Antecedents and consequences of public administration’s social media website attractiveness
| Author | Paul F. Langer,Vincent Göttel,Bernd W. Wirtz,Marc-Julian Thomas |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852318762310 |
| Published date | 01 March 2020 |
| Date | 01 March 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Antecedents and
consequences of
public administration’s
social media website
attractiveness
Bernd W. Wirtz
German University of Administrative Sciences, Speyer, Germany
Vincent G€
ottel
German University of Administrative Sciences, Speyer, Germany
Paul F. Langer
German University of Administrative Sciences, Speyer, Germany
Marc-Julian Thomas
German University of Administrative Sciences, Speyer, Germany
Abstract
With regard to the increasing use of social media channels in public administrations, this
study investigates antecedents and consequences of public administration’s social media
website attractiveness, focusing on the local government level. We derive a model
based on the Uses and Gratifications Theory and apply a structural equation modeling
approach by testing our model based on a survey data of 164 citizens in Germany using
social media websites in the context of public administration. As a result, we find that
Social Motivation, User-Generated Content and Public Administrator-Generated
Content have a significant positive influence on Attractiveness. Moreover,
Attractiveness positively affects both Intention to Use and Word-of-Mouth
(WoM) Intention.
Corresponding author:
Bernd W. Wirtz, German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer, Chair for Information and
Communication Management, Freiherr-vom-Stein-Str. 2, 67346 Speyer, Germany.
Email: Ls-wirtz@uni-speyer.de
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2020, Vol. 86(1) 38–61
!The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0020852318762310
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
Points for practitioners
The attractiveness of public institutions’ social media websites such as Facebook depends
on three factors: (1) users wish to get connected to other users and (2) the appeal of its
content generated by the public institution as well as (3) by other users. Empirical data
suggest that the increase in attractiveness of respective social media pages will make
users use the social site more often and will also make users recommend the page to
others. Against this background, social media page managers of public administration
websites will focus on providing an open platform for citizens to exchange information
and provide appealing and citizen-oriented content.
Keywords
public administration, social media, structural equation modeling, uses and
gratifications theory
Introduction
Ongoing globalization and the dissemination of constantly developing information
and communication technologies have led to a diverse offer and usage of online
services, both on the provider and user side (Ma and Agarwal, 2007). More recent
developments in this regard involve the rise of the Web 2.0 and social media at the
beginning of the twenty-first century (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010).
Considering social media’s increasing importance in society, athe scientific dis-
course concerning this matter also constantly evolves (Wirtz and Langer, 2017).
However, while large parts of the literature deal with the significance of social
media (SM) in the private sector (Khang et al., 2012), researchers seem to pay
less attention to the application and acceptance of SM regarding public adminis-
tration and citizens (e.g. Bertot et al., 2010; Bons
on et al., 2012; Bryer, 2011; Jaeger
et al., 2012).
However, ‘Social media has the potential to change a wide variety of manage-
ment practices in [...] public organizations’ (Campbell et al., 2014: 655). In light of
this finding, research by the United Nations indicates that social networks have
become everyday business for many citizens and have thus become highly relevant
for political and governmental communication (United Nations, 2014).
Accordingly,there are also calls in the academicliterature for more researchon SM
in public administration (Wirtz and Daiser, 2018). Forinstance, Bons
on et al. (2017:
323) state:‘Despite the growing discussionabout SM technologies (whetherthey have
the potential toenhance citizen engagement),there is still little evidence on SM adop-
tion and usage’.Since Facebook pages of municipalities have been found to be oneof
the most promising tools for engaging and interacting with citizens (Bons
on et al.,
2012, 2015, 2017; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010), we derive and test a model that
explains the attractiveness of Facebook pages of municipalities. Such a model can
Wirtz et al. 39
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