ANÁLISIS DE LOS RESULTADOS

Generally, in terms of the organisational context, respondents explain that they have specific impressions they wish to convey at the workplace. Their primary motivation to foster

181

impressions at the workplace is to gain visibility. Of noteworthy mention here is that companies differed vastly in terms of perspective to adoption of social media and organisational culture. In companies where networked communications are popular, respondents use these networked communications to gain visibility by presenting a unique attribute of their personal identity. Some respondents gain visibility by using their interactions on networked communications as ice-breakers with senior management and participating in company events. In regards to public social media sites, respondents use social networking sites LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools like blogs to first create a digital presence. Then, respondents gain visibility by showcasing unique attributes in their personal and professional life. In contrast, in companies where there was neither access to public social media sites nor access to networked enterprises, respondents express a sense of claustrophobia. In a way of justification, respondents claim that they worked long hours and many times with socially incompatible workplace colleagues, access to social media was a way to relate to their life outside of the workplace. On the upside, in such cases, respondents experienced minimal impression management demands despite enacting diverse self-presentations across personal-professional life as there was minimal scope for overlapping audiences and interactions. On the flipside however, in such cases, work- life balance might impact their working lives.

Overall, respondents wish to foster a ‘hybrid self’ image (Raghuram, 2013) and create a positive impression in their self-presentations on social media to gain visibility. The ‘hybrid self’ image reflects in respondents’ use of public social media sites to join exclusive communities on Facebook, use the medium for work related and personal inquiries, show prowess in English and display an image of cultural, social and technology awareness. Respondents convey positive

182

impressions about the self through symbolic acts, for instance ‘liking’ company page on Facebook, ‘following’ Twitter feeds and refraining from any negative comments about their employers (directly or indirectly), thus inferring organisational identification (e.g. Knippenberg & Schie, 2000). Respondents justify that immersing in symbolic acts on social media to build company goodwill and acting as representatives of the company for clients and customers helped them to get into the ‘good books’ of colleagues and managers. An explanation for the need to gain visibility and maintain a positive professional image is provided in Upadhya & Vasavi (2006) and D’Mello’s (2005) studies on the Indian IT industry; the volatility of the global IT market and emergence of the ‘entrepreneurial employee’ who must constantly upgrade their skills in order to remain marketable has created job insecurity among Indian IT professionals. Thus, by immersing in their interactions on social media and reinforcing a positive self-image in their self-presentations on social media, respondents sought job security.

Although respondents interact with workplace colleagues across physical and virtual settings, such interactions appear to be out of obligation rather than genuine friendship or cunning intentions. It appears that the respondents experience the same problems as pointed out by Skeels & Grudin (2009) in terms of interacting with workplace colleagues on Facebook. The respondents experience cognitive discomfort in denying friendship requests, thus they react by either negotiating friendship requests or adding contacts arbitrarily. Interestingly, the respondents who negotiate friendship requests experienced more cognitive discomfort than the respondents who added contacts arbitrarily. Nonetheless, after accepting such obligatory requests, respondents used their Facebook self-presentations strategically to foster desired impressions. Ganesh says he uses his interactions on Facebook to convey an image of being ‘cool’ and to

183

break ice with new team members. Similarly, Ankita uses her interactions on Facebook with her team mates to break ice and gain respect. The respondents successfully convey such images by strategically posting content (photos and status messages) on Facebook where the friendship requests are extended.

While respondents appear to negotiate friendship requests from colleagues easily, they struggle with friendship requests from managers. Generally speaking, many respondents did not ‘friend’ their ex or current managers due to concerns of electronic surveillance, misinterpretations due to overlapping self-presentations and personal-professional boundary overlap. Respondents explain that managers (inadvertently or intentionally) collect information on employees’ personal life when they are ‘friends’ on Facebook and correlate personal life issues with productivity at the workplace. Although not many respondents have experienced such an issue, many of them are wary of adding managers. The point here is that respondents view interactions on social media by managers as electronic surveillance strategies, thus, they avoid adding managers when possible. Respondents explain that they avoid managers as Indian IT managers draw on indirect power and control mechanisms. Further, respondents explain that they have faced harsh consequences of such overlapping interactions. For instance, Gagan experienced a threat of job loss for commenting on a company policy online. Similarly, Gagan cites an incident that his boss interacts with him online to say, ‘Don’t you have some work to do?’ In another instance, Naren expresses frustration when he was ‘caught’ interacting on networked communications on many occasions and faced issues in the performance appraisal process. Respondents explain that such instances of overlap, at first shocking, later were important events of reflection influencing their

184

self-presentation strategies. Here, data supports and contributes to the literature on managerial styles in the Indian IT workplace.

Of noteworthy mention here is the considered reflection on consequences of overlapping self- presentations. Interestingly, respondents acknowledge the inevitability of impression overlap across physical-virtual settings and personal-professional life when they obligate to networking requests from workplace colleagues, however, they experience cognitive discomfort when managers comment on respondents’ self-presentations (online or offline). In other words, respondents explain that adding managers on Facebook meant giving them permission for electronic surveillance.

Interestingly, while the findings adhere to scholars’ empirical research suggesting indirect control mechanisms deployed at the workplace (see Raghuram, 2013; Upadhya, 2009; Bain & Taylor, 2000), of particular interest are few respondents’ accounts that illustrate not only absence of electronic surveillance, these respondents are apathetic to managerial styles and unconcerned by notions of online surveillance. Such performances do not necessarily signal absence of indirect control or normative practices at the workplace; rather it appears that respondents’ interactions and self-presentations are complementary across their physical-virtual settings. Thus, these respondents do not experience cognitive discomfort in the event of overlapping interactions or self-presentations. An explanation for this is provided in their self-presentation strategy. As Leary et al. (1995) argue, although the motivation to enact self-presentations are deceptive or manipulative, individuals present aspects of themselves oriented toward making their desired impressions and do not fabricate such aspects. In other words, Indian IT professionals enact

185

defensive selves and reactively manage their impressions by means of justifications, disclaimers and refraining from specific behaviours like lying or faking content.

Overall, respondents use overlapping interactions cleverly to foster desired impressions to the workplace audience. Primarily, their motivation is to gain visibility. On public social media sites, respondents accept friendship requests as an obligation. Respondents avoid interacting with managers on social media due to concerns of electronic surveillance. However, few respondents were apathetic to managerial presence on social media and indifferent to notions of electronic surveillance. By teasing out some of the less obvious and less explicit rationales for self- presentations on social media, this thesis has generated some useful insights into the role of the organisational context in enacting self-presentations on social media.