(Top) Voices of Influence: Analyzing LinkedIn Influencers (LinkedInfluencers) as Career Advisors with Grounded Theory and Framing

This study examines the discourses of LinkedInfluencers (LinkedIn influencers) as career advisors on the LinkedIn platform. As LinkedIn is the largest professional networking platform to date, the relevance of understanding the social norms and values of influencers on the platform has an impact on their audiences who may need career advice or support for a career-related conflict. LinkedIn Top Voice users (LinkedInfluencers) are invited by LinkedIn particularly for being senior-level experts and leaders which help users discover new knowledge, signified with a blue badge. The influence of such users providing relevant advice and information to their audiences can have a major impact on one’s career or approach to the workplace. As there is significantly less research done on the LinkedIn platform in comparison to X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram, the knowledge gap on the influencers of LinkedIn is lacking, despite the potential major impact it can have on a person taking relevant, useful advice. In this study, two research questions are proposed and later answered: RQ 1: “What themes have been presented in LinkedInfluencer’s posts?” RQ 2: “How have career advice frames presented through LinkedInfluencer posts?” Two qualitative methods are utilized, being grounded theory and framing analysis. Grounded theory will help develop initial concepts that have yet to be addressed by using inductive open coding to construct themes based on the communicative purposes of the LinkedIn posts. Furthermore, framing analysis will utilize the themes to construct frames that arise from the data, allowing a deeper, more nuanced insight towards the ideological underpinnings employed by LinkedInfluencers in shaping career advice. Sampling method specified an inclusion criteria alongside a convenience sampling through the LinkedIn search option. The corpus contained 208 posts overall. Findings indicate that there are 62 open codes present in the data, in which half are somewhat highly saturated. Nine main themes were derived from these codes. From the categorized themes, four frames were constructed, being; the individual and organizational limitations frame, the career and personal solution-benefit frame and the social-identity frame. The discussion section further pertains to the idea that career advice on LinkedIn is rarely a stand-alone information, but is usually accompanied by storytelling leading up to the advice, the different personal and external factors that are mentioned in light of the advice, the LinkedInfluencer’s promotion of services, and the encouragement and guidance provided by the influencer to create a caring environment for the reader. Based on previous research it is clear that workplace culture, based on national culture, also likely leads to certain career advice that encourages individualistic yet feminine values. As nationality or gender was not filtered, this provides the benefit of high diversification but low in representation of the sample. Additionally, other personal, professional, and socio-political influences and social norms were present in the discourse. Future research can potentially investigate LinkedIn career advice from people in other regions which national cultures enable more feminine and collectivist workplace cultures and dynamics, to see how online public career advice differs.