A conceptual Framework for Acceptance and Use of Social Media Among Government Employees

Abstract The emergence of web 2.0 and social media have attracted government organizations to use them to communicate their stakeholders by maintaining institutional accounts on web 2.0 and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. However, studies show that web 2.0 and social media can better be harnessed for work-related purposes if individual employees are encouraged and allowed to use their personal social media accounts to communicate work-related messages rather than institutional accounts being used for the same purposes. Nevertheless, little is known about the factors that influence government employees to perform such a behavior hence motivating the researcher to review the literature regarding this problem. Based on the literature review, this paper proposes a conceptual framework that can be used to assess perceptions of government employees toward use of personal social media accounts for work-related purposes. The framework extends the Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) by adding five more constructs in order to fit to the context of study. For empirical validation of the framework, a Quantitative technique using self-administered questionnaire is proposed. Also, a multivariate statistical analysis technique, preferably Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), using IBM AMOS as analysis tool is recommended.