This document provides an overview of a presentation on professional reputation management and social media. It discusses how reputation is a social psychological phenomenon shaped by shared judgments in a community. It also notes research showing many employers and recruiters now use social media to inform hiring decisions and discipline current employees. Two studies are summarized. Study 1 involved interviews with higher education employees on their professional social media use. Study 2 examined how closer students are to entering the workforce influences their consideration of social media's professional consequences. A third planned study aims to assess how psychological distance impacts students' risk perceptions of inappropriate social media posts and employers viewing their profiles.

1. Professional Reputation Management
& Social Media
Chris James Carter
Supervised by Claire O’Malley & Lee Martin

2. Presentation Overview
1.
Overview of professional reputation & social media
2.
Research to date…
3.
… Research to come!
4.
Questions/feedback/ideas/experiences

3. Reputation, Reputation, Reputation!
“Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can
possibly be possessed of - for credit is like fire; when
once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if
you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to
rekindle it again.”
Socrates, 469 – 399 BC (and two World Cups)

4. Reputation: A Social Psychological Perspective
• Shared judgments within a specific community
“A distribution of opinions (the overt expressions of a collective image) about a
person or other entity, in a stakeholder or interest group” (Bromley, 2001, p.
317)
• ‘Ownership’ of a social representation
“[Reputation is] a collective phenomenon and a product of social processes, and not
as an impression in the head of any one individual” (Emler, 1990, p. 175)
• Behavioural consistency
“The estimation of consistency over time of an attribute of an entity” (Milewicz &
Herbig, 1994, p. 41)

5. Reputation Management: From Duels to Deletion

6. Why Study Digital Reputation Management?
Increasing role of digital professional reputation…
94% recruiters use social media to support recruitment decisions
68% positive online reputation influenced hiring decisions
69% rejected candidates based on negative information
Jobvite, 2013, n = 1600; Reppler, 2011, n = 300)
39% employers monitor the social media activity of their employees
(on company-owned computers/mobile devices)
33% disciplined employees for violating social media policy
(n = 441; Society for Human Resource Management, 2011)

7. Study 1: Employees & Professional Use of Social Media
POST-publication
Audience
Content
PRE-publication
HE employees
n = 14
Interviews

8. Reputation Management & Temperospatiality
BSc friends
School friends
MSc friends
PhD friends
Family
Former colleagues
Current peers/clients

9. Study 2: Students & Digital Reputation Management
F1: Consideration of Professional
Consequences (α = .87)
RQ
Do students engage more frequently in
digital reputation management
behaviours the closer they are to
making the transition to work?
Sample
n = 257 full-time students
4 Items: e.g. ‘I take time before posting to consider
how a potential employer might judge my actions’
F2: Self-Regulatory Control (α = .77)
5 Items: e.g. ‘I post first and then deal with any
consequences later’ (reversed)
Scale items
Digital reputation management
behaviours on Facebook and Twitter, as
informed by Study 1 findings
Scale responses
(1) Never behave this way 
(5) Always behave this way
Item reduction
PCA: 25  18 items
F3: Prevention of Threats to Image
(α = .76)
5 Items: e.g. ‘I avoid posting in a way that might cause
others to think of me as a negative person’
F4: Professional Self-Promotion (α = .69)
4 Items: e.g. ‘I post about things that I’m working on
so that others might judge me to be a hard-worker’

10. Mean factor scores
(n = 257)
3.91
(.78)
3.04
(.86)
2.67
(1.09)
2.22
(.76)

11. Stage of study
(n = 166)
F1: Consideration of Professional Consequences
3.15
2.73
2.58
2.51
Sig. main effect of stage of study F(3, 153) = 3.41, p < .05, partial η² = .06 with sig. differences
between middle year UGs and first year UGs (p < .05) and college students (p < .05)

12. Study 2 Summary
• Students report relatively frequent self-regulation in their
typical interactions with social media…
• … but are seemingly less frequently concerned with
professional consequences
(positive as well as negative)
or audience
• Some evidence that UGs about to enter their final year tend to
consider professional consequences more frequently than 1st
Year UGs or College students (but not those at end of final year…)

13. Study 3: Psychological Distance & Risk Perception
•
Students and the imagined boss of their future
•
Construal Level Theory & psychological distance
(e.g. Trope & Liberman,
2010)
- Close - Distant
- Concrete - Abstract
- Temporal, Spatial, Hypothetical, Social
•
Psychological distance and judgments of risk:
the ‘closer’ a risky event is perceived to be, the greater the
perception of risk, concern and intention to engage in
preventative behaviour
- Health (e.g. Chandran & Menon, 2004)
- Climate change (e.g. Spence et al, 2012)

14. Study 3: Psychological Distance & Risk Perception
RQ
Do job-seeking students perceive the riskiness of ‘professionally inappropriate’
Facebook posts to be greater when the possibility of employers looking at their
Facebook profiles is perceived to be psychologically closer?
Temporal distance
e.g. “I expect employers to be looking at my Facebook profile in the very near future, if not already”
Hypothetical distance
e.g. “It is almost certain that employers will be looking at my Facebook profile to judge my suitability
as a potential employee”
Social distance
e.g. “Employers are most likely to look at the Facebook profiles of people seeking a similar type of job
as me”

15. Professionally ‘Risky’ Facebook behaviours (Part I)
Profanity
Drink/Drugs

16. Professionally ‘Risky’ Facebook behaviours (Part II)
Derogatory Comments
Work-related Criticism
Spelling/Grammar

17. Thank you!
email:
psxcc@nottingham.ac.uk
visit:
www.chrisjamescarter.co.
uk
follow: @chriscarter83
Questions?