The impact of social media use on the autonomy and organisational citizenship behaviour of faculty members in Kenyan private universities

ABSTRACT As the impact of social media grows, understanding the mechanisms through which social media affects employee behaviour increases. Employing social capital theory, we investigate the mechanisms through which social media usage affects organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) of faculty in Kenyan private universities. OCB is an important aspect of universities’ performance, given the high level of autonomy in universities. We develop a theoretical model that posits direct links to OCB of three social media usages (social, cognitive, and hedonic) which affect OCB. We also posit indirect links (using autonomy as a mediator) that affect faculty’s intrinsic motivation for OCB. Using descriptive cross-sectional survey, a mediated model was tested on 388 faculty. Results revealed: 1) social media usage significantly impacts OCB, with social and cognitive having a positive relationship, and hedonic having a negative relationship with OCB; 2) social media usage tends to increase autonomy. Findings of this study contribute towards job performance improvement.