IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v38y2024i3p636-656.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustaining Solidarity through Social Media? Employee Social-Media Groups as an Emerging Platform for Collectivism in Pakistan

Author

Listed:
  • Syed Imran Saqib

    (The University of Manchester, UK)

  • Matthew M C Allen

    (Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, UK)

  • Miguel Martínez Lucio

    (The University of Manchester, UK)

  • Maria Allen

    (Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, UK)

Abstract

Forging solidarity among seemingly privileged white-collar professionals has been seen as a challenging process. However, many banking employees in Pakistan feel marginalized and lack formal collective mechanisms to voice their concerns, leading some to participate in social-media groups. Drawing on various discussions linked to labour process perspectives, we examine how these banking employees use social media as a means to create broader and diverse collective bonds within their profession and build bridges to their counterparts in other organizations within the sector. By doing so, we reveal that employees post on social media to express and affirm their concerns, offer broader support with one another, ‘cope’ with existing circumstances, highlight their unrewarded professionalism, and share relevant information around collective issues and experiences and not solely to critique their work environment. The article draws on and contributes to new debates on collectivism and solidarity, revealing the opportunities for actions on social media.

Suggested Citation

  • Syed Imran Saqib & Matthew M C Allen & Miguel Martínez Lucio & Maria Allen, 2024. "Sustaining Solidarity through Social Media? Employee Social-Media Groups as an Emerging Platform for Collectivism in Pakistan," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 38(3), pages 636-656, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:38:y:2024:i:3:p:636-656
    DOI: 10.1177/09500170221148301
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170221148301
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09500170221148301?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sharon C Bolton & Knut Laaser, 2020. "The Moral Economy of Solidarity: A Longitudinal Study of Special Needs Teachers," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(1), pages 55-72, February.
    2. Ashique Ali Jhatial & Nelarine Cornelius & James Wallace, 2014. "Rhetorics and realities of management practices in Pakistan: Colonial, post-colonial and post-9/11 influences," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(3), pages 456-484, April.
    3. Kaplan, Andreas M. & Haenlein, Michael, 2010. "Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 59-68, January.
    4. Mick Marchington & Jane Suter, 2013. "Where Informality Really Matters: Patterns of Employee Involvement and Participation (EIP) in a Non-Union Firm," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52, pages 284-313, January.
    5. Davide Però, 2020. "Indie Unions, Organizing and Labour Renewal: Learning from Precarious Migrant Workers," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(5), pages 900-918, October.
    6. Glenn Morgan & Valeria Pulignano, 2020. "Solidarity at Work: Concepts, Levels and Challenges," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(1), pages 18-34, February.
    7. Carol Stephenson & Paul Stewart, 2001. "The Whispering Shadow: Collectivism and Individualism at Ikeda-Hoover and Nissan UK," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 6(3), pages 72-82, November.
    8. Mark P Thomas & Steven Tufts, 2020. "Blue Solidarity: Police Unions, Race and Authoritarian Populism in North America," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(1), pages 126-144, February.
    9. Jaffry, Shabbar & Ghulam, Yaseen & Cox, Joe, 2008. "Labour use efficiency in the Indian and Pakistani commercial banks," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 259-293, June.
    10. Asma El Ouirdi & Mariam El Ouirdi & Jesse Segers & Erik Henderickx, 2015. "Employees' use of social media technologies: a methodological and thematic review," Behaviour and Information Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(5), pages 454-464, May.
    11. M. Anne Visser, 2017. "A floor to exploitation? Social economy organizations at the edge of a restructuring economy," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 31(5), pages 782-799, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Emmanuelle Vaast & Alain Pinsonneault, 2022. "Dealing with the Social Media Polycontextuality of Work," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(4), pages 1428-1451, December.
    2. Ruth Reaney & Niall Cullinane, 2024. "Inter-Union Solidarity and Strategic Group Identity: Insights from Works Councils in the French Car Industry," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 38(2), pages 377-398, April.
    3. Genevieve Coderre-LaPalme & Ian Greer & Lisa Schulte, 2023. "Welfare, Work and the Conditions of Social Solidarity: British Campaigns to Defend Healthcare and Social Security," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(2), pages 352-372, April.
    4. Fan, Rui & Xu, Ke & Zhao, Jichang, 2018. "An agent-based model for emotion contagion and competition in online social media," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 495(C), pages 245-259.
    5. Nour El Houda Ben Amor & Mohamed Nabil Mzoughi, 2023. "Do Millennials’ Motives for Using Snapchat Influence the Effectiveness of Snap Ads?," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(3), pages 21582440231, July.
    6. Schmidt, Christoph G. & Wuttke, David A. & Heese, H. Sebastian & Wagner, Stephan M., 2023. "Antecedents of public reactions to supply chain glitches," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    7. Mahan, Joseph E. & Seo, Won Jae & Jordan, Jeremy S. & Funk, Daniel, 2015. "Exploring the impact of social networking sites on running involvement, running behavior, and social life satisfaction," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 182-192.
    8. Molina, Arturo & Fernández, Alejandra C. & Gómez, Mar & Aranda, Evangelina, 2017. "Differences in the city branding of European capitals based on online vs. offline sources of information," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 28-39.
    9. Carmela Milano, 2015. "Democratization or else vulgarization of cultural capital? The role of social networks in theater’s audience behavior," Working Papers CEB 15-004, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    10. Yucheng Zhang & Zhiling Wang & Lin Xiao & Lijun Wang & Pei Huang, 2023. "Discovering the evolution of online reviews: A bibliometric review," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 33(1), pages 1-22, December.
    11. Hassan Danaeefard & Ali Farazmand & Akram Dastyari, 2023. "The Iranian Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-9) Crisismanship: Understanding the Contributions of National Culture, Media, Technology and Economic System," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 1661-1682, December.
    12. Richey, Michelle & Ravishankar, M.N., 2019. "The role of frames and cultural toolkits in establishing new connections for social media innovation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 325-333.
    13. Jamal El-Den & Pratap Adikhari & Pratap Adikhari, 2017. "Social media in the service of social entrepreneurship: Identifying factors for better services," Journal of Advances in Humanities and Social Sciences, Dr. Yi-Hsing Hsieh, vol. 3(2), pages 105-114.
    14. Smith, Andrew N. & Fischer, Eileen & Yongjian, Chen, 2012. "How Does Brand-related User-generated Content Differ across YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter?," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 102-113.
    15. Bo Yang & Chao Liu & Xusen Cheng & Xi Ma, 2022. "Understanding Users' Group Behavioral Decisions About Sharing Articles in Social Media: An Elaboration Likelihood Model Perspective," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 819-842, August.
    16. Gal-Tzur, Ayelet & Grant-Muller, Susan M. & Kuflik, Tsvi & Minkov, Einat & Nocera, Silvio & Shoor, Itay, 2014. "The potential of social media in delivering transport policy goals," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 115-123.
    17. Fathey Mohammed & Nabil Hasan Al-Kumaim & Ahmed Ibrahim Alzahrani & Yousef Fazea, 2023. "The Impact of Social Media Shared Health Content on Protective Behavior against COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-16, January.
    18. Fazal Ur Rehman & Rosman Bin Md Yusoff & Fadillah Binti Ismail & Farwida Javed, 2019. "What is Brand? Some Insights in the Historical Development," Information Management and Business Review, AMH International, vol. 10(4), pages 8-13.
    19. Drummond, Conor & O'Toole, Thomas & McGrath, Helen, 2022. "Social Media resourcing of an entrepreneurial firm network: Collaborative mobilisation processes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 171-187.
    20. Bojana Suzić & Miroslav Karlíček & Václav Stříteský, 2016. "Adoption of Social Media for Public Relations by Museums," Central European Business Review, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2016(2), pages 5-16.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:38:y:2024:i:3:p:636-656. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.