This study investigates how employees interpret organizational social media (OSM) platforms as institutional signals within Saudi semi-governmental technology and telecommunications organizations, addressing gaps in the understanding of employee perceptions in non-Western contexts undergoing digital transformation.
An exploratory qualitative study employing signaling theory across six Saudi semi-government organizations. Data were collected through dual complementary sources: 356 employee comments extracted from internal electronic communication systems and 38 semi-structured interviews. Systematic thematic analysis anchored in signaling theory constructs generated findings.
Five major themes emerged: signal credibility and authenticity skepticism (43.5%), espoused-enacted inconsistency (34.8%), psychological safety barriers as signal noise (28.1%), response mechanism failure and signal decay (39.3%) and platform design inadequacies (31.5%). Results reveal that structural organizational conditions systematically undermine platform effectiveness regardless of technological capability.
The study advances signaling theory by introducing signal decay (credibility erosion absent follow-through), theorizing cultural-institutional interference as structured signal noise in high-power-distance contexts and reconceptualizing OSM as compound signals that convey organizational identity claims and invitations to co-construct legitimacy.
HR professionals and organizational leaders in semi-government knowledge organizations should prioritize behavioral credibility over technological sophistication, establish visible response mechanisms, ensure psychological safety through structural reforms and align platform design with authentic participatory values to prevent signal decay and the erosion of engagement.
Findings illuminate how hierarchical governance structures in semi-government contexts create systematic barriers to participatory communication, revealing tensions between digital modernization initiatives (such as Saudi Vision, 2030) and traditional organizational power structures that constrain employee voice and organizational democratization. These barriers extend beyond individual organizations, revealing structural governance tensions that affect public-sector accountability, digital-era organizational democracy and the viability of state-directed digitization agendas. The findings carry implications for policy actors and institutional designers seeking to align governance structures with participatory communication mandates across semi-government and state-owned organizational contexts.
This study challenges techno-optimistic assumptions in enterprise social media scholarship through novel theoretical extensions to signaling theory, an innovative dual-source qualitative methodology that captures authentic employee discourse and rare empirical insights from understudied Saudi semi-governmental contexts where institutional hybridity shapes digital communication dynamics.
