How Identification With the Social Environment and With the Government Guide the Use of the Official COVID-19 Contact Tracing App: Three Quantitative Survey Studies

BACKGROUND

Official contact tracing apps have been implemented and recommended for use across nations to track and contain the spread of COVID-19. Such apps can be effective if people are willing to use them. Accordingly, many attempts are being made to motivate citizens to make use of the officially recommended apps.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this research was to contribute to an understanding of the preconditions under which people are willing to use a COVID-19 contact tracing app (ie, their use intentions and use). To go beyond personal motives in favor of app use, it is important to take people's social relationships into account, under the hypothesis that the more people identify with the beneficiaries of app use (ie, people living close by in their social environment) and with the source recommending the app (ie, members of the government), the more likely they will be to accept the officially recommended contact tracing app.

METHODS

Before, right after, and 5 months after the official contact tracing app was launched in Germany, a total of 1044 people participated in three separate surveys. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses, examining the same model in all studies at these critical points in time.

RESULTS

Across the three surveys, both identification with the beneficiaries (people living in their social environment) and with the source recommending the app (members of the government) predicted greater intention to use and use (installation) of the official contact tracing app. Trust in the source (members of the government) served as a mediator. Other types of identification (with people in Germany or people around the world) did not explain the observed results. The findings were highly consistent across the three surveys.

CONCLUSIONS

Attempts to motivate people to use new health technology (or potentially new measures more generally) not only for their personal benefit but also for collective benefits should take the social context into account (ie, the social groups people belong to and identify with). The more important the beneficiaries and the sources of such measures are to people's sense of the self, the more willing they will likely be to adhere to and support such measures.

The Impact of Social Media Usage on Work Efficiency: The Perspectives of Media Synchronicity and Gratifications

As prevail of mobile networking, social media became ubiquitous in either work or our personal life. Based on Media Synchronization Theory and transformational framework, this study proposed a research model and examined how the social media' attributes impacting the work effectiveness through the work-oriented or social-oriented usage. The data of 322 valid questionnaires from respondents was analyzed by SmartPLS 3.2.8. The results indicated that the features of social media including availability and symbol variety had the significant influences on their work efficiency through work-oriented usage of social media. Publicness and symbol variety had impact on work efficiency via social-oriented usage of social media. In addition, both social media for work-oriented and social-oriented usage influenced employees' work efficiency. There were different considerations when people selected social media for work or for social purpose. Managers or companies could guide their employees to use the social media in a right way to increase their work features to complete their work efficiency, and create groups for employees so the work information could be shared efficiently.

How to improve employee satisfaction and efficiency through different enterprise social media use

Purpose

While prior research provides interesting insights into the effect of social media use in enterprises, there is limited research on how use of different social media platforms affects employee job satisfaction and work efficiency. This study developed a research model to investigate how public and private social media platforms used for different motivations affect employee job satisfaction and work efficiency.

Design/methodology/approach

Online surveys were conducted in China, generating 453 valid responses for analysis. Structural equation modeling is performed to test the research model and hypotheses.

Findings

The results suggest that (1) public social media used for both work- and social-related motivations positively affects employee job satisfaction, while private social media only used for social-related motivations can contribute to employee job satisfaction. (2) Public and private social media used for work-related motivations can contribute to employee work efficiency, while social-related motivations for use of public and private social media and employee work efficiency are not significant. (3) In the process of social media usage influencing employee job satisfaction and work efficiency, employees of different genders show significant differences.

Originality/value

First, this paper contributes to information systems social media research by examining the joint effects of different motivations for public and private social media usage on employee job satisfaction and work efficiency in organizations. Second, it contributes to uses and gratification theory by clarifying the relationship between different motivations for enterprise social media use and its needs.