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Dealing with the Social Media Polycontextuality of Work

Author

Listed:
  • Emmanuelle Vaast

    (Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 0G4, Canada)

  • Alain Pinsonneault

    (Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 0G4, Canada)

Abstract

Existing scholarship on social media provides us with important but incomplete insights regarding how people rely upon social media as they work. Scholarship so far focuses on social media as technologies that enable and constrain people to do certain things. This study proposes a perspective on social media for work that views them not only as technologies that enable people to do certain things, but also as contexts with emerging norms and roles in which people participated. As they do so, people are confronted with opportunities and challenges that are inherent to social media polycontextuality. This study investigates the case of data scientists and how they dealt with the social media polycontextuality of their work. The study reveals that data scientists relied on strategies of enhancing, differentiating, or occasionally reducing their engagement with social media contexts. The study brings novel insights for scholarship on social media and work by unpacking the social media polycontextuality of work and the interconnections in the engagement with multiple social media contexts. It explains how these interconnections manifest in people’s deliberate participation in or temporary withdrawal from diverse and changing social media contexts. This study also contributes to scholarship by highlighting how people deal with an ensemble of social media applications rather than with a single, isolated information technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Emmanuelle Vaast & Alain Pinsonneault, 2022. "Dealing with the Social Media Polycontextuality of Work," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(4), pages 1428-1451, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orisre:v:33:y:2022:i:4:p:1428-1451
    DOI: 10.1287/isre.2022.1103
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    References listed on IDEAS

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