Effects of employees’ personal social media behaviour on corporate reputation and behavioural intention : the moderating role of ethical position

Abstract

This study examined the effects and risk of employee personal social media behaviour on corporate reputation, and the subsequent changing of consumer behavioural intention (CBI) in the banking industry. Additionally, this study also determined whether the ethical position, i.e idealistic views or relativistic views, moderates the consumer perception of the corporate reputation due to a personal social media post of an employee. This study was conducted using the Stimulus-Organism-Response model as a theoretical grounding. The research design was a single factor between subject experimental design, with a treatment and control group which were allocated to scenarios depicting an employee’s personal social media post. The analysis revealed that employee personal social media behaviour does affect consumer perception of the corporate reputation, and futhermore changes the CBI. However, the moderation analysis revealed that a consumer’s ethical position has no effect on their perception of the corporate reputation based on the employee’s personal social media behaviour. The findings offer recommendations to managers going forward.