Chapter 25: Human Resource Management and the Rise of Social Media

Over the course of the last two decades, social media has become an established and increasingly popular way to communicate professional and personal news and views (Hartwell and Campion, 2020). In this chapter, we explore the rise and role of social media in Human Resource Management (HRM). For this chapter, social media are defined as Internet-based applications which allow users to create new content such as Wikipedia pages, blogs, social networking sites and websites (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Social media serve as communication channels in the workplace and can support, as well as undermine, several HR functions and settings. Due to their Internet-based nature, social media align well with many eHRM practices. Accordingly, eHRM has been defined as ‘… a way of implementing HR strategies, policies, and practices in organizations through the conscious and directed support of and/or with the full use of web-technology-based channels’ (Ruël et al., 2004, p. 365).