Employees’ online presence as ambassador: How an organizational transgression can influence employee’s reputation

Employees’ online ambassadorship behaviour is becoming an important part in developing their own reputation. Being perceived as a knowledgeable professional makes employees the trustworthy source for external stakeholders to obtain information about the company. This influential position can be of interest for employees who hope for a positive spillover effect from the perceived organizational reputation. At the same time, organizations can also find themselves in crisis when being outed for a transgression. Electronic word-ofmouth (eWOM) can then become a threat for the employee and incite a negative stigma. The influence an organizational transgression can have on the reputation from employees’ participating in online ambassadorship, however, remains understudied. This study will provide an elaborate description to understand whether employees’ online ambassadorship on Facebook and LinkedIn is still advisable when an organizational transgression occurs. To answer the research question, an online survey experiment has been conducted with a 2x3 factorial design amongst 222 respondents. Additionally, previous literature showed the important role negative emotions can have in creating blame and judgement of an individual. Within this study negative emotions were, therefore, researched for its mediating role. Furthermore, since the survey consisted of an environmental transgression, the level of environmental concern was also measured for its possible moderating contribution. The study demonstrated that employees’ reputation will be negatively affected if they participate in online ambassadorship when the organization is undergoing a transgression. The negative spillover effect from the organizational transgression can be fully explained by higher levels of negative emotions the receivers experience. However, no significant moderation effect was found for environmental concern for the judgement of the employees. Thus, it is recommended for employees to maintain unobtrusiveness as an online ambassador when an organizational transgression happens.