Employees' Company Reputation-related Social Media Competence: Scale Development and Validation

Cases in which employees' uses of social media harm their company's reputation highlight the need for a measure to evaluate employees' company reputation-related social media competence (RSMC). Drawing on reputation and human capital theory and data from four occupationally diverse samples of employees, this study develops and validates a new, multidimensional measure of RSMC, or an employee's ability to use social media without causing harm to the employer's reputation. Exploratory factor analyses, first- and second-order confirmatory factor analyses, and structural equation modeling all provide strong evidence of the convergent, discriminant, known-group, and nomological validities of the proposed RSMC scale. The higher-order RSMC construct also relates to job demands and resources and to two behavioral outcomes: bad mouthing and positive word of mouth. The RSMC scale also exhibits test retest reliability and ecological validity. Thus, the new scale offers both research directions and managerial implications. (C) 2016 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc., dba Marketing EDGE. All rights reserved.