The Role of Department Type in Public Managers’ Attitudes Toward Social Media Use

• Author: Xiaoheng Wang,Allyson L. Holbrook,Mary Feeney
• Published date: 01 August 2022
• Date: 01 August 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/02750740221106158
• Subject Matter: Articles

The Role of Department Type in Public

Managers’Attitudes Toward Social Media

Use

Xiaoheng Wang

1

, Allyson L. Holbrook

2

and Mary Feeney

3

Abstract

Social media technologies have been widely adopted by governments to increase civic engagement, promote openness, and

extend services. Previous research f‌inds that public managers’attitudes are important predictors of social media adoption and

successful implementation. Managers’attitudes may vary due to different organizational structures, functions, and operations

based on department type or because departments var y along with key dimensions. This research investigates the following

questions: (1) Does department type signif‌icantly predict public managers’attitudes toward social media, (2) does department

type moderate the effect of predictors of managers’attitudes toward social media found in previous research, and (3) do the

predictors of managers’attitudes toward social media found in previous research mediate attitude differences observed across

different kinds of departments. Using data collected from a 2014 national web survey in the United States on technology in

city government, we f‌ind department type is an important predictor of managers’attitudes toward social media use. The

effects of other predictors of attitudes toward social media use were not moderated by department type. Instead, those pre-

dictors had similar effects regardless of department type. Some of the variables related to organizational characteristics and

culture (e.g., social media use, innovativeness, and use of e-services) helped to explain differences between the attitudes of

managers from different departments. Our f‌indings are important for developing strategies to target managers’negative atti-

tudes toward using social media, thus removing one of the barriers to successful technolog y implementation.

Keywords

social media, local government, department type

Introduction

Public organizations adopt and integrate technologies to

improve workplace eff‌iciency and encourage engagement

with citizens, a movement toward the “e-government”para-

digm (Ho, 2002). E-government approaches can be classif‌ied

into two types: e-services (or one-way technologies) and

communication technologies (or two-way technologies).

Typical e-services such as online reservations, ticket pay-

ments, or job applications are designed to increase eff‌icien-

cies, while information and communication technologies

(ICTs) enable two-way interaction with stakeholders

(Ahn, 2011; Li & Feeney, 2014; Moon, 2002). Social

media platforms, including popular ICTs such as Facebook,

Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Instagram,

allow users to upload content and interact with others.

Social media is used by individuals and organizations for net-

working, advertising, and communicating with customers

and clients. Governments have expanded social media use

to communicate internally, across agencies, and with external

stakeholders (Criado et al., 2013; Fusi & Feeney, 2018a;

Mossberger & Wu, 2013).

The open and sharing characteristics of social media are

both advantageous and problematic for public organizations.

On the one hand, social media can assist local governments

to reach constituents, disseminate information, improve com-

munity participation, and facilitate openness, transparency,

and accountability (Oliveira & Welch, 2013; Fusi & Feeney,

2018a; Grimmelikhuijsen & Feeney, 2017). Local govern-

ments that are not engaging stakeholders online are falling

behind. On the other hand, two-way digital communications

may slow decision-making processes and lead to management

diff‌iculties (Li & Feeney, 2014), increase psychological and

1

Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS,

USA

2

Department of Public Administration, University of Illinois at Chicago,

Chicago, IL, USA

3

School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA

Corresponding Author:

Xiaoheng Wang, Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs, Wichita State

University, 1845 Fairmount Street, Wichita, KS 67260, USA.

Email: xiaoheng.wang@wichita.edu

Article

American Review of Public Administration

2022, Vol. 52(6) 457–471

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/02750740221106158

journals.sagepub.com/home/arp