Does Social Capital Arise from Enterprise or Public Social Media Use? A Model of Social Media Antecedents and Consequences

Research on the antecedents of SM and its consequences for organizations is silent on the distinctions between Enterprise SM (ESM) and Public SM (PSM) applications, as also is unclear whether PSM usage lowers or improves organizational outcomes. Our research model addresses these gaps. One, since SM usage is serendipitous and unstructured we propose that an organization’s strategic orientation is highly salient in affecting social media use. Two, we theorize why each type of SM – ESM vis-à-vis PSM contributes distinctly to organizational social capital. Data was collected from the IT industry, an ideal setting given its high clock-speed and information intensity. We find that PSM use contributes to all dimensions of social capital, over and above the contribution from ESM use. Further, as hypothesized, external orientation positively affects PSM use. The findings contribute to deepening theory to explain the link between SM use and organizational social capital, as well as introduce external orientation as novel antecedent of SM use.