Impact of Using Social Media Networks on Individual Work-Related Outcomes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Although I enjoyed reading your manuscript.

 

However, after completely and thoroughly reading this manuscript, I am convinced that this manuscript lacks a theoretical foundation. Therefore, I suggest you specifically mention the theoretical contribution and any unique/new knowledge emerging from this study?

- As you distributed the survey for five countries, Why did you select these countries? why you did not conduct a multigroup analysis (MGA) for the result.

Could the author(s) provide more details on theoretical and practical implication? 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your review and useful comments on our paper. You can find answers to your comments below, and the changes in the paper concerning them are marked in blue.

Thank you for taking the time to provide insightful suggestions and help us to improve our paper. 

King regards,

Srdana Taborosi

 

1. However, after completely and thoroughly reading this manuscript, I am convinced that this manuscript lacks a theoretical foundation. Therefore, I suggest you specifically mention the theoretical contribution and any unique/new knowledge emerging from this study?

- In the last paragraph of the Introduction, the theoretical contribution of the paper is additionally emphasized.

2. As you distributed the survey for five countries,  Why did you select these countries?

- We added more information in 3.2. Participants and data collection: These countries were selected because of their similarities in culture, language, economic development, and shared history, by expanding the research into five countries, the results obtained have broader application.

3. why you did not conduct a multigroup analysis (MGA) for the result.

- The fact that the sample included five countries does not mean that we wanted to look at the results specifically for these five countries and compare them. On the contrary, the goal was to determine the unique results and relationships that apply to the observed region. Thus, the results are more important because they are valid for more countries. As we have said, this is possible due to the mentioned similarities of the observed countries. Therefore, we did not need such statistical analysis.

4. Could the author(s) provide more details on theoretical and practical implication? 

- Additional explanations are given in 6. Conclusion that provide more theoretical and practical implications.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript provides a very interesting research, current in the world. However, the topic was rated on average, because there are many papers on a given topic. Every standard is respected in the manuscript. Reduce the number of keywords. A revision of the English language is proposed. Simple and clear methodology. It was rated on average, but relevant data were obtained. Therefore, the manuscript is recommended for publication. The literature is completely adequate. 

  The manuscript deals with the topic of determining the influence of social networks on some specific performances of employees. The existing influence of social networks on  job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work performance. The issue of research is very current and much researched.   The topic is very often researched and there are a lot of similar papers on this issue, which can be a good side of research, for comparative analysis, but also a weakness because there are really many papers on this topic. Let's assume that the manuscript is specific because it covers the entire region of the West Balkan, so the results can contribute to theoretical and practical implications.   There are similar studies to determine the impact of social interventions on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. What is specific is that the results in this manuscript have contributed to the fact that increased use of social networks can reduce job satisfaction and employee loyalty.   Adequate methodology was used, starting from descriptive statistics that are very clear and explained in detail, to regression analysis, using mediators. The methodology is fully relevant, does not require any additional changes and improvements.

All conclusions that are exposed after the obtained results are clear and presented in an adequate way. The goal of the research was achieved, without deviating from it, clear results were obtained and related to the conclusions. Answers were obtained in conjunction with the set goal of the research.   References are fully adequate and appropriate.

The tables in the manuscript are very clear. The authors made an effort to mark with color the corresponding significant results, in order to make it clearer to the readers.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your review and useful comments on our paper. 

We rephrased the keywords to make them shorter and revised the English language in the paper per your request.

Thank you for taking the time to provide insightful suggestions and help us to improve our paper. 

King regards,

Srdana Taborosi

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to read this paper. The authors propose an analysis related to the impact of using social media networks on individual outcomes of employed persons.

The paper contributes with very relevant information about the relationship between social media usage and work-related individual outcomes. It has significant practical implications for organizations and individuals and focus on a trending topic.

Although its strengths, I will present some constructive comments and suggestions which may help the authors to improve their work.

-        The manuscript is not formatted based on the Journal guidelines. Authors must guarantee the correct formatting and reference list

-        Title – It is my opinion the title is not attractive and clear enough. I propose emphasizing the work-related outcomes instead of using the expression “employed persons”. (e.g. the impact of using social media networks on individual work-related outcomes)

-        The first phrase of the abstract highlights the results. My suggestion is for the authors present first the research goals and then its results.

-        I consider the introduction confused and very long. The research goal and the research questions are not presented immediately and objectively.

-        The authors should present the theoretical approach they follow of the dependent variables. There are a lot of theoretical approaches to job satisfaction (e.g. uni or multidimensional), to organizational commitment ((e.g. uni or multidimensional; seen as a attitude or a behavior, same as loyalty or involvement?) or work performance (e.g. perceived or objective?). I suggest the need for better (theoretical) clarification of the dependent variables because in the presentation of the instruments is not clear why is important to relate the usage of social media with each dimensions of the dependent variables. Also, for commitment, the most known approach to commitment does not refer to that construct as being loyalty, involvement and identification

-        Measures – To better understand the Social media network usage measure (I believe is very confused), my suggestion for the authors is to present a table with item-based references and response ratings.  

-        For the other measures, the authors do not clarify which dimensions compose the contruct. This information is only presented in the results.

-        I do not understand why authors present some hypotheses and some research questions, and I disagree with the expression “some dimensions” during the hypothesis presentations. Which dimensions, why they may be different? The expression “some” is not an accurate hypothesis formulation expression. Thus, this implicates the confirmation of the hypotheses. A set of relationships were not statistically significant. Therefore, in my opinion, the hypotheses should be partially confirmed.

-        In terms of sample, what was the % per country? Did you found differences between countries? Do do have more information regarding the sample characteristics besides age and gender?

-        Why do you choose to cut of sample on 35 years old? Based on which criteria?

-        In terms of results, I believe that authors should merge results and discussions. In the Results section the authors only present tables after tables, not relating them with the hypothesis and research questions.  

-        The results only need to have 2 decimals.

-        The authors should divide the conclusions part into a general discussion (relating the major results with the literature), theoretical and managerial implications and limitations and future research paths.

I hope these comments and suggestions help the authors to improve the quality and readability of their manuscript.

Good luck!

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your review and useful comments on our paper. You can find answers to your comments below, and the changes in the paper concerning them are marked in red.

Thank you for taking the time to provide insightful suggestions and help us to improve our paper.

King regards,

Srdana Taborosi

 

1. The manuscript is not formatted based on the Journal guidelines. Authors must guarantee the correct formatting and reference list 

- We have formatted the reference and the paper accordingly to Journal guidelines. 

2. Title – It is my opinion the title is not attractive and clear enough. I propose emphasizing the work-related outcomes instead of using the expression “employed persons”. (e.g. the impact of using social media networks on individual work-related outcomes)

- We have accepted the reviewer's suggestion and adjusted the title according to it.

3. The first phrase of the abstract highlights the results. My suggestion is for the authors present first the research goals and then its results.

- We added two sentences at the beginning of the abstract in order to better explain the goal of the research.

4. I consider the introduction confused and very long. The research goal and the research questions are not presented immediately and objectively.

- The introduction is a bit longer, but we think that it is not too long and that the statements in it are necessary for the elaboration of the topic. Therefore, we have not shortened the Introduction for now, but if the reviewer continues to insist on that, we will certainly consider that option as well.

We believe that the main problem with the Introduction comes from the reviewer's second objection, which relates to the fact that the goal of the research is not immediately presented. We have now added that at the very beginning, in accordance with the reviewer's suggestion. In addition, we have made some additions to the Introduction (in line with the recommendations of another reviewer). We believe that all these changes will improve the impression of the Introduction, so it will work better and clearer overall, and its length will be justified.

5. The authors should present the theoretical approach they follow of the dependent variables. There are a lot of theoretical approaches to job satisfaction (e.g. uni or multidimensional), to organizational commitment ((e.g. uni or multidimensional; seen as a attitude or a behavior, same as loyalty or involvement?) or work performance (e.g. perceived or objective?). I suggest the need for better (theoretical) clarification of the dependent variables because in the presentation of the instruments is not clear why is important to relate the usage of social media with each dimensions of the dependent variables. Also, for commitment, the most known approach to commitment does not refer to that construct as being loyalty, involvement and identification

- In this paper, dependent variables (work-related outcomes) are: job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work performance. These variables are well known in the theory of organizational behavior and we believe that it is not necessary to present them separately, for who knows how many times. This is all the more so because in the theoretical part we focused on what is the goal of this paper: examining the effects of using social networks on observed work-related outcomes. That is why we have focused the theoretical part of the paper on the consideration of these relations, which we investigate in the paper. We believe that this is more appropriate because the dependent variables observed here can be observed from many different theoretical aspects, and we have chosen the aspect that corresponds to this paper. Due to all the above, we see no reason to give a theoretical overview of dependent variables and thus extend the paper.

Observing the given relations with each dimension of the dependent variables is also important for this paper: it gives originality to it, and certainly more precise and detailed results are obtained. The results themselves showed that this approach was justified. We have hinted at this in the Introduction, where we have stated the following: ...Also, social media network usage is viewed through several special items, and job satisfaction and organizational commitment across individual dimensions. This is important in order to obtain more precise results, that is, to see the positive and negative effects, which may differ for individual impacts of social media network usage items (independent variables) on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work performance dimensions dependent variables)... We talk about this affirmatively in the Conclusion, where one sentence reads as follows: ...Research on individual social media network usage items and individual outcomes dimensions, certainly proved to be very useful, even necessary, due to variable and complex relations, which are precisely discovered and defined in this way...

Respondents rated work performance, as well as other items in the questionnaire: based on their perception. So, it's about perceived performance. Objective assessment of work performance is very difficult in such research: it would be necessary to ask superiors and to somehow connect these answers with other answers of respondents. Finally, this was not necessary for this research and we believe that we have chosen a logical, correct, and practical approach.

Several different approaches (questionnaires) can be used to test most constructs. In particular, for organizational commitment, there are two commonly used approaches. One is the one we used here, according to Cook and Wall (1980), and the other is the Meyer and Allen (1991) approach, which views organizational commitment also through three dimensions: affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment. We can't say which approach is better, we think both approaches are good. We used the one we mentioned first and it's something we can't change now. In any case, it seems to us that the choice of instrument for organizational commitment certainly does not affect the quality of this research.

Cook, J., Wall, T. (1980). New Work Attitude Measures of Trust, Organizational Commitment and Personal Need Non-Fulfilment”, Journal of Occupational Psychology. Vol. 53, 39-52.

Meyer, J. P., Allen, N. J. (1991). A three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment. Human Resource Management Review, 1, 61–89.

6. Measures – To better understand the Social media network usage measure (I believe is very confused), my suggestion for the authors is to present a table with item-based references and response ratings.  

- All scale items are listed in the appendix at the end of the paper as per the review's suggestion.

7. For the other measures, the authors do not clarify which dimensions compose the contruct. This information is only presented in the results.

- All scale items are listed in the appendix at the end of the paper as per the review's suggestion.

8. I do not understand why authors present some hypotheses and some research questions, and I disagree with the expression “some dimensions” during the hypothesis presentations. Which dimensions, why they may be different? The expression “some” is not an accurate hypothesis formulation expression. Thus, this implicates the confirmation of the hypotheses. A set of relationships were not statistically significant. Therefore, in my opinion, the hypotheses should be partially confirmed.

- In this case, hypotheses and research questions can indeed be posed in two ways:

1. As it is now in the paper, which means that we assume that "some" dimensions have an impact ..., and then the hypotheses are confirmed...
2. As suggested by the reviewer, which would mean that the hypotheses would be partially confirmed.

This can indeed be done in both of the above ways. We do not see that some of them are better than others. The following is an explanation of why we chose the first method.

We wanted to observe the relations in detail, by individual items and dimensions. In that case, it is not realistic to expect that there are statistically significant relationships in all relations. (This is not affirmative in the scientific sense, that is, it does not affect the quality of results if more or fewer relations are statistically significant, simply, and the results are as they are.) The emphasis was on discovering statistically significant relations and showing that they exist, it does not matter exactly in which dimensions and items. The idea was to show that such relationships exist, but not necessarily all of them are statistically significant. Therefore, there was a tendency to affirm the existence of statistically significant relations, so this formulation of hypotheses and research questions focused on those statistically significant relations that exist. We wanted to emphasize and highlight those statistically significant connections that exist. This formulation of hypotheses made it possible.

Since the other reviewers did not have such a remark, for now, we have decided not to change the formulation of hypotheses and research questions. But if the reviewer insists on this, we will easily change it. As we have said, we believe that both approaches are equally good, and we chose the former for the reasons stated.

9. In terms of the sample, what was the % per country? Did you found differences between countries? Do do have more information regarding the sample characteristics besides age and gender?

- We added data in point 3.2, data on the percentage of respondents according to the countries covered. We also added data on the percentage of respondents by the level of education.

We did not even look for differences between countries. That was not the focus of our research. The fact that the sample included five countries does not mean that we wanted to look at the results specifically for these five countries and compare them. On the contrary, the goal was to determine the unique results and relationships that apply to the observed region. Thus, the results are more important because they are valid for more countries. This is possible due to the similarity of the observed countries. We also wrote about these similarities in section 3.2 (Something similar was asked by another reviewer.)

10. Why do you choose to cut of sample on 35 years old? Based on which criteria?

- We have also explained this in point 3.2.

11. In terms of results, I believe that authors should merge results and discussions. In the Results section the authors only present tables after tables, not relating them with the hypothesis and research questions.

- We believe that this is not a problem because the Discussion is divided into subheadings (5.1; 5.2; 5.3 and 5.4), and these subheadings themselves state which hypothesis or research question they refer to, for example:

5.1. Discussion of the results of the correlation analysis (checking hypothesis H1)

5.2. Discussion of the results of the regression analysis (checking hypothesis H2)

5.3. Discussion of the moderating effects of gender of respondents (answering the research question RQ1)

5.4. Discussion of the moderating effects of age of respondents (answering the research question RQ2)

In addition, the first sentence within each of these subheadings always contains a reference to the corresponding table in the results section.

Of course, this dilemma can be solved in at least two ways, but it seems clear to us: we have a title with results and a title with discussion, and it is clear which subtitle and which part of the discussion refers to which table and which hypothesis and research question.

In addition, it is common for papers to contain Results and Discussion sections. Sometimes part of the discussion (what can be seen directly in the tables) is put next to the results, but we think that in that case, we have to repeat some of that text once more in the discussion, to know what a particular discussion is about, and that extends the paper.

12. The results only need to have 2 decimals.

- We reduced the results to two decimals in descriptive statistics, where there were indeed too many decimals. Other results are given to three decimal places, which does not seem like much to us. In addition, it seems that in some cases it is justified, so we kept three decimals.

13. The authors should divide the conclusions part into a general discussion (relating the major results with the literature), theoretical and managerial implications and limitations and future research paths.

- According to the reviewer's proposal, we divided the Conclusion part into 6.1. General conclusion; 6.2. Theoretical and managerial implications; and 6.3. Limitations and future research paths.

Reviewer 4 Report

The reviewer examined the submitted paper entitled “Impact of using social media networks on individual outcomes of employed persons” with significant interest. The submitted paper revealed that the use of social media networks has positive effects on job satisfaction and organizational commitment of employed persons; conversely, it also clarified that the overuse of social media networks has negative effects on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. In conclusion, it impressively indicates the appropriate usage of social media networks in our society. The reviewer believes that the submitted paper might contribute to the literature in the field of organizational studies.

 

At the same time, however, the reviewer observes some issues concerning the theoretical framework and statistical models adopted for the study. It is felt that although the findings presented in the submitted paper are interesting, their implications have neither been sufficiently examined nor presented theoretically and consistently. Specifically, although the authors revealed the relationship between the usage of social media networks and job satisfaction (or organizational commitment), they did not refer to social mechanisms linking them. The reviewer feels that the significance of the submitted paper will be more prominent if the authors argue about such social mechanisms more clearly.

 

For example, the authors’ hypotheses were as follows: “H1: There are statistically significant correlations between some of the social media network sites and some of the job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work performance dimensions, in employed persons” and “H2: There is a statistically significant predictive effect of some social media network sites usage items on some of the job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work performance dimensions, in employed persons”. These hypotheses enquire whether there are statistically significant associations with target variables; however, they do not explain how and why they are associated with each other. In other words, it seems that the hypotheses and research questions presented in the study lack a theoretical explanation for significant associations with target variables, and the authors rely on ad hoc explanations regarding their findings derived from statistical analyses. Therefore, the reviewer recommends that the authors prepare a theoretical framework to explain the relationship between the usage of social media networks and job satisfaction (or organizational commitment), based on previous literature.

 

Additionally, the reviewer wonders why the authors analyzed survey items concerning job satisfaction (JS1-JS9), organizational commitment (OCM1-OCM3), and work performance (WP) separately. It is easily predicted that survey items (JS1-JS9, OCM1-OCM3, and WP) are closely linked to each other. If the authors examined the internal structure of these items based on factor analysis (or structural equation modeling), they could acquire significant information related to their hypotheses. In such a case, they might analyze the data used in their study based on the latent factors extracted by factor analysis (or structural equation modeling). The reviewer thinks that the authors need to show the correlation matrix of the survey items (JS1-JS9, OCM1-OCM3, and WP).

 

In the submitted paper, the regression models were analyzed by gender or age group. However, if the authors used regression models, they could include a variable of gender (or age group) in their regression models. By doing so, they could confirm the effects of gender (or age) on the job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work performance of employed persons. Moreover, by using interaction terms of gender (or age) and variables related to the usage of social media networks (SN1-SN9), they could also confirm the moderation effects of gender (or age) on the association between social media use and job satisfaction (or organizational commitment).

 

Finally, the authors did not examine whom the respondents connected with via social media networks. It is predicted that there will be differences in job satisfaction and organizational commitment between the following two cases: first, that respondents are more likely to connect with colleagues within an organization via social media networks, and second, that respondents are more likely to connect with diverse persons, regardless of membership in the organization. The reviewer believes that the authors might explain the effects of the usage of social media networks on job satisfaction and organizational commitment more consistently if they consider the ratio of one’s colleagues among all individuals that one connects with through social media networks.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your review and useful comments on our paper. You can find answers to your comments below, and the changes in the paper concerning them are marked in green.

Thank you for taking the time to provide insightful suggestions and help us to improve our paper.

King regards,

Srdana Taborosi

 

 

1. At the same time, however, the reviewer observes some issues concerning the theoretical framework and statistical models adopted for the study. It is felt that although the findings presented in the submitted paper are interesting, their implications have neither been sufficiently examined nor presented theoretically and consistently. Specifically, although the authors revealed the relationship between the usage of social media networks and job satisfaction (or organizational commitment), they did not refer to social mechanisms linking them. The reviewer feels that the significance of the submitted paper will be more prominent if the authors argue about such social mechanisms more clearly.

- The theoretical and managerial implications have been expanded and are now a separate part of the Conclusion (this has been requested by other reviewers as well). Suggestions related to social mechanisms also appear in the lower paragraph (suggested by this reviewer), so we have given the answer to these suggestions after the next paragraph.

2. For example, the authors’ hypotheses were as follows: “H1: There are statistically significant correlations between some of the social media network sites and some of the job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work performance dimensions, in employed persons” and “H2: There is a statistically significant predictive effect of some social media network sites usage items on some of the job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work performance dimensions, in employed persons”. These hypotheses enquire whether there are statistically significant associations with target variables; however, they do not explain how and why they are associated with each other. In other words, it seems that the hypotheses and research questions presented in the study lack a theoretical explanation for significant associations with target variables, and the authors rely on ad hoc explanations regarding their findings derived from statistical analyses. Therefore, the reviewer recommends that the authors prepare a theoretical framework to explain the relationship between the usage of social media networks and job satisfaction (or organizational commitment), based on previous literature.

- Suggestions regarding the social mechanisms that connect the observed relations are really very useful. However, it was not easy for us to do this part. However, we did our best and found a few new quotes, which, it seems to us, are just solving this issue. Specifically, in the Discussion, we have added a few quotations and a certain text that resulted from these quotations. We have incorporated all that into the existing text, and it seems to us that now the explanations in the Discussion are better and more valuable and that the paper has gained a lot with this suggestion. Therefore, it seems to us that our interpretations are no longer arbitrary, except to a lesser extent. Here, too, we believe that a certain amount of our opinions and interpretations can (and should) exist and that they are based on an in-depth understanding of the results, but also on experience in interpreting social phenomena. In any case, it seems to us that our interpretations are now better connected with the existing social mechanisms, but they also contain some of our views on the results. We believe that this, our explanation of the results, also contributes to the originality and value of the paper.

To all this, we should add that in the theoretical part of the paper, there were previously discussed topics of theoretical importance for this paper. Also, in the Discussion, there were already calls for some references with similar or different results. If all this is now viewed as a whole with the quotations and parts of the text that have now been added, we hope that we have succeeded in responding to this request of the reviewer.

3. Additionally, the reviewer wonders why the authors analyzed survey items concerning job satisfaction (JS1-JS9), organizational commitment (OCM1-OCM3), and work performance (WP) separately. It is easily predicted that survey items (JS1-JS9, OCM1-OCM3, and WP) are closely linked to each other. If the authors examined the internal structure of these items based on factor analysis (or structural equation modeling), they could acquire significant information related to their hypotheses. In such a case, they might analyze the data used in their study based on the latent factors extracted by factor analysis (or structural equation modeling). The reviewer thinks that the authors need to show the correlation matrix of the survey items (JS1-JS9, OCM1-OCM3, and WP).

- We wanted to examine the observed relations in detail, at the level of items and dimensions. First, it has not been done so far, so we wanted to achieve certain originality of research and work. Secondly, why not? We believe that a detailed examination is useful and justified. Considerations at the higher-order construct level can yield simple, simplistic results, where many nuances of influence remain undetected and neglected. Maybe the dimensions of a higher-order construct are related in the general case (in this case they are, as shown by the correlation analysis we added according to the reviewer's suggestion), but why not examine some narrow relationships? The connections between these dimensions generally exist in the general case, but these dimensions basically describe similar but still different things. For example, someone may be satisfied with a salary, but not with associates, and vice versa. Someone can be involved in the organization, but not loyal in case of a better offer, and vice versa (sometimes employees are loyal, but not involved, according to the system: here, I will be loyal, just don't make me work too hard...).

In any case, we conducted the research in accordance with what we wanted. A change that involves observing at the level of a higher-order construct would mean, practically, writing a new paper. After all, such papers can be found, and the paper conceived in this way is original and indicates some nuances (but significant) in the given relations. This approach, in a significant part, enabled the analysis of social mechanisms for some phenomena, which we added at the suggestion of the reviewer.

We have certainly made a matrix of correlations of dependent dimensions according to the reviewer's suggestion and included it in the paper. We briefly commented on these correlations in the results section.

In the end, we fully understand that this suggestion of the reviewer is quite correct and that this proposed way is often done. Therefore, we have included this suggestion (to do the analysis at the level of a higher-order construct) as a proposal for further research, which is stated at the end of the Conclusion.

4. In the submitted paper, the regression models were analyzed by gender or age group. However, if the authors used regression models, they could include a variable of gender (or age group) in their regression models. By doing so, they could confirm the effects of gender (or age) on the job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work performance of employed persons. Moreover, by using interaction terms of gender (or age) and variables related to the usage of social media networks (SN1-SN9), they could also confirm the moderation effects of gender (or age) on the association between social media use and job satisfaction (or organizational commitment).

- We viewed gender and age as moderators. The basic relation is from social media usage to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work performance. We look at these relations first, and we have two hypotheses about them. Then we introduce the gender and age of the respondents as moderators, comparing the observed relationships in men and women, and then in younger and older respondents. In doing so, we use hierarchical regression analysis. In this way, we have already examined the role and effects of gender and age on the observed relationships, which was the goal. That is why we do not see why we would do the same thing, only in a different way. That would again mean significant changes in the paper, and the introduction of additional tables... Simply, we worked in this way, and it can always be done in more ways. What the reviewer suggests is a good suggestion, but we believe that the applied approach is good and brings the desired results and analyzes.

5. Finally, the authors did not examine whom the respondents connected with via social media networks. It is predicted that there will be differences in job satisfaction and organizational commitment between the following two cases: first, that respondents are more likely to connect with colleagues within an organization via social media networks, and second, that respondents are more likely to connect with diverse persons, regardless of membership in the organization. The reviewer believes that the authors might explain the effects of the usage of social media networks on job satisfaction and organizational commitment more consistently if they consider the ratio of one’s colleagues among all individuals that one connects with through social media networks.

- This is definitely an interesting idea. However, we did not examine whom the respondents connected with via social media networks. Now we can't do that later.

However, our goal was to take into account some standard SNS use items, such as: Number of social networks I use, Daily time use (hours per day), Number of friends on social networks, Number of photos on social networks, Number of groups on social networks, etc. Simply, that's how we worked, that's how it was done this time. The reviewer's suggestion is useful and we have included it in the proposals for further research, which is stated in the paper, at the end of the Conclusion.

* * *

In general, looking at this whole review, we can say that we understand everything that the reviewer stated and agree with him. However, we could not implement some suggestions, because we did not examine some things in the first place, or the changes in the paper would be very significant and would mean almost writing a new paper. This paper is simply done this way. Could it have been otherwise - certainly, yes. But, we believe that the approaches applied here are correct and bring the desired results. All the above suggestions are useful and well-intentioned and can be applied in some new research and writing a new paper.

However, we have certainly committed ourselves and made changes that we could, at this moment, and at this stage of finalizing the research and the paper. By that, we mean the introduction of new quotations and texts in the Discussion, which refer to finding the basis in social mechanisms for a more objective interpretation of certain results. We also made a table of mutual correlations of dependent variables, included it in the paper, and comments on it. Finally, some suggestions (that the analysis is done at the level of higher-order constructs and taking into account with whom the respondents are connected with via social media networks) we have taken into account in the form of proposals for further research, which are listed in the Conclusion.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to read, once again, this paper. After careful analysis, I believe that the manuscript is ready for publication. From my point of view, the authors were able to answer to reviewers' questions and suggestions.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute.

I wish all the best for the authors.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments to the authors:

 

The reviewer carefully examined the revised paper entitled “Impact of using social media networks on individual work related outcomes.” Consequently, he confirmed that the authors addressed his concerns, but not perfectly. However, he does not require the authors to write a new paper. He was persuaded by the revised paper and the author’s reply. Therefore, he recommends the paper for publication.