Social Media and Talent Development: Influencing Factors on Use Behavior and Employees’ Work Success

Abstract

Despite increasing the significant role of technology and popularity of social media among the new generation of employees, there are few studies related to the impacts and benefits of utilizing social media as a human resource development (HRD) tool in organizations. Additionally, although the concept of talent development seems to becoming an important topic among human resource scholars and professionals in recent years, there is a paucity of research in which talent development (TD) is the main focus. This dissertation sought to investigate the role of influencing factors in and the potential outcomes from implementing various social media platforms in different talent development activities. In a three-journal article format, first I conducted a systematic literature review of talent development interventions. The review helped the study to (a) identify the available TD interventions, issues and challenges, (b) understand the role of social media in designing interventions, and (c) recognize the gap in the literature regarding the application of social media tools for developing talented employees. In the second quantitative study, I used the results of the systematic literature review to fill in the gap in TD literature. Therefore, the second manuscript explored the possible effects of leveraging social media as a TD intervention, since the systematic literature review of TD demonstrated that there is no study examining such effects. The third study was a practitioner guide or view point to assist HRD professionals in positioning social media for TD purposes within the organizations. The practitioner guide integrated the results of the first and the second manuscripts. I began by describing the necessity of using social media in workplace, stating the possible TD interventions that were proved to be effective, and providing a functional and convenient framework for practitioner in which different choices of social media in talent development and their potential outcomes have been displayed.