The Roles of Social Messaging in the Organizational Context

Chanin Yoopetch

College of Management, Mahidol University

Email: chaninyoo@gmail.com

Abstract - Social messaging or instant messaging through mobile application becomes one of the most frequently used methods for communication in the organizations. Due to its minimal cost and effective communication benefits, more users adopted social messaging to communicate for work and play. The purpose of this study is to explore the organizational benefits (e.g. work flow) and personal benefits (e.g. fun and entertainment) and its negative aspects (e.g. misunderstanding and unclear messages) of using social messaging as the communication tool. The semi- structured interview method was used for data collection. The author conducted the content analysis to analyze the data. The results, discussions and directions for further research were also provided.

Keywords: Social Messaging, Communication, Organizational and Personal Benefits

Introduction

Communication is one of the significant elements of the success for today’s organizations.

From face-to-face mode of communication to electronic mails, people can select their ways to

send message and information according to their preferences. Nowadays, one of the most

adopted communication methods is to use through social messaging platform, where people

can create an individual or a group chat, send pictures, call through the application and share

files. According to Bode, Lassen, Kim, Shah, Fowler, Ridout, & Franz (2016), social media

and social messaging have become highly popular in many dimensions, including in politics

around the world.

Furthermore, with growing number of users, social messaging application has been

increasing popular, not just among friends or family, but also among people who work

together in the organizations to communicate about work-related issues or other social issues.

With this new way of communication, it is expected to support the effectiveness and

efficiency of workflow and information exchange among colleagues at the very low cost. The

employees may expect higher degree of work productivity through the benefits of such

applications. However, in this study, the main focus is on the advantages and disadvantages

of adopting the social messaging for both organizational and personal benefits in order to

understand in greater details about such method of communication.

The hotel industry is the context of the study. It is well-known that hotel business

environment has one of the most diverse and complex working environment (Becker &Wang,

2016). Due to its multi-dimensional aspects, hotel employees have provided services, such as

housekeeping, sales and marketing and front operations, for both local and international

guests. With its around-the-clock services, communication among all employees is the key to

support the working operations. Ladkin & Buhalis (2016) noted that using new

communication technology, including social media and social messaging, may help

facilitating many processes and improving the work quality. However, limited work has been

conducted in the hospitality aspects about the benefits and limitations from the new

technology. Therefore the current study attempts to explore the perspectives of using social

messaging applications in the organizational and personal dimensions.

The guidelines and implications of the study can be provided for the improvement and

development for both employees and organizations in supporting their employees to use the

social messaging in the working environment.

Literature Review

Social Messaging

Social messaging is defined as a messaging service based on systems other than SMS, MMS

or email, and which have a social component, such as Facebook’s chat feature (Mesch et al.,

2012). In 2015, there are more than 20 social messaging applications available in both

Android and other mobile operating systems for the smartphone (Walnycky, Baggili,

Marrington, Moore & Breitinger, 2015). The social messaging application can be used

through the mobile phone, tablets, or computers. The social messaging is also tied to a social

network, supporting people to for stay connected in real-time (Kim et al., 2012).

Social networks and social messaging provide platforms for people to connect and share

content. However, there are some distinguishes between social networks and social

messaging included audience size, duration, and intent. A social messaging acts primarily as

a one-to-one (or -few) communication mechanism and can be temporary or long-lasting. The

content of social messaging is intended to be private, or at least directed towards a specific

group. A social network, consisting of many-to-many connections, is durable and capable of

producing network effects. When one used social network to publish information, it acts

primarily as a many-to-many broadcast mechanism, and the content of social network is

essentially public (Longo, 2014).

Nowadays, several mobile messaging apps add social networking features in order to meet

the growing demand for free mobile calling and SMS services. There are many free mobile

messaging services, including WhatsApp, WeChat, LINE, and Facebook Messenger.

Communication

To understand each other, people send and received information through communication and

there are several means to support for effective communication, such as face-to-face,

telephone or other tools (Lundy & Drouin, 2016). Furthermore, communication, in

organizations, personal relationships, politics or public information campaigns, leads to the

understanding and information flow among those involved in the communication process.

Communication is typically defined as a process of sending, reviewing and receiving

messages to share meanings. Such a communication process can be found in many

disciplines, ranging from psychology and sociology to engineering, technology, and artificial

intelligence (Mumby, 2012).

The concepts of communication process include sender, receiver, messages, feedback,

encoding, decoding, and interference (Al-Fedaghi & Alsaqa, 2009). Feedback is a reaction of

the receiver to the sender’s message. Encoding is how the sender decides to send the

messages based on predictions or prior knowledge about the receiver. Decoding is to acquire

the meaning and the understanding of the message that has been sent. Interference is both

outside and inside influences affecting the communication process.

Usage of Social Messaging

Smartphone and tablet users around the world continue to adopt mobile messaging

applications as a primary means to communicate that replacing or complimenting traditional

options such as texting. The growth of mobile applications usage has been increased

significantly over the past several years and was driven by messaging and social networking

applications, including social and photo sharing, which increases in year-over-year usage

(Kimme Hea, 2014; Gillen & Merchant, 2013). Some of the most popular options in that

category were Snapchat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, KakaoTalk, and LINE.

According to Marquez (2003), the survey was conducted on the usage of social messaging.

Almost three-fourths of the samples indicated that they would be more likely to gossip on

social messaging than with any other tools of communication (i.e. phone, etc.). Two-thirds of

the samples also would be possible to use social messaging to set up social events in real life

as well as to use it for ranting and complaining. Other popular activities through social

messaging included wishing a friend a happy birthday and flirting.

The Growth of the Adoption of Social Messaging in the Workplace

Social messaging has slowly gained prominence in the workplace. The data revealed that a

greater number of people used social messaging at work (Huang & Yen, 2003). In addition,

in recent years, social messaging has gained more popularity in the workplace and social

technologies have reached mainstream adoption and a variety of platforms available have

accelerated this adoption in the workplace (Hunt et al., 2014). Moreover, more companies

have adopted social messaging or similar tools as ways of promoting interaction between

employees (Longo, 2014).

Additionally, there are many advantages in using social messaging. It connects people

regardless of where they are actually located. In the company, social messaging boosts the

business performance by making operations faster, more agile, and more efficient with very

little additional cost. Colleagues can send and reply instant message in real time without the

face-to-face meeting, while work reports or files can be shared during the chat session since

social messaging can make a virtual conference without getting all the related people together

in a physical meeting room. One person can connect with multiple people in the virtual

conference, share ideas and get conclusions. People on a business trip can contact the co-

worker inside the company through social messaging and the staff can also communicate

with customers or vendors around the worl. In other word, now people can do business

through the social messaging direct rather than using the traditional method, such as making

phone calls and sending mails (Safko, 2010)

Additionally, social messaging has positive impact on geographically separated offices.

Employees found it much easier to contact their colleagues in other geographic locations than

to pick up the telephone and call them (Sarker and Wells, 2003; Goggin, 2006). Ogara et al.,

(2014) further noted that social messaging provided contact with remote employees,

customers and vendors at a more intimate level than other forms of communication.

Moreover, Qualman (2012) also noted that social messaging has proven its overwhelming

value when it comes to gathering input from many different people in dispersed locations.

Processes that were once agonizingly slow and inclined toward misunderstanding and errors

can now be accomplished in real time.

In addition, social messaging has proven cost-saving benefits in certain situations, such as

group discussions. Most social messaging applications support several people to participate in

the same discussion, at a much lower cost and with less hassle than setting up a phone

conference. Social messaging meetings also tend to be more efficient and less prone to

straying off topic, because of the relative effort of typing versus talking (Osterman Research,

2006). A study by the Radicati Group (2004) further found that companies could save an

average of 40 minutes a day with employees who complete typical daily tasks with social

messaging. Consequently, they estimated that an organization with 5,000 people could save

$37.5 million a year in terms of communication expenses by adopting social messaging.

According to Longo (2014), social messaging is the multi-tasking tool for workers. In this

sense, multi-tasking means that people can engage in social messaging conversations while

making a phone call or while going through their email inbox. Ogara et al., (2014) noted that

workplace use of social messaging features can eliminate much of the internal

communication problem and waste of e-mail, voice mail or office visits.

In addition, social messaging naturally encourages people to be brief and straight to the point.

The workers using social messaging at work reported that it is a tool for greater productivity

in the workplace which 68 percent of workplace social messaging users stated that while

social messaging was a mixed blessing, it is mostly a positive thing in their work lives

(Huang & Yen, 2003). Increase in productivity was gained by eliminating time wasted for

switching between various communication methods such as sending and waiting for a

response to an email, and calling someone and leaving a voice mail when there is no response

(Mesch et al., 2012).

Effects or Impacts of Using Social Messaging

According to Kim et al., (2008) and Bowdon (2014), impact of texting can affect social

relationships, academic performance, and personal safety. While personal cell phones have

already promoted a sense of perpetual access (in which people are available to communicate

at any time, day or night), social messaging could cause high stress on people to be always

available. For people receiving a message, the pressure to open the message when it received,

regardless of what else is going on, is high. People often feel the need to answer their phone

at any time, even when they are preoccupied with something else. It is probably not

surprising that most jurisdictions have passed the laws prohibiting the use of cell phones

while driving and many schools demand that all cell phones be turned off during classes and

other school events. Many people reported feeling disconnected when they were cut off from

their cell phones, even for relatively brief periods. 

Other researchers have found that texting behavior is linked to measures of physiological

arousal such as increased heart rate, respiration, and muscle tension. One potential

explanation for the reason why frequent messaging can lead to health-care problems is that

the social messaging causes young people to remain in a state of arousal making it more

difficult to relax or sleep. This leads to a greater all static loads over time due to the

cumulative effects of constant stress (Leena, Tomi, & Arja, 2005).

Research Methodology

The current study was the exploratory study, including 23 interviews with informants

working in the 4-star hotels located in Bangkok. All these informants had more than ten years

of working experience in the hotel industry. In addition, the interviewees had been using

social messaging applications for more than four years and therefore they provided the

concrete experience of social messaging application. The age range of the sample was

between 36 – 58 years old. These interviewees were inquired with the semi-structure

interview questions to understand about many issues, such as the characteristics of using

social messaging and the benefits and the problems from their experience.

Results

Samples are 23 experienced representatives working in the managerial positions in 4-star

hotels in Thailand. The interviewees had been working in the hotel environment for more 10

years at the managerial positions, including sales and marketing, housekeeping and front

office. The combination of diverse work background provided broader aspects in the hotel

operations. About half of the respondents were female, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Characteristics of Interviewees

Respondents Age (years) Gender Years of Working in Hotel Industry

Interviewee 1 40 Male 15Interviewee 2 48 Male 17Interviewee 3 36 Female 12Interviewee 4 49 Female 24Interviewee 5 39 Male 17Interviewee 6 49 Female 25Interviewee 7 50 Male 29Interviewee 8 58 Female 30Interviewee 9 49 Female 22Interviewee 10 51 Female 26Interviewee 11 40 Female 17Interviewee 12 46 Female 17Interviewee 13 47 Female 19Interviewee 14 40 Male 16Interviewee 15 55 Male 31Interviewee 16 40 Male 17Interviewee 17 50 Male 26Interviewee 18 43 Male 19Interviewee 19 39 Female 15Interviewee 20 38 Male 16Interviewee 21 44 Female 19Interviewee 22 41 Male 15Interviewee 23 50 Female 28

The results from the interviews provided useful information about types of application and

benefits as well as limitations from those applications. The most popular social messaging

application indicated by respondents is Line, followed by Facebook Messenger and

WhatsApp, accordingly. The reason why most respondents used social messaging as the

mode of communication was the convenience. Regarding the special characteristics of social

messaging applications such as sharing information like photo, video, voice message,

document file, as well as voice calling, video calling, and group chatting were included in the

reasons of using social messaging as the mode of communication rather than others modes

(e.g. phone calling and face-to-face communication).

One respondent commented that “The reason I use it because it is very fast and convenient.

When I have to communicate with a group of people, it is easier to use Line instead of having

a group meeting”(Interviewee 2). Another informant said that “I think it is fast and

convenient for me to contact and communicate with friends. Also, when some of my friends

didn't have works at the same time with me, it will be a lot easier to catch up with them via

Line. Plus, I can also send them a note, picture or even voice by this application”

(Interviewee 14). Another respondent further stated that “The greater benefit I have received

from Line and Facebook Messenger is convenience of group chatting and sharing photo.

Sometimes with social messaging, you can keep track of what you or our friends have typed”

(Interviewee 4).

Moreover, cost saving is also another reason of using social messaging by respondents

because the Internet cost is already included in mobile phone package and sometimes it even

has no cost if use social messaging through Internet Wi-Fi. As one respondent said, “This

way we can reach people who are in other countries faster and it does not really cost that

much compared to calling international calls” (Interviewee 21). Another respondent

commented that “Social messaging is a type of communication that is convenient and saves

cost as well, because you can text and use Line call to call friends via internet” (Interviewee

6). And “Social messaging is cheaper compares to using phone call to one another, because

the Internet charge is included in the mobile package” (Interviewee 9), stated by one

respondent.

Closer relationship is a personal benefit that majority of respondents received from using

social messaging because the users can communicate to anyone at anytime and anywhere.

Therefore the respondents can keep close connection with their friends, families, and relatives

in different locations. One respondent shared opinion that “Social messaging keeps you

connected with the rest of the world, especially if you communicate with friends, family,

business colleagues who are abroad” (Interviewee 23). Another respondent commented that

“Social messaging helps people to talk more and have closer relationship. When I don't have

time to meet someone but I want to talk to him or her, I can just use Line and it is fun too”

(Interviewee 1). And “Social messaging created a strong relationship between me and

friends. It allows us to communicate while we are not together and we do not have to call”

(Interviewee 8), said by one respondent.

In the aspect of work-related benefits of using social messaging, a better team communication

is the most frequently indicated benefits by the respondents since most of social messaging

applications support group chatting function. One respondent said that “It is good for team

working when one or some of members are not available for phone calling. Moreover, it is

the good way that everyone in the team has a chance to share their own idea and

brainstorming when we cannot have a face-to-face meeting” (Interviewee 5). One respondent

also shared that “For me, social messaging helps me in doing the group work well. When

there are more people, it's hard to communicate and gather big group of people because

sometime we don't or hardly have the same free time. Therefore, social messaging helps a

lot” (Interviewee 13). And “It helps to communicate better among group members. There is

no need to meet; therefore it is very fast to get the message. Moreover, this means that we can

discuss work almost anytime during the day. It helps when you don't want to meet someone

but you need to talk to that person, so you can just use Line” (Interviewee 17), stated by one

respondent.

In the area of negative impacts of using social messaging, a majority of respondent in this

study agreed that addiction is a negative impact of using social messaging for personal

aspects. Besides, this negative impact can link to work-life balance and social relationship

problem because people start to talk less but pay attention to the phone instead of people

around them. One comment from respondent was that “Addiction is a negative impacts for

social messaging because some people play or use social messaging too much and all the

time and do not spend time talk to friends and relatives” (Interviewee 20).

Some respondents also indicate health problem, especially about eye problem. As one

respondent commented that “I think using social messaging causes the eye problems and also

headache. This is due to the use of eyes all the time” (Interviewee 3). Moreover, few

respondents indicated that using of social messaging causes a misunderstanding of message.

The reason is because senders cannot express the feelings through texting, while receivers

cannot feel the real emotion of senders as well.

In terms of negative impacts of social messaging for work aspects, this study found that lack

of clarity which leads to misunderstanding. One respondent stated that “Texting through

social messaging is sometimes lack of clarity because words can be perceived in many ways

that it could often be misunderstood” (Interviewee 22). One respondent also commented that

“Sometimes, using social messaging is not appropriate for crucial information because

communicating via online application causes misunderstanding and misleading”

(Interviewee 11).

Last but not least, the results of this study showed that a majority of respondent intended to

continue using social messaging more often in the future because of variety reasons. One

group of respondent would continue to use social messaging more in the future because of

convenience. As one respondent stated that “I will continue to use social messaging because

it makes my life more convenient to connect with other people and keep in touch with them”

(Interviewee 10). Another respondent commented, “I will still use social messaging because

it is more convenient than other modes of communication. Sometimes you cannot call your

friends or they may not be available to you, but you can still leave the message to them”

(Interviewee 7). And “It is convenient and it is what everyone is using. If you do not use it

like them, you can be left out of the group” (Interviewee 19), said by one respondent”.

In figure 1, the summary of the usage of social messaging applications. The benefits and

problems can be found in both personal and organizational dimensions. Several benefits

included cost savings, good workflow, virtual team communications and fun. However, some

problems may arise from incomplete information, misunderstanding for some very short

messages and in terms of personal issues, the users can have eye fatigue or addiction for

using social messaging all the time.

Figure 1: Social messaging and Benefits and Problems in Personal and Organizational

Dimensions

Discussion

This study found the main reason why most respondents used social messaging as the mode

of communication is the convenience. The result was supported by Lauricella and Kay (2013)

and Bode et al. (2016), in their study of the use of text and instant messaging in higher

education classrooms. They found that key reasons in using text and instant messaging as

mode of communication included time saving, convenience and ease of use.

Moreover, cost saving is also another reason of using social messaging by respondents

because most of Internet cost is already included in mobile phone package. In addition to

strengthening relationships between dispersed teams, replacing phone calls with instant

messaging also led to cost savings. Hampton and Wellman (2002) further noted that the cost

of online contact does not vary with distance. In comparison, physical distance increases the

cost of face-to-face contact and as a result, communication frequency drops.

Closer relationship is a personal benefit that majority of respondents received from using

social messaging because they can communicate to anyone at their availability. Therefore the

respondents can keep connected with their friends, families, and relatives who live in

different locations. Safko (2010) and Walnycky et al. (2015) supported that there are many

advantages of using social messaging because it connects people regardless of where they are

actually located. Moreover, fun and entertaining are also other benefits of using social media

indicated by some respondents. The result is in parallel with a study by Counts (2007) who

found that for many people, group-based messaging on their mobile devices was an almost

addictive new form of entertainment.

In terms of work-related benefits of using social messaging, a better team communication is

the most frequently indicated by the respondents since most of social messaging applications

support group chatting function. Furthermore, this study also indicated that a closer tie with

colleagues is another work-related benefit of using social messaging. It is because the

communication through social messaging is easier than face-to-face communication, so the

respondents can talk more frequently with their colleagues and get much closer with one

another. Social messaging in the workplace promoted more frequent communications and

simultaneously reduced interruptions (Shen et al., 2011). Lam (2012) also investigated the

impact of text messaging service on social connectedness in student technical communication

projects and the study also found that students in social messaging group communicated more

frequently and felt more connected to the working relationship.

The respondents also indicate health problem as a negative impact. This result is in line with

Leena, Tomi, and Arja (2005) who mentioned that texting behavior is linked to measures of

physiological arousal such as increased heart rate, respiration, and muscle tension. 

Moreover, a number of respondents mentioned that using of social messaging could cause a

misunderstanding of message. It is because senders cannot express the total feelings through

texting, while receivers cannot understand the real emotion of senders as well. Social

messaging may be used to replace the face-to-face communication, but one cannot really

know a very good emotional status on others through social messaging (Sacco & Ismail,

2014).

About work-related aspects, a negative impact of social messaging indicated by most of

respondents is lack of clarity, leading to confusion and misunderstanding. According to

Huang and Yen (2003), social messaging supported the users to be brief and to the point.

Hong et al. (2013) and Lundy & Drouin (2016) further supported that texting has reduced the

ability of people to communicate clearly.

Furthermore, this study also showed that the negative impacts of using social messaging for

work-related aspects included lack of consistent flow in conversation. Hong et al. (2013)

implied that communication challenges for many organizations to use social messaging as the

main method of communication were such as unclear or confusing messages, and

misinterpretations of messages.

Regarding the continuous usage of social messaging, the findings showed that a majority of

respondents planed to increasingly use social messaging in the future because of variety

reasons, including a convenience, ease of use, popularity among friends and colleagues, and

usefulness. Text messaging has received increasing interests among its users where mobile

messaging applications are becoming important platforms for more mobile features such as

video calling, file and content sharing, and transferring money (Lin, 2011; Kim et al., 2014)

Conclusion and Recommendations

There are several benefits indicated from the adoption of social messaging for both personal

and organizational benefits. Although several benefits of social messaging were identified,

some disadvantages were worth to be considered. In terms of the advantages, the users can

have the effective tool for communication to share various forms of information, including

text, photo and video and can become more productive. However, the social messaging can

cause the personal health issues, including health problem or can create some unclear

information in the work context.

Many managerial implications from the study included the followings. Firstly, in terms of

cost-saving benefit and ease of use, the organizations can enhance the benefits from using the

application in many ways, such as adopting social messaging as one of the official modes of

communication for their organization. Secondly, the hotels can create several groups in the

social messaging application platforms to communicate and gain benefit for formal and

informal communications. Thirdly, the better working relationship among team members can

be improved due to more frequent communications. Fourthly, despite of the benefits in both

personal and organizational dimensions from social messaging, the users should be concerned

about their health related aspects in order to avoid health problem or addiction of using social

messaging.

Directions for future research include more in-depth aspects about work-life balance for the

users of the social messaging and different types of working environments may be explored.

In this current study, the author only focuses on one context of hospitality industry and

broadening scope of study can help enhance the practical contributions.

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