1. Introduction
With the development of artificial intelligence and information technology, the working pattern of employees, such as working hours, office location, and communication methods, has been greatly changed [
1]. Especially under the COVID-19 pandemic, employees’ reliance on online office platforms, such as WeChat, ZOOM, and the OA system, has become a global phenomenon. At this time, the concept of social media usage has attracted the attention of scholars [
2,
3]. In China, influenced by special COVID-19 prevention policies (e.g., staying at home, quarantining), the unnecessary personnel movements and aggregation activities are suspended. The resurgence of COVID-19 has led to the need for employees to be prepared to work from home or quarantine. Moreover, a large number of commercial activities such as production, sales, communication, and negotiation are restricted by China’s local lockdown policy. More and more individuals have to use social media platforms within their organizations as a new means to handle their job tasks, promote communication, and enhance collaboration [
4]. Undoubtedly, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerates the transformation of working patterns and personnel structure [
5,
6], which brings great challenges to the sustainable development of human capital [
7]. There is an urgency for organizations to give full play to the opportunities and challenges brought by work reform and to take corresponding measures to promote the sustainability of human resources [
8]. Enterprise managers should implement a series of managerial strategies and working methods that are conducive to the organization’s sustainable competitiveness, such as creating a harmonious working environment and formulating suitable management policies to ensure the physical and mental health of employees [
9]. Only by fully realizing the sustainable development of “Human–Job–Environment” can enterprises effectively mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and achieve their economic, social, and environmental performance goals.
Theoretical researchers and management practitioners are also increasingly concerned about how social media usage affects the sustainability development of organizations and individuals [
10,
11,
12]. Previous studies showed that this online working pattern based on social media not only breaks the limitation of time and space, but also greatly reduces the communication cost, makes the work more convenient, and is conducive to improving the job satisfaction and performance of employees [
13,
14,
15,
16]. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has also given rise to working models such as “fingertip working” that require quick response from employees. This directly aggravates the phenomenon of “potential overtime” in the organization, which distracts employees’ attention and reduces their work performance [
17,
18]. In addition, social media usage all the time invisibly increases the work intensity of employees in the family area and breaks the balance between work and family [
19]. It can be seen that although social media usage has increased the work flexibility in the organization, it still extends the work to the family area, which increases work stress, anxiety, burnout, and other negative emotions of employees [
20,
21,
22,
23].
At the same time, compared with male employees, female employees still take more responsibility for housework, so they need more time and energy to meet the needs of the family [
24]. Fierce workplace competition during the COVID-19 pandemic also requires female employees to devote themselves to the work to meet the job demands. Even with frequent video calls, female employees often feel like they are missing out on important events in organizations. Social media usage has made it easier for some female employees to balance work and housework, but their work and family responsibilities have also multiplied. This pressure increases job uncertainty and poses greater challenges to the career development of female employees. Some scholars proposed that employees may take a series of positive activities when confronted with an uncertain environment, such as job crafting, to cope with the current situation [
25,
26]. Especially in the face of great changes in working patterns caused by COVID-19, job crafting has received wide attention by academia and industry [
27,
28,
29]. As an organizational behavior that helps individuals to match their jobs, job crafting refers to the behaviors that employees use to voluntarily and actively redesign their job specifications, change their work tasks, and rebuild interpersonal relationships [
30]. Existing studies mainly focus on the outcomes of job crafting, such as individual performance, work engagement, and well-being [
31,
32,
33,
34], while there is a significant lack of research on the antecedents and influence mechanism of job crafting. Through a literature review, it was found that the current research of scholars mainly discusses the influence of demographics, individual personalities, and job characteristics on employees’ job crafting [
35,
36,
37]. For example, Clement and Noxolo (2016) investigated the relationship between Big Five personalities and job crafting [
38]. Some scholars proposed that job crafting is not only related to intrinsic motivation [
39,
40], but also closely related to the external work situation [
41]. At this time, as a typical work situation during COVID-19, how does the female employees’ social media usage affect their job crafting? Is the effect positive or negative? How can organizations increase the competitiveness of female employees through job crafting, thereby further enhancing the sustainability of human capital?
To answer the above questions, this study introduces the two-dimensional model of social media usage proposed by Gonzalez et al. (2012) to analyze the double-edged effect of female employees’ social media usage on job crafting [
42]. Scholars proposed that social media usage is divided into two dimensions based on different purposes: work-related social media usage and social-related social media usage. The former refers to the use of social media by employees to engage in work-related activities, such as information transmission, work arrangement, and knowledge sharing. It facilitates resource generation, team collaboration, and job engagement [
43]. The latter refers to the use of social media by employees to build harmonious interpersonal relations, realize the exchange of personal information, and provide emotional support. In studies on social media usage, scholars pay more attention to the influence mechanism of job characteristics. For example, a large number of studies showed that social media usage had an impact on employee behavior and performance through job states, such as job satisfaction, job engagement, and so on [
44,
45,
46]. Only a few studies focused on the field of “interpersonal characteristics” and ignored the influence of gender and situational factors [
47]. In fact, for female employees, they focus more on “interpersonal relations” and “emotional support”. That requires us to pay more attention to how social media usage affects the behavior of female employees through interpersonal mechanisms. Therefore, based on the job demands resources theory (JD-R theory) [
48], we take female employees’ social media usage as job demands and job resources, respectively, to estimate its impact on job crafting. Moreover, job autonomy and workplace friendship from job characteristics and interpersonal characteristics is used to uncover the double-mediation mechanism of female employees’ social media usage and job crafting.
In sum, this study mainly explores how the changes in working patterns affect the sustainability of human capital during the COVID-19 pandemic. We try to discuss how companies could properly use social media to ensure that female employees can effectively balance their job demands and resources, so as to achieve better “Human–Job–Environment” sustainability. This study attempts to make contributions in the following three aspects. Firstly, since the COIVD-19 pandemic has a greater impact on the work and life of female employees than male employees, this study focuses on the impact of female employees’ social media usage on job crafting under the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Secondly, different from previous research, this study uses two dimensions of social media usage, namely, work-related and social-related, to analyze their double-edged effects on job crafting, which is helpful to expand the relevant research in this field. Thirdly, this study investigates the mediating roles of job autonomy and workplace friendships, which enable us to better understand the double-mediation mechanism between social media usage and job crafting.
5. Discussion
Most Chinese organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic have changed their working patterns from “offline” to “online”. This change has significantly affected the cognition, emotion, and behavior of female employees in China, which has brought great challenges to the sustainability of organizational human capital. This study investigated the relationship between social media usage and job crafting of female employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. The mediating roles of job autonomy and workplace friendship on this relationship were also explored. Our findings reveal that work-related and social-related social media usage, the two different dimensions of social media usage, have opposite effects on job crafting of female employees.
Firstly, our study builds on previous research by scholars [
2,
3,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15,
16,
17] looking at the effect of social media usage on female employees’ job crafting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Different from previous studies, our results indicate that the social media usage by female employees for different purposes has a double-edged effect on job crafting. It reflects the nature of female employees’ tendency to reduce job demands and access to job resources. Specifically, when female employees use social media platforms for work purposes, the frequency of work communication in non-working hours will be increased. Based on JD-R theory, this information overload makes female employees perceive more job demands. Thus, negative effects such as burnout and stress will be easily generated [
20,
21,
22,
23,
24], which will significantly reduce their job crafting. In contrast, previous studies have shown that social-related social media usage could break the boundaries of work and strengthen the positive interpersonal relationships between colleagues [
60,
61]. These interactions help employees obtain more job resources [
59], which promotes job crafting. Our finding is consistent with these studies; that is, social-related social media usage of female employees is positively related to job crafting.
Secondly, this study sheds light on the different mediating effects of job autonomy between social media usage and job crafting. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the widespread use of social media increased the frequency of communication between female employees in work and non-work hours. Our results show that work-related social media usage is negatively related to job autonomy, which further decreases the female employees’ job crafting. One possible explanation is that female employees have taken on more family responsibilities than male employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frequent use of social media for work increases their work demands, breaks the work–family balance, and promotes their negative emotions such as burnout and exhaustion [
20,
23,
57]. All of these reduce their job autonomy. However, social-related social media usage is positively related to job autonomy. This lines up with the previous studies, in which employees who perceived a higher level of social-related social media usage showed more positive emotions and attitudes, such as psychological security, well-being and mental health status, and so on [
59,
61,
74]. Social communication can help female employees establish, maintain, and develop interpersonal relationships, increase employees’ positive emotions and social support, and create a good working atmosphere. As a job resource, it increases the job autonomy and job crafting of female employees.
Thirdly, we found that workplace friendship mediates work-related/social-related social media usage and job crafting. Work-related social media usage of female employees can increase their work stress and emotional exhaustion, which further depletes their family resources. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be difficult for female employees to balance work and family. They tend to cut down on work-related social media usage and avoid unnecessary work communication, which can be detrimental to the formation of workplace friendships. However, social-related social media usage creates conditions for the development of workplace friendships. Even in the home-based working pattern during the COVID-19 pandemic, social-related social media usage can help female employees effectively communicate social and personal information, build and maintain interpersonal relationships [
93], and thus improve workplace friendships. This finding is in line with previous studies [
59,
60,
93]. Moreover, we found that the workplace friendships of female employees are an important antecedent variable of organizational identification and affective commitment, which further enhance female employees’ job crafting. This is consistent with the previous research [
97,
98,
99]. Therefore, workplace friendships of female employees play different mediating roles in the relationship between work-related/social-related social media usage and job crafting.
5.1. Theoretical Implications
There are three theoretical implications. First, previous studies on social media usage have focused on the variables related to work or family, and have mainly investigated how social media usage affects individual emotions, cognitions, and behaviors [
2,
3,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15,
16]. In response to the call of Hruska and Maresova (2020) [
104], this study takes gender and environmental background as important factors to investigate how the social media usage of female employees influences individual behavior under the special COVID-19 pandemic prevention policy in China. The COVID-19 pandemic increases job uncertainty and poses greater challenges to the career development of female employees. Therefore, social media usage is both a job demand and a job resource, and the impact on female employees is obviously different from that on male employees. This study makes up for the lack of research on gender and background perspectives in social media usage.
Second, previous studies have explored the effects of social media usage on job performance, job satisfaction, job engagement, and work–family conflict, and obtained relatively consistent conclusions. At the same time, as a transformative behavior, scholars have estimated its influencing factors from the individual level, team level, and organizational level. However, existing studies proposed that there were few studies exploring the impact of social media usage on job crafting. Therefore, our study examines the impact of the social media usage of female employees on job crafting, which enriches the empirical research on the outcomes of social media usage, as well as the antecedents of job crafting. Moreover, based on the JD-R theory, this study explores the double-edged impact of social media use on job remodeling from the perspectives of job demands and job resources. This further enriches the relevant theoretical achievements.
Third, the mediating effects of job autonomy and workplace friendship are estimated, further enriching the research on the double-mediation mechanism of social media usage and job crafting for female employees. Based on previous research, this study integrates the perspectives of work and socialization to explore the relationship between social media usage and job crafting. We find that for female employees, work-related social media usage has a negative effect, while social-related social media usage has a positive effect on their job autonomy and workplace friendships. In addition, the results reveal that the mediating effect of workplace friendships are significantly greater than the job autonomy. Hence, our findings not only lay a theoretical foundation for future research on the mechanism between female employees’ social media usage and job crafting, it also expands the application of job autonomy and friendship.
5.2. Practical Implications
First of all, since social media usage has the dual attributes of “work” and “social”, organizational managers should pay more attention to how to effectively use social media platforms to balance such demands and resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. Female employees are encouraged to communicate with each other on social media platforms. For example, the “Enterprise WeChat” provides the “corporate contacts” function, which allows them to quickly find other employees in the organization and start a chat without adding friends, which greatly promotes information exchange among individuals. At the same time, managers should make flexible and suitable policies to allow female employees to properly use social media for leisure and social interaction during working hours, and to guide them to better balance the relationship between work and family. When the interpersonal communication needs of female employees are met, they can be more engaged in their jobs, which further helps them to improve job crafting behaviors.
Moreover, the study also finds the “dark side” of social media usage in organizations; that is, female employees’ social media usage, especially work-related use, will reduce their job autonomy and workplace friendships. Therefore, managers should formulate a series of strategies to manage female employees’ work-related social media usage and avoid work interference and overload caused by the excessive use of social media.
Our findings reveal that female employees’ workplace friendships are positively related to job crafting. Therefore, managers should create a pleasant and harmonious interpersonal atmosphere and provide opportunities for female employees to get to know each other. For example, managers could combine the COVID-19 pandemic prevention policy to adjust the working environment, so that female employees can work in a free and relaxed environment. Moreover, relevant managerial strategies should be formulated to promote communication and social interaction, so as to reduce the possible conflicts and frictions between female employees; thus, further enhancing their job crafting.
5.3. Limitations
Although the double-edged relationship between female employees’ social media usage and job crafting is confirmed by the JD-R theory, this study also has the following limitations. First, this study focuses on female employees’ social media usage and job crafting in China. In fact, China’s COVID-19 prevention policies are significantly different from those of other countries. Therefore, the findings obtained in this study should be further extended to other countries. Second, industry differences are not considered when examining the relationship between social media usage and job crafting. In China, female employees are predominantly employed in the service sector, in which COVID-19 has had the most effect. Different industries may lead to different results. Therefore, in the future, it is necessary to further investigate the impact of the industries engaged in by female employees. Third, the cross-sectional data were used in the data analysis process, which may lead to unclear causal relationships between variables. Longitudinal surveys could be considered in future studies. Last but not least, job autonomy and workplace friendship were selected as mediating variables. Moderators were not considered in this study. Future research can explore the moderating effect between social media usage and job crafting, such as female employees’ personalities, organizational climate, leadership styles, and other potential variables.