Down the Rabbit Hole: Social Media, Workplace Collaboration, Millennial Psychological Need Satisfaction and Affective Commitment in Industry 4.0

Abstract

The main purpose of this chapter is to examine the relationship between workplace use of social media, collaboration, psychological need satisfaction and Millennial employees’ affective commitment. Based on a review of extant literature and using social exchange theory, this study develops a conceptual framework to spur affective commitment of Millennials. Different workplace patterns of social media application offer opportunities to enhance collaboration. It can facilitate the fulfilment of employees’ psychological needs, leading to an increased affective commitment. The framework suggests a social media-enabled approach of collaboration to satisfy Millennial employees’ psychological needs, leading to their affective commitment. The framework should be empirically tested in future research. This study contributes to the literature in human resources pertaining to social media as an asset to promote collaboration and develops a linkage between social media and Millennial employees’ affective commitment via psychological need satisfaction.