A successful organization needs to have productive employees. In order for the organization to get engaged with their employees, the new medium of communication has been used to share information, exchange opinions and as the best way to get closer with their employees. There is a dramatic change in the way of communication between employer and employee due to the change of the new technology. This situation has allowed the employee to use this new medium of communication to communicate information to their employee. It also has given the opportunity for the employee to share their opinion involving their works and the organization’s goals to their employer. Thus, this new application might give an impact on employee engagement in an organization. Due to that, in-depth research was conducted to determine the relationship between WhatsApp usage and employee engagement in the Ministry of Communication and Multimedia Malaysia. This research presents the observation on the level of WhatsApp usage in the Ministry of Communication and Multimedia Malaysia, the understanding of the factors that influence the employee decides to use WhatsApp application, the determination on the level of employee engagement and the relationship between WhatsApp usage and employee engagement. Research findings show that the level WhatsApp of usage in the Ministry of Communication and Multimedia Malaysia is high. On the other hand, the level of employee engagement is also high. The research findings also show that perceived usefulness (r = .62), perceived ease of use (r =.57), social influence (r = .52) and job relevance (r =.64) of WhatsApp usage have positively affected employee engagement.
Alaxeder, M., & Christina, C. (2015). Applying the Technology Acceptance Model in a two-country study of SMS advertising. Journal of Business Research, 68, 1-6.
Alderfer, C. P. (1972). Human needs in organizational settings. New York, Free Press of Glencee.
Allaguiy, B. (2014). Writing through WhatsApp: an evaluation of student writing performance. International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organization, 8(3-4), 216-231.
Amir, A., & Ismail, A. (2016). Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a predictor model for explaining agricultural expert behaviour in acceptance of ICT. International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development, 6(2), 235-247.
Anita, J. (2014). Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 63(3), 308-323.
Ariffin, Z., & Omar, S. Z. (2018). Usage of WhatsApp in relation to employee engagement in a telecommunication company. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(1), 434-452.
Badea, M. (2014). Social media and organizational communication. Procedia-social and Behavioral Sciences, 149, 70-75.
Baruah, T. D. (2012). The effectiveness of social media as a tool of communication and its potential for technology enabled connections: a micro level study. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 2(5), 1-10.
Baumurk, R. (2004). The missing link: the role of employee engagement in business success. Workspan, 47, 48-52.
Bott, J. P., Montagno, R. V., & Lane, J. (2010). Mobile communication and emerging media. Pre valence and impact in the workplace. International Journal of Mobile Marketing, 5(2), 5-16.
Bukaliya, R., Rupande, G., & Region, M.E. (2013). Research questions how social media have been utilised for instruction. International Journal of Advance Research, 1 (10), 649 -657.
Church, K., & Oliveira, R. D. (2013). What’s up with WhatsApp? Comparing mobile instant messaging behaviors with traditional SMS. Proceeding of Mobile HCI 2013 – Colloboration and Communication, Munich Germany, 352-361.
Counts, S. (2007). Group-based mobile messaging in support of the social side of leisure. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 16(1-2), 75-97,
https://doi.org.10.1007/s10606-007-9040-9.
Davis, F. D. (1986). A technology acceptance model for empirically testing new end-user information systems: Theory and results. Massachusetts, United States: Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceive usefulness, perceived ease of use and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319-340.
Day, A., Paquet, S., Scott, N., & Hambley, L. (2012). Perceived information and communication technology (ICT) demands on employee outcomes. The moderating effect of organizational ICT support. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 473-491. doi: 10.1037/a0029837
Devi, T.S. & Tevera, S. (2014). Use of social networking site in the University of Swaziland by the health science students. A case study. Journal of Information Management, 1, 19-28.
Fang, K. (1998). An analysis of electronic – mail usage. Computer in Human Behavior, 14 (2), 349-374.
Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention and behaviour: An introduction to theory and research. Reading, Mass; Don Mills, Ontario: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
Frank, F. D., Finnegan, R.P. & Taylor C.R. (2004). The race for talent: retaining and engaging workers in the 21st century. Human Resources Planning, 27(3), 2-25.
Freud, S. (1922) in Ferguson, A. (2007). Employee engagement: does it exist, and if so, how does it relate to performance, other constructs and individual differences. www.lifethatworks.com/employee-engagement.prn.pdf.
Gallup. (1996). Q12- Employee engagement survey. Retrieved on 3 March, 2019 from http://www.q12.gallup.com/en-us/Features
Goffman, E. (1961). Encounters: Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction. Indianapolis.
Hanson, C., West, J., Neigar, B., Thackeray, R., Barnes, M. & McIntyre, E. (2011). Use and acceptance of social media among health educators. American Journal of Health Education, 42(4), 197-204.
Herero, J., Meneses, J., Valiente, L., & Rodrigues, F. (2004). Online social participation, Psicothema, 16(3), 450-456.
Joshi, R.J. and Sodhi J.S. (2011). Drivers of employee engagement in India Organizations. The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 47(1), 162-182.
Lin, K. Y., & Lu, H. P. (2015). Predicting mobile social network acceptance based on mobile value and social influence. Internet Research, 25(1), 107-130.
Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological condition of personal engagement in India Organizations. The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 47(1), 162-182.
Kanungo, R. N. (1982). Measurement of job and work involvement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67, 341-349.
Karen, C., & de Oliveira, R. (2013). What’s up with WhatsApp? Comparing mobile instant messaging behaviours with traditional SMS. Mobile HCI Collaboration Communication, 352-361.
Kinshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (2006). What is research design? The context of design. Performance Studies Methods Course Syllabus.
Lee, C. –Y., Tao C. –H., & Chang, W. –C. (2015). The relationship between attitude toward using and customer satisfaction with mobile application services. An empirical research from the life insurance industry. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 28(5), 680-697.
Lee, R., Murphy, J., Swilley, E. (2009). The moderating influence of hedonic consumption in an extended theory of planned behaviour. The Service Industries Journal, 29 (4), 539-555.
Clark, L. A. & Roberts, S. J. (2010). Employer’s use of social networking site: A socially irresponsible practice. Journal of Business Ethics, 95, 507-525.
Magro, M. J., Ryan, S., & Prybutok, V. R. (2013). The social network application post-adoptive model (SNAPUM): a model examining capital and other critical factors affecting the post-adoptive use of Facebook. Informing Science: The international Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline, 16, 37-69.
Maslow, A. (1954). Motivation and personality, New York, Harper and Row.
May, D. R., Gilson, R. l., & Harter, L. M. (2004). The psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety and availability and the engagement of the human spirit at work. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77, 11-37.
Merton, R. K. (1957). Social Theory and Social Structure. New York, Free Press of Glencoe in Ferguson, A. (2007). Employee engagement: does it exist, and if so, how does it relate to performance, other constructs and individual differences.
Ahrony, N., & Grazit, T. (2016). The importance of the WhatsApp family group: an explanatory analysis. Aslib Journal of Information Management, 68(2), 174-192, https://doi.org/10.1108/Ajim-09-2015-0142.
Ott, B. (2007). Investors take note: engagement bossts earnings. The Gallup Management Journal.
Parry, W. & Solidoro, A. (2013). Social media as mechanism for engagement? Social media in human resources management. Advanced Series in Management, 121-141.
Pinto, D., Gracia, K., & Tenorion, N. (2017). Technological communication tools in use the knowledge of shared within software development teams. 9th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing. Retrieved on February 20, 2019 from www.researchgate.com
Rauniar, R., Rawski G., Yang, J., & Johnson, B. (2014). Technology acceptance model (TAM) and social media usage: an empirical study of Facebook. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 27, 6-30.
Richman, A. (2006). Everyone wants an engaged workforce how you can create it? Workspan, 49, 36-39.
Kim, S., & Garrison, G. (2009). Investigating mobile wireless technology adoption: an extension of the technology acceptance model. Information System Frontiers, 11(3), 323-333.
Salman, A., Salleh, M. A. M., Abdullah, M. Y. H., Mustaffa, N., Ahmad, A. L., Kee, C. P., & Saad, S. (2014). ICT acceptance among Malaysian urbanites: A research of additional variables in user acceptance of new media. GEOGRAFIA Online Malaysian Journal of Society and Space, 10 (6), 86-96.
Shami, N. S., Nichols, J., Chen, J., & Jose, S. (2014). Social media participation and performance at work: a longitudinal study. CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, Toronto and New York, April 26-May 1, 115-118.
Shaw, K. (2005). An engagement strategy process for communicators. Strategic Communication Management, 9(3), 26-29.
Slater, P. E. (1966). Microcosms. New York, Wiley in Ferguson, A. (2007) Employee engagement: does it exist, and if so, how does it relate to performance, other constructs and individual differences. www.lifethatworks.com/employee-engagement.prn.pdf.
Smith, D. M. (2007). Prediction: IM will take over. Business Communication Review, 37, 9.
Smith, K. K., & Berg, D. N. (1987). Paradoxes of Group Life. San Francisco. Jossey-Bass.
Soliman, D. A., & Salem, M. S. (2014). Investigating intention to use mobile instant messenger. The influence of sociability, self expressiveness and enjoyment. Journal of American Academy of Business, 19(2), 286-293.
Tavakol, M., & Dennick, R. (2011). Making sense of Cronbach’s Alpha. International Journal of Medical Education 2(2011), 53 -55. doi: 10.5116/ijme.4dfb.8dfd
Thompson, R., Higgins, C., & Howell, J. (1991). Personal computing: toward a conceptional model. Journal of Management Information System, 11(1), 167-187.
Van de Laar, M. A. (2008). Self reported differences in empowerment between larkers and posters in online patient support groups. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 10(2).
Venkatesh, V., & Davis, F. D. (1996). A model of antecedents of perceived ease of use: Development and test. Decision Sciences, 27(3), 451-481.
Venkatesh, V., & Fred, D. D. (2000). A theoretical extension of the Technology Acceptance Model: four longitudinal field studies. Management Science, 46(2), 186-204.
Yusoff, H. M., & Azman, N. (2018). Pencapaian Akademik Murid Lelaki dan Perempuan: Peranan Sokongan Pembelajaran dan Keterlibatan Murid. Malaysian Journal of Learning Instruction 15(2). 257-287. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
In-Text Citation: (Hashim et al., 2022)
To Cite this Article: Hashim, N., Shahid, N. M., & Razak, M. N. F. (2022). Relationship between Whatsapp Usage and Employee Engagement in Ministry of Communication and Multimedia Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 12(4), 1170–1199.
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
Published by Knowledge Words Publications (www.kwpublications.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
