
employees are primary internal stakeholders who connect organizations with external
publics, employees’ external voices greatly influence organization–public relations and
corporate reputation (Kim and Rhee, 2011; Men, 2014; Men and Stacks, 2014). In this sense,
public relations studies have highlighted the significance of employees’ advocacy defined as
voluntarily promoting positive information of their company and defending the company
against criticism to external publics (Men, 2014). Kim and Rhee (2011) similarly coined the
term, positive megaphoning, referring to employees’ voluntary information sharing
behaviors with people in their personal network such as friends or family members.
Previous works have suggested that a favorable organization–employee relationship,
organizations’ symmetrical communication practices or authentic behaviors, organizational
commitment and leadership can particularly increase employees’ likelihood of advocating for
their organizations (Kim and Rhee, 2011; Lee and Kim, 2017; Lee et al., 2018; Walden and
Westerman, 2018).
The growth of the internet and social media has provided a new arena for employees and
organizations to interact with external stakeholders on an enormous scale (Kietzmann et al.,
2011; Mangold and Faulds, 2009). Organizations have utilized the digital environment such as
social media as a new strategic tool to build relationships with publics and strengthen
corporate reputation (Kim and Freberg, 2020). Given that employees are regarded as a
trustworthy, credible and autonomous information source with in-depth knowledge about Enhancing
the company (Dortok, 2006; Helm, 2011), online environments such as social media strengthen employee
the power of employees’ advocative voices on their job or work-related experiences, providing
opportunities to communicate with thousands of people outside the organization with a few
advocacy
words. In an organizational management perspective, employees’ voices on social media have
become an opportunity that can amplify the impact of positive organization-related messages
and improve corporate reputation (van Zoonen et al., 2014). That is, employees can function as
powerful brand ambassadors (Andersson, 2019) when they share positive organization-
related content or even defend and support their organizations or employers from cyberspace
attacks (Dreher, 2014; van Zoonen et al., 2014). Drawing from previous literature on employee
advocacy and positive communicative behaviors (Kim and Rhee, 2011; Men, 2014), this study
defines employees’ advocacy intentions on social media as employees’ intentions to voluntarily
create and share positive or advocative information of their company on their personal
social media.
Recognizing the importance of employees’ advocacy in today’s business environment,
previous studies have demonstrated the impacts of organizational factors (e.g. organizational
identification, power distance) (van Zoonen et al., 2018; Smith et al., 2017) on employees’ social
media behaviors regarding their organizations. Individuals’ ability or competence to use
social media in relation to their organization (Walsh et al., 2016) or desire to express positive
and negative emotions (Krishna and Kim, 2015) have also been examined. What has been
overlooked is whether and to what extent organizations’ and individuals’ motives are linked
to affect employees’ organization-related behaviors on social media. From public relations’
perspective, this study argues that organizations’ relationship management approach
through communication practices influences employee outcomes related to social media,
including individuals’ motivations for social media engagement as well as their advocacy
intentions about their company. Although it has been believed that organizations’
relationship and communication management approach is a significant predictor of
employees’ positive behaviors (Kang and Sung, 2017; Kim and Rhee, 2011), the effect of it
in the social media context has not been empirically demonstrated in the literature. Based on
this idea, the present study identifies specific organizational factors and individual social
media-related motivations as important antecedents of employees’ behavioral intention in
relation to the organization. Moreover, the study explores how these organization-level
efforts and individual motives are integrated, which ultimately lead to their advocacy on
social media.

Individual motivations of employee advocacy on social media

To better understand the motivations behind employees’ decisions to advocate their
company on personal social media, this study identifies distinct individual motives,
particularly drawing on theoretical insights from consumers’ electronic word-of-mouth
(eWOM) communication literature for two reasons.
First, given that the concept of employee advocacy on social media is based on individuals’
voluntary information-sharing behaviors (Kim and Rhee, 2011) to people in their personal
network (e.g. online friends), it is essentially characterized by individuals’ informal word-of-
mouth (WOM) behaviors in an online environment. Consumers and employees may differ in
terms of expectations, interests and needs for an organization. As the strategic internal and
external stakeholders of an organization, however, the consumers’ positive eWOM has
similar characteristics to employee advocacy on social media, in which both contain
information about “a company or an organization” (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004; Kim and Rhee,
2011) and are based on the individuals’ “personal” opinions. Therefore, consumers who
engage in brand- or organization-related positive WOM behaviors online are expected to have
a similar desire with employees who are likely to share positive company-related contents
CCIJ online. Indeed, several previous studies have implied that consumer-focused motivations can
be applied to understand employees’ social media behaviors (e.g. Leftheriotis and Giannakos,
2014; Smith et al., 2017; van Zoonen et al., 2018). Second, employee advocacy on social media
captures individuals’ active, rather than passive, behaviors on social media. The concept is
close to “contributing” or “producing” (Tsai and Men, 2013) positive contents about their
company with their personal words, rather than “consuming” or “sharing” contents created
by others. Although numerous scholars have emphasized the significant difference between
online users’ active and passive brand- or organization-related behaviors (e.g. Tsai and Men,
2013), most existing research on employees’ social media usage motive focused on their
passive behaviors on social media (e.g. liking or sharing) (e.g. van Zoonen et al., 2018).
Examining online users’ eWOM motivations is particularly important to understand
employees’ active, voluntary and informal roles in the social media environment.
Previous studies have indicated the diverse consumers’ motives for engaging in positive
eWOM, ranging from personal- (e.g. positive self-enhancement, social benefits) and
organizational-level motives (e.g. helping others or the company) (e.g. Hennig-Thurau et al.,
2004; Krasnova et al., 2010; Sundaram et al., 1998) to media channel-related motives (e.g.
enjoyment, usefulness) (e.g. Lin and Lu, 2011). Although several scholars in communication
studies have explored how self-enhancement (van Zoonen et al., 2018) or enjoyment
(Leftheriotis and Giannakos, 2014; Smith et al., 2017) can be applied in the context of employee
behaviors on social media, a scholarly effort has scarcely examined the joint effect of these
various levels of motives. Accordingly, an integrative model was necessary for the
advancement of knowledge on employee behavior on social media in the field. Based on the
literature review of the consumers’ online WOM and employee behaviors, three individual
motives that may be the most representative for employees’ motivations from different levels,
namely, self-enhancement, altruism and enjoyment, are specifically suggested. The following
sections specifically describe each motive:
Self-enhancement. Self-enhancement refers to the motivation of individuals to enhance
their positive self-images and promote self-relevant information that provides favorable
impressions and implications about one’s self to others (Engel et al., 1993; Kowalski and
Leary, 1990). Several studies have emphasized that a desire for positive recognition and
impressions is a critical factor for one’s social media use (e.g. Marwick and Boyd, 2011;
Walton and Rice, 2013). Individuals with motives of public self-enhancement are likely to
engage in sharing positive information that helps them form favorable impressions from
others (Ollier-Malaterre et al., 2013).
For employees, social media can serve as important online networks where they can
publicly and strategically manage their positive impressions from others when they highly
value their positions within the organization and strive to further improve their status
(Ederer and Patacconi, 2010). Employees with a strong desire to promote themselves and
their traits, attitude and behaviors positively are, thus, likely to manage their self-image in
online social networks (Leary and Kowalski, 1990; Ollier-Malaterre et al., 2013; van Zoonen
et al., 2018). Social media have been considered as vehicles for active presentations of the self
(Bazarova and Choi, 2014), providing employees with new ways to express their
organizational identities as a valued portion of their self-concept. The organization can be
a part of employees’ online identities when it represents an important part of their self-
concept (Fieseler et al., 2015). Therefore, when employees desire to present themselves
positively as organizational representatives based on a high level of identification, they are
likely to be motivated to share positive information about their company on social media.
Altruism. Altruism can be another important motivation for employee advocacy on social
media. Altruism is unconditional kindness to help others without the expectation of any
return (Fehr and G€achter, 2000). Many existing studies have demonstrated that altruism is a
key element for individuals’ knowledge-sharing intentions in digital environments
(Kankanhalli et al., 2005; Lee and Lee, 2010; Ma and Chan, 2014). In an organizational setting, Enhancing
as a part of one’s altruistic motives, consumers are motivated to share their positive employee
experiences with others to help organizations (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004; Sundaram et al.,
1998). That is, when consumers are satisfied with a product or service provided by an
advocacy
organization, they exert efforts to share their positive experience to “return something to the
company” for their good experience and engage in positive eWOM (Henning-Thurau et al.,
2004). For example, they write positive online reviews or recommendations about the
company to allow other online consumers to evaluate the company favorably.
Similarly, from an employee perspective, satisfying experiences with their organizations
can motivate employees to engage in online communicative activities to support the
organization (i.e. employee advocacy) with an altruistic motive. That is, employees may
choose social media as an outlet to express their desire to help and give back to the company
by making their content visible to other users on social media. When employees believe that
they need to represent their company, their likelihood of using social media increased (van
Zoonen et al., 2014). This altruistic motive toward their company, therefore, may help and
facilitate their advocacy behaviors on social media.
Enjoyment. Many people enjoy sharing their experiences with others to feel pleasure (Lin
and Lu, 2011; Sledgianowski and Kulviwat, 2009). Along this line, social networking sites are
considered as a pleasure-oriented information system where individuals share enjoyments
(Sledgianowski and Kulviwat, 2009). Hedonic motives or enjoyment that are associated with
amusement, fun and positive emotions are identified as a key motive for consumers’ eWOM
contributions, promoting their behavioral intentions (Yoo and Gretzel, 2008).
Recently, Leftheriotis and Giannakos (2014) expanded the importance of enjoyment on
social media environments in the context of employees, and they found that enjoyment and
other hedonic values are considerably related to employees’ usage of social media for work
purposes, such as communicating with colleagues or sharing work-related knowledge. Smith
et al. (2017) also noted that one of the key motives of employees sharing any content on social
media as internal members of an organization is to have fun and enjoy seeing that the
organization is paying attention to their contents. Similarly, it can be assumed that
individuals who enjoy using social media are likely to distribute positive aspects of their
organization actively to have fun and share positive emotions with other users on their
personal social networking sites.
Basing on the aforementioned individuals’ social media-related motivational variables,
this study suggests the following hypotheses to understand employees’ advocative
behavioral intentions on their personal social media:
H1. Employees’ advocacy intentions on their personal social media are positively related
to their self-enhancement motive.
H2. Employees’ advocacy intentions on their personal social media are positively related
to their altruism motive.
H3. Employees’ advocacy intentions on their personal social media are positively related
to their enjoyment motive.

Organizational motivations of employee advocacy on social media

As several previous studies have noted, what employees experience in their organization
significantly determines their intentions to engage in social media or not. In other words,
employees’ social media use is mainly driven by organization-related motives (van Zoonen
et al., 2014). Incorporating public relations’ perspective, this study suggests two
organizational variables as an organizational-level motive of employee advocacy on social
media: employee–organization relationship (EOR) and symmetrical communication.
CCIJ Employee–organization relationship. Employees’ motivations for engaging in
communicative actions have been well documented in communication and public relations
literature. EOR has been suggested as a key variable that enhances the likelihood of
employees’ communicative behaviors (Kang and Sung, 2017; Kim and Rhee, 2011; Lee and
Kim, 2017; Mazzei et al., 2012). Defined as “the degree to which an organization and its
employees trust one another, agree on who has the rightful power to influence, experience
satisfaction with each other, and commit oneself to the other” (Men and Stacks, 2014, p. 307),
EOR includes four major components: trust, control mutuality, commitment and satisfaction.
When employees are satisfied with, committed to and trust their company, they are more
likely to talk positively about their company to their acquaintances and less likely to forward
any negative contents about their organization (Kim and Rhee, 2011; Lee and Kim, 2017;
Mazzei et al., 2012). In the social media context, scholars have suggested that a high level of
identification (Smith et al., 2017; van Zoonen et al., 2018) or organizational pride (Krishna and
Kim, 2015) was positively associated with employees’ intentions to share positive aspects
about their company on social media. That is, a good quality of relationship between an
organization and its employees can be a facilitator of employees’ advocacy behaviors on
social media. Therefore, the study proposes the following hypothesis linking EOR and
employees’ advocacy intentions on social media:
H4. Employees’ perceived relationship with their organization is positively related to
their advocacy intentions on their personal social media.

Symmetrical communication. Emphasizing “trust, credibility, openness, relationships,

reciprocity, network symmetry, horizontal communication, feedback, adequacy of information,
employee-centered style, tolerance for disagreement, and negotiation” (Grunig, 1992, p. 558),
symmetrical communication is considered an excellent internal communication practice for
organizations (Men and Bowen, 2017). Symmetrical internal communication is characterized by
two-way communication between an organization and its employees, with the aim of achieving
mutual benefits through listening, accessibility and opportunities for participation in decision-
making processes (Kim and Rhee, 2011). Communication scholars have highlighted
symmetrical communication as a normative model of internal relations practices, as it
increases employee engagement and advocacy, which may ultimately lead to improved
corporate reputation and organizational success (Kang and Sung, 2017; Kim and Rhee, 2011;
Men, 2014). In public relations literature, scholars have emphasized the importance of the notion
of symmetrical internal communication with various terms. For example, the senior managers’
efforts to feed the employees’ voice upward and respond to the employees’ views and
suggestions (i.e. receptive communication), which are symmetrical communication in nature,
increase employee satisfaction and engagement level (Ruck et al., 2017). Lemon (2019) also
noted that a dialogue, “a highly specialized form of two-way communication that requires
inclusivity and acceptance” (Lane and Kent, 2018, p. 64) contributes to constructing and
maintaining employee engagement. Accordingly, the effectiveness of symmetrical
communication on building and maintaining a good quality of EOR has been well
established (Kang and Sung, 2017; Kim and Rhee, 2011; Lee, 2018). Employees who believe
that their company’s internal organizational communication practice is symmetrical tend to
have a more trustful, committed and satisfying relationship with their company. In line with
previous research, the present study suggests the following hypothesis:
H5. Employees’ perceived relationship with their organization is positively related to
symmetrical internal communication.
Linking individual and organizational factors Enhancing
Existing literature has established how organizational efforts lead employees’ employee
communicative behaviors within and beyond the boundaries of the organization (Kim and
Rhee, 2011; Lee and Kim, 2017; Men, 2014). However, the underlying mechanisms of how
advocacy
organizational efforts trigger employees’ individual social media usage motives in relation to
their organization and ultimately influence their positive communicative behaviors have
been not clearly investigated. Therefore, this study intends to comprehensively understand
the underlying factors that lead to employee advocacy on social media by combining
organizations’ communication efforts and individuals’ behavioral motivation variables and
determine their relationship. Despite a lack of empirical evidence, previous studies have
implied a possible explanation of how organizational factors lead to individuals’ behavioral
motivations in the social media environment. For example, Sundaram et al. (1998) noted that
one’s motivation to help and reward a company through referral (i.e. eWOM) comes from his
or her positive experience with the company. Employees’ trust or perceived organizational
support is also positively associated with organization-based self-esteem (i.e. self-
enhancement) (Pierce and Gardner, 2004), which in turn, serves as motivation to engage in
social media. Smith et al. (2017) highlighted that the notion of “my company is my life” boosts
employees’ social media behaviors, and they enjoy seeing boosts of impressions of their social
media contents, which indicates that a good quality of EOR can encourage employees to enjoy
the benefits of sharing company-related posts on social media. All in all, it is likely that
employees who have established a favorable EOR likely generate individual motives (e.g. self-
enhancement, altruism, enjoyment) that result from positive, pleasant and satisfying
experiences with the organization. From these ideas, the following hypotheses are derived:
H6. Employees’ perceived relationship quality with their organization is positively
related to their self-enhancement motive on personal social media.
H7. Employees’ perceived relationship quality with their organization is positively
related to their altruism motive on personal social media.
H8. Employees’ perceived relationship quality with their organization is positively
related to their enjoyment motive on personal social media.
In sum, we expect that a positive EOR, which was influenced by symmetrical organizational
communication, may positively affect the employees’ social media use motivation and their
advocacy intentions. This finding leads us to suggest the mediating role of EOR between
symmetrical communication and the employees’ social media-related variables. As
previously argued, the organizations’ symmetrical communication system contributes to
the increasing EOR quality (Kang and Sung, 2017; Kim and Rhee, 2011). A positive
relationship between an organization and its employees triggers the employees’ motives of
social media usage (Walden, 2018), as well as their intentions to engage in positive behaviors
online (Ederer and Patacconi, 2010; Smith et al., 2017; van Zoonen et al., 2014). In this process,
EOR acts as a crucial mediator through which the power of symmetrical internal
communication has manifested. Specifically, this study expects that symmetrical
communication will increase the employees’ perceived favorable relationship with their
company, which increases their motives to enhance their self-image as employees, help their
company, enjoy social media engagement and foster the employees’ intentions to generate
and forward advocative contents about their company on social media. The following
hypotheses are, thus, proposed:
H9. The relationship between symmetrical communication and the employees’ social
media usage motives – (1) self-enhancement, (2) altruism and (3) enjoyment – will be
mediated by EOR.
CCIJ H10. The relationship between symmetrical communication and employees’ advocacy
intentions on social media will be mediated by EOR.
Figure 1 summarizes the hypothesized model.

Method
An online survey was administered in the current study during the one-week period in 2019.
Full-time employees working in corporations in the USA from various industry sectors were
recruited as participants through Qualtrics panels. Given the purpose of the current study,
employees who currently use their own social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram) are only included. Each participant was given a consent form, which was
approved by the university’s institutional review board (IRB). A pretest survey was
conducted through Amazon Mechanical Turk (N 5 100) to identify measurement wording
and reliabilities, survey flow and response time. Participants from the pretest sample were
not included for the final sample.
Final data include 419 employees, consisting of 49% of males (n 5 206) and 51% of
females (n 5 213). The mean age was 46.02 (SD 5 12.28), and a majority of the participants
had at least a bachelor’s degree (n 5 337, 80.5%). Approximately 44.6% of the participants
(n 5 187) are in a managerial position in their company (e.g. supervisor, staff, executives).
About 43.9% of the respondents (n 5 184) have worked at their current company for at least
ten years. Participants worked at various industry sectors, including healthcare services
(n 5 59, 14.1%), manufacturing (13.1%, n 5 55), educational services (n 5 43, 10.3%), finance/
accounting/banking (n 5 43, 10.3%) and professional/business services (n 5 35, 8.4%). In
terms of the participants’ social media use, 40.4% of them (n 5 169) spend their time on social
networking sites (SNS) at least one hour a day and 61.6% of them (n 5 258) post contents on
their own personal SNS (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) at least once a week. Among the
participants, 25.8% of them (n 5 108) have posted any content related to their organization in
their own SNS.

Measures
All items used in the current study were adopted from previous literature. First, employees’
advocacy intentions on personal social media were measured with three revised items in the
context of social media adopted from Kim and Rhee (2011) and Walden and Westerman

H4

Self-
enhancement
H1
H6

Employee- Employee
Symmetrical Organization H7 H2 Advocacy
Altruism
Communication Relationship on Social
H5
(EOR) Media
H3
H8
Enjoyment
Figure 1.
Hypothesized model of
employee advocacy on Organizational Motives Individual Motives
social media
Note(s): H9 and H10 hypothesized the mediating effect of EOR
(2018), with five-point Likert scales ranging from (1) extremely unlikely to (5) extremely likely. Enhancing
Each item began with the statement, “How likely is that you would. . .” and ended with “write employee
positive comments or advocating posting for your organization on your SNS,” “praise your
company and its management on your SNS” and “share contents or postings about good
advocacy
aspects of your company on your SNS” (α 5 0.88).
Regarding employees’ social media-related behavioral motivations, five-point Likert
scales were used from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree. As predictors of employee
advocacy on social media, “altruism” motive was measured with two items from Yap et al.
(2013), such as “I want to express my support for my company by uploading or sharing any
contents on my SNS” and “I want to help my company to be successful by uploading or
sharing any contents on my SNS” (α 5 0.94). “Enjoyment” motive was measured with three
items from Krasnova et al. (2010). Items include “It is enjoyable and relaxing when I share any
contents about my organization on SNS,” “It is fun to share contents about my company on
SNS” and “It makes me less bored when I share content about my company on SNS”
(α 5 0.94). “Self-enhancement” motive was measured with four items from Yap et al. (2013).
Items started with the statement, “By uploading or sharing any contents on SNS,” followed by
“I can express my joy working at my company,” “I can tell others about a great experience at
my company” and “I feel good what I can tell others about my success in company” (α 5 0.97).
Employees’ perceived relationship quality with their organization, EOR, was measured
with 12 items from Hon and Grunig (1999) (α 5 0.97), including trust (three items, α 5 0.88)
(e.g. “My company treats employee like me fairly and justly”), control mutuality (three items,
α 5 0.93) (e.g. “My company and an employee like me are attentive to what each other say”),
commitment (three items, α 5 0.94) (e.g. “I feel that my company is trying to maintain a long-
term commitment to employees like me”) and satisfaction (three items, α 5 0.91) (e.g. “Overall,
I am happy with my company.” Lastly, six items were used (α 5 0.91) to measure symmetrical
internal communication from Dozier et al. (1995) (e.g. “Most communication between me and
my company can be said to be two-way communication,” “The purpose of communication in
our company is to help managers be responsive to the problems of employees”).

Data analysis
To ensure the reliability of the measurement items, Cronbach’s alpha for all observed
variables was calculated. All variables were found to have a Cronbach’s alpha of > 0.80. To
test the hypotheses, the study followed a two-stage structural equation modeling (SEM)
procedure, following Anderson and Gerbing (1988). A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)
was firstly used to assess the reliability and the validity of the measurement model, followed
by SEM analysis to test the hypothesized relationships among the latent variables in the
structural model. Mplus was used for the analysis. Individuals’ gender, age and position
within their company were included as covariates. Participants’ social media usage frequency
was additionally controlled because of its possible confounding effect (Bolton et al., 2013). To
assess data fit, Hu and Bentler’s (1999) joint criteria, one of the more conservative fit
evaluation criteria, were used, whereby the comparative fit index (CFI) > 0.95, standardized
root mean square residual (SRMR) ≤ 0.10 or root mean square error of approximation
(RMSEA) ≤ 0.06 and SRMR ≤ 0.10 is considered a good model.

Results
Table 1 summarizes correlations among the variables used in this study. The results of CFA
showed that the measurement model reached satisfactory model fits: χ 2 (417) 5 1,088.431;
RMSEA 5 0.062 [0.057, 0.067]; CFI 5 0.954; SRMR 5 0.046. All factor loading values were
significant and higher than the threshold value of 0.5. Then, the structural models were
CCIJ tested. The hypothesized models showed good model fits overall: χ 2 (422) 5 1,127.580;
RMSEA 5 0.060 [0.055, 0.064]; CFI 5 0.952; SRMR 5 0.043. The researchers, thus, proceeded
to interpret the paths.
In H1–H3, the study examined the link between employees’ social media-related
motivations and their advocacy intentions on personal social media. The results (Figure 2)
showed that the effect of individuals’ self-enhancement motive (0.095, p 5 0.168) was not
significant, while the effects of altruism motive (0.316, p < 0.001) and enjoyment motive (0.354,
p < 0.001) were significant. Thus, H1 was not supported, yet H2 and H3 were supported. The
finding indicates that employees’ motivations for helping their company and enjoying
sharing content in the social media environment significantly increase their intentions of
advocacy behaviors on their personal social media.
In H4, the current study expected a positive path from the quality of EOR to employee
advocacy on social media. The results revealed that employees’ perceived EOR had a positive
and significant influence on employee advocacy on social media (0.103, p 5 0.009), which
supports H4. H5 examined the association between symmetrical internal communication and
employees’ perceived relationship, and it was significant (0.960, p < 0.001). This result
supported H5. Therefore, companies’ symmetrical communication practices increase
employees’ perceived quality of relationship with their organization, which in turn
enhances employees’ likelihood of engaging in advocative behaviors on their personal
social media.

M a 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Employee advocacy on social media 2.62 0.88

2. Self-enhancement 2.96 0.97 0.61**
3. Altruism 2.85 0.94 0.66** 0.79**
4. Enjoyment 2.29 0.94 0.64** 0.63** 0.67**
Table 1. 5. EOR 3.39 0.97 0.38** 0.41** 0.39** 0.31**
Correlation among the 6. Symmetrical communication 3.32 0.91 0.33** 0.38** 0.33** 0.33** 0.76**
variables Note(s): **p < 0.01

0.103**

Self-
enhancement 0.095
0.432***

Employee- Employee
Symmetrical 0.411*** 0.316*** Advocacy
Communication Organization Altruism
0.960*** on Social
Relationship
Media
0.354***
0.343***
Enjoyment

Figure 2. **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001

Results of the
hypothesized model
χ2(422) = 1127.580, CFI = 0.952, RMSEA = 0.060 [0.055, 0.064], SRMR = 0.043
Note(s): Dotted lines indicate insignificant paths
 From H6–H8, this study also investigated the links between EOR and employees’ social Enhancing
media-related motivations. It turns out that employees’ perceived relationship was a significant employee
factor for increasing employees’ social media motives. Specifically, it significantly increased
employees’ self-enhancement (0.432, p < 0.001) motive the most, followed by altruism (0.411,
advocacy
p < 0.001) and enjoyment (0.343, p < 0.001) motives on social media. H6–H8 were, thus, all
supported. The quality of EOR, thus, has a positive and significant effect on employees’ social
media-related motives for sharing positive information about their company.
To test the mediating role of EOR hypothesized in H9 and H10, the researchers further
examined indirect effects. As shown in Table 2, EOR significantly mediated the effect of
symmetrical communication on three employees’ social media usage motives – self-
enhancement (0.415, p < 0.001), altruism (0.395, p < 0.001) and enjoyment (0.329, p < 0.001).
The mediating effect of symmetrical communication on employees’ advocacy intentions via
EOR (0.098, p 5 0.009) was also significant. Furthermore, symmetrical communication had a
significant influence on employees’ advocacy intentions through EOR and altruism (0.124,
p < 0.001) and EOR and enjoyment (0.116, p < 0.001) motive, but not through EOR and self-
enhancement motive (0.039, p 5 0.173).

Discussion
To advance the understanding of employee advocacy on social media, this study focused on
two key questions. First, does an organization’s relationship management through strategic
internal communication practices play a critical role in encouraging employees to share
positive information about their company on social media? Second, how would these efforts
offered by the organization trigger the employees’ individual social media-related motives,
which could ultimately lead to their positive communicative behaviors in social media
environment? To provide answers, this study has explicated the links between symmetrical
communication, EOR, social media motives and advocative behaviors. In this sense, this
study provides relevant theoretical and practical implications for social media behaviors in
an organizational context and strategic internal communication.

Theoretical implications
Notably, the current study enhances the theoretical understanding of employee advocacy,
especially in the social media setting. Extending previous studies (Kim and Rhee, 2011; Lee

Parameter estimates (standard error)

Indirect Direct Total
Paths effect effect effect

Symmetrical communication (→ EORa) → self-enhancement 0.415*** – 0.415***

Symmetrical communication (→ EORa) → altruism 0.395*** – 0.395***
Symmetrical communication (→ EORa) → enjoyment 0.329*** – 0.329***
Symmetrical communication (→ EORa) → advocacy intentions 0.098** – 0.377***
Symmetrical communication (→ EORa) (→ self-enhancementa) → 0.039 – –
advocacy intentions
Symmetrical communication (→ EORa) (→ altruisma) → advocacy 0.124*** – –
intentions
Symmetrical communication (→ EORa) (→ enjoymenta) → 0.116*** – – Table 2.
advocacy intentions Results of the
Note(s): aMediated paths mediating effect
**p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 of EOR
CCIJ and Kim, 2017), this study empirically demonstrated the value of EOR in encouraging
employees to share positive information about their company in the digital environment.
When employees trust, feel committed and are satisfied with their company, they are likely to
create and distribute favorable messages about their company on their personal online space
such as social media voluntarily. Given that the employees’ personal words about their
organization on social media can be credible and become powerful sources of organizational
information for the external publics and corporate reputation (Dortok, 2006; Men, 2014), this
result indicates that the relationship management approach through communicative
practices remained critical in the new digital environment. Previous studies have only
focused on how relationship management (i.e. EOR) increases employees’ offline
communicative behaviors (e.g. Lee and Kim, 2017) in public relations literature. Extending
this line of research, the results of the current study empirically showed that EOR and
internal communication can encourage employees to be active as brand advocates on their
personal digital space, regardless of the individuals’ habits of social media usage. Based on
this result, this study not just broadens an increasing body of knowledge on the employees’
social media behaviors (van Zoonen et al., 2018) but also demonstrates the value of internal
relationship management approach in public relations in the digital era.
More importantly, this study answers the unexplored questions about how an
organization’s relationship quality with its employees possibly stimulates the employees’
motivations to engage in advocative behaviors on social media. As expected, a perceived
favorable relationship with an organization positively and significantly influence their
advocacy motives, including the three: self-enhancement, altruism and enjoyment.
Employees who trust, are satisfied with and committed to their company may take better
care of their organization’s success and external reputation than those who do not.
Consequently, they are likely to share favorable organizational contents on their personal
social media and share positive perspectives of their organization on social media to enhance
their self-image (i.e. self-enhancement) or provide benefits and support to their company (i.e.
altruism). Moreover, the employees’ favorable relationship with the organization renders the
sharing of favorable organizational contents on their personal social media accounts an
enjoyable experience. Therefore, regardless of the individuals’ social media usage frequency
habits, the positive experiences at work may induce employees to be active on social media.
This study, thus, addresses the importance of the organizations’ communicative practices
and relationship management approach in promoting the individuals’ motives, which could
possibly lead to their advocacy on social media with respect to the internal communication
management perspective.
Furthermore, this study expands on the existing literature on consumers’ online behaviors
by applying motivational concepts into the context of employee behaviors. Many
scholarships focused on how individuals, consumers in particular, engage with an
organization in the social media settings (e.g. Krasnova et al., 2010; Tsai and Men, 2013).
The individuals’ social media-related motivations, however, may significantly affect internal
members’ (i.e. employees’) company-related information sharing on social media. Using the
motivational concepts in consumer behavior literature, this study empirically tested how
those factors can be applied to understand employee behaviors on social media. The results
specifically suggested that the employees’ altruistic (i.e. helping organization) and hedonic
(i.e. enjoyment) motives increase their advocacy intentions. When employees are motivated to
help their company and express their positive emotions because of their strong desire to share
their joy with someone, they tend to engage in social media with the company-related
information. Thus, the importance of the individuals’ altruistic and hedonic motives was not
limited to consumer behaviors toward an organization, as shown in previous studies
(Leftheriotis and Giannakos, 2014; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004). As the first attempt to reveal
that those motives are critical to motivate the behavioral intentions of internal members of an
organization, employees, this study advances its extant research on online consumer Enhancing
behaviors in an employee behavioral context. employee
However, the employees’ self-enhancement motive had no significant effect on their
advocacy toward the company on social media. Although previous scholars have found that
advocacy
employees may share or “like” rather “neutral” organization-related contents (i.e. online
ambassadorship) to manage their self-image (van Zoonen et al., 2018), the current study has
revealed that the self-enhancement motive does not necessarily encourage employees to
upload “positive” organizational content with their personal words. One possible explanation
is that individuals, as company employees, may not wish to disclose excess information to
project a positive self-image of a worker, believing that their advocacy toward their
organization was perceived as an exaggerated self-enhancement by other users on social
media (Krasnova et al., 2010). Their self-enhancement may occur privately rather than
publicly in an intra-personal level (van Zoonen et al., 2018) on personal social media. For the
precise explanation, the link between self-enhancement and advocacy requires rigorous
investigation in future studies. In sum, this study contributes to expanding the current line of
research on employee behavior on social media by identifying and testing the key individual
motives of employee advocacy based on existing consumer psychology and online behavior
research.
Lastly, this study theoretically explains the underlying link between symmetrical
communication and the employees’ social media behavioral motives and advocacy intentions
by revealing the significant mediating role of EOR. As shown in our results, symmetrical
communication was significantly related to the employees’ altruism and enjoyment motives
as well as advocacy intentions on social media via a favorable EOR. This finding
demonstrates the value of EOR, indicating that EOR plays a critical role in linking
symmetrical communication with employees’ motivational and behavioral intentions on
social media. When employees trust, feel committed and are satisfied with their company,
which resulted from a symmetrical communication system, they are motivated to help the
company and share pleasurable experiences of the company with others by sharing positive
company-related information on social media. As we intended, the study provides a holistic
picture of the effectiveness of communication and relationship management in an internal
perspective by demonstrating how organizational efforts and individual motives are
integrated, which promotes the employees’ advocacy on social media.

Managerial implications
This study also provides meaningful practical implications for internal and business
communication practitioners and corporate leaders. As suggested, public relations and
internal communication efforts have a great potential to encourage employees to become
active brand ambassadors or advocates on social media. Employers’ or leaders’ efforts on
symmetrical communication can enable their employees to voluntarily create and distribute
positive messages about their organization in digital environments by triggering their
motivations to be active in such area.
Therefore, organizations should incorporate a symmetrical internal communication
system in terms of employees’ social media behaviors, rather than one-way and asymmetrical
communication, to maximize the likelihood of their advocacy on social media. Telling or
forcing employees to post positive comments about their organization on their personal social
media in exchange for monetary benefits may be effective in encouraging their advocacy in
the short term. However, to build a long-term quality relationship and lead employees’
“voluntary” advocacy behaviors, organizational leaders should strive to proactively interact
with the employees to understand and listen to their interests, concerns and needs in terms of
using social media. When they try to talk openly about using their personal social media and
ask questions about uploading or sharing company-related content, leaders should provide
CCIJ accurate and adequate information regarding organizations’ social media policies. It is also
important to discuss potential issues regarding social media addressed by employees with
C-suites or higher-level managers to make sure that employees’ voices are heard. At an
organizational level, both formal and informal ways (e.g. seminar, workshops, events,
informal gatherings) for employees to use their voices and give suggestions and share
knowledge regarding personal social media usage can also be offered to create an open
communication environment. These practices of symmetrical communication practices allow
employees to build long-term and good-quality relationships with their organizations, which
in turn, encourages employees to become active advocates of their company. Moreover, when
employees have opportunities to express their opinions, not feel afraid to speak up and
believe that their organization is responsive to their problems or issues, they are motivated to
use social media as a tool to express their support for their company or to share their
enjoyable experiences at work with people in their personal online network.
By unraveling critical social media-related motivations behind the employees’ advocacy
toward the company from various levels (e.g. individual-, organizational- and channel-
related), this study helps corporate leaders and managers gain a comprehensive
understanding of why organizations should exert efforts on relationship management
through internal communication and how these organizational efforts could induce the
employees’ individual motivations, which may generate other types of employees’ supportive
behaviors toward the company.

Limitations and future research

This study bears several limitations that must be addressed. Participants in this study
include employees who have and have not already experienced uploading organization-
related content either on personal social media. By focusing on employees who actively post
content, both positive and negative, future studies can specifically investigate when and in
what situation such active individuals decide to engage in employee advocacy,
supplementing a quantitative approach with a qualitative study (e.g. in-depth interviews).
Furthermore, future studies can incorporate other organizational and individual factors, such
as organizations’ diverse social media usage policy for employers or implicit rules, employees’
self-censorship strategies on social media (Madsen and Verhoeven, 2016) or individuals’
privacy protection rules, to enrich employees’ diverse motivational routes for social media
behaviors. Finally, although employees are not likely to share negative information about
their organization due to perceived risks of being salient in the social media environment
(Smith et al., 2017), it would also be meaningful to explore how companies’ strategic
communication efforts demotivate or reduce employees’ intentions to share negative contents
about their organization or job in their own social media in future studies.

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