IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i7p6008-d1111932.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Role of Social Media in Managing Knowledge of the Young Generation in the Sustainability Area

Author

Listed:
  • Arnold Pabian

    (Department of Management, Czestochowa University of Technology, 42-201 Czestochowa, Poland)

  • Barbara Pabian

    (Department of Management, University of Economics in Katowice, 40-287 Katowice, Poland)

Abstract

Knowledge plays a significant role in the area of sustainability. It is indispensable for taking the right pro-environmental and pro-social action. One of its sources is social media. The young generation is the largest group of social media users. The aim of this article is to discover whether social media is properly fulfilling its role in managing the sustainability knowledge of the young generation, taking into account the acquisition, collection and development of knowledge, as well as its dissemination and use. To address this issue, the authors conducted a survey on a representative sample of 1100 persons aged 15–24. The survey was quantitative in nature. The research tool constituted a survey form. The CAWI (computer-assisted web interview) technique was used to collect information. The collected data was analysed using mainly exploratory data analysis. Column, bar and line charts were used to visualise the data. The study discovered that social media, although highly popular among young people, makes an insufficient contribution to the management of their knowledge in the area studied. A significant proportion of the young generation rarely or never encounter sustainability content in these media (48.1% on average). On average, 22.7% of young people find this content unattractive. The majority of young people (60% or more) do not read all sustainability messages in detail. Approximately 1/3 of the young generation does not gather or develop knowledge in this area. A significant proportion of young people do not share such knowledge and, even worse, it does not inspire them to take up environmental and pro-social activities. The conclusions of the study and the solutions proposed by the authors can contribute to a better use of social media in the management of the young generation’s sustainability knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • Arnold Pabian & Barbara Pabian, 2023. "Role of Social Media in Managing Knowledge of the Young Generation in the Sustainability Area," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-16, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:7:p:6008-:d:1111932
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/7/6008/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/7/6008/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deborah E. Lange, 2010. "Data and Methods," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Power and Influence, chapter 0, pages 175-188, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. De Luca, Francesco & Iaia, Lea & Mehmood, Asad & Vrontis, Demetris, 2022. "Can social media improve stakeholder engagement and communication of Sustainable Development Goals? A cross-country analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    3. De Luca, Francesco & Iaia, Lea & Mehmood, Asad & Vrontis, Demetris, 2022. "Corrigendum to “Can social media improve stakeholder engagement and communication of Sustainable Development Goals? A cross-country analysis”," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    4. Ali, Ahsan & Bahadur, Waseem & Wang, Nan & Luqman, Adeel & Khan, Ali Nawaz, 2020. "Improving team innovation performance: Role of social media and team knowledge management capabilities," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    5. Wang, Xueqin & Wong, Yiik Diew & Li, Kevin X. & Yuen, Kum Fai, 2021. "Shipping industry's sustainability communications to public in social media: A longitudinal analysis," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 123-134.
    6. Zafar, Abaid Ullah & Shen, Jie & Ashfaq, Muhammad & Shahzad, Mohsin, 2021. "Social media and sustainable purchasing attitude: Role of trust in social media and environmental effectiveness," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barbaglia, Martina & Bianchini, Roberto & Butticè, Vincenzo & Elia, Stefano & Mariani, Marcello M., 2023. "The role of environmental sustainability in the relocation choices of MNEs: Back to the home country or welcome in a new host country?," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(5).
    2. Akrum Helfaya & Phuong Bui, 2022. "Exploring the Status Quo of Adopting the 17 UN SDGs in a Developing Country—Evidence from Vietnam," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-29, November.
    3. Paweł Bryła & Shuvam Chatterjee & Beata Ciabiada-Bryła, 2022. "The Impact of Social Media Marketing on Consumer Engagement in Sustainable Consumption: A Systematic Literature Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-16, December.
    4. Kraus, Sascha & Kumar, Satish & Lim, Weng Marc & Kaur, Jaspreet & Sharma, Anuj & Schiavone, Francesco, 2023. "From moon landing to metaverse: Tracing the evolution of Technological Forecasting and Social Change," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    5. Araceli Galiano-Coronil & Manuela Ortega-Gil & Belén Macías-Varela & Rafael Ravina-Ripoll, 2023. "An approach for analysing and segmenting messages about the SDGs on Twitter from the perspective of social marketing," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 20(3), pages 635-658, September.
    6. Asuamah Yeboah, Samuel, 2023. "Sustaining Change: Unravelling the Socio-cultural Threads of Sustainable Consumption," MPRA Paper 117981, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Jun 2023.
    7. Jing Wang & Jay In Oh, 2023. "Factors Influencing Consumers’ Continuous Purchase Intentions on TikTok: An Examination from the Uses and Gratifications (U&G) Theory Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-19, June.
    8. Johnson, Nathan & Turnbull, Benjamin & Reisslein, Martin, 2022. "Social media influence, trust, and conflict: An interview based study of leadership perceptions," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    9. Ginder, Whitney & Byun, Sang-Eun, 2022. "To trust or not to trust? The interplay between labor-related CSR claim type and prior CSR reputation of apparel retailers," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    10. Chih-Hsing Liu & Quoc Phong La & Yen-Ling Ng & Rullyana Puspitaningrum Mamengko, 2023. "Discovering the Sustainable Innovation Service Process of Organizational Environment, Information Sharing and Satisfaction: The Moderating Roles of Pressure," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-26, July.
    11. Qalati, Sikander Ali & Yuan, Li Wen & Khan, Muhammad Aamir Shafique & Anwar, Farooq, 2021. "A mediated model on the adoption of social media and SMEs’ performance in developing countries," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    12. Sharma, Manu & Kaushal, Deepak & Joshi, Sudhanshu, 2023. "Adverse effect of social media on generation Z user's behavior: Government information support as a moderating variable," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    13. Andrej Kirbiš & Monika Lamot & Marija Javornik, 2021. "The Role of Education in Sustainable Dietary Patterns in Slovenia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-14, November.
    14. Cristian Bogdan ONETE & Sandra Diana CHITA & Sonia BUDZ & Stefan SAVA & Ioana BUCUR-TEODORESCU, 2022. "The Connection between Responsible Behavior Regarding Recycling and Spirituality as a Higher level of the Individual," Economics and Applied Informatics, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 3, pages 36-45.
    15. Lucas Bastos & Luiz Satoru Ochi & Fábio Protti & Anand Subramanian & Ivan César Martins & Rian Gabriel S. Pinheiro, 2016. "Efficient algorithms for cluster editing," Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 347-371, January.
    16. Islam Elgammal & Obaid Al-Modaf, 2023. "The Antecedent of the Sustainable Purchasing Attitudes among Generation Z: A Terror Management Theory Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-19, June.
    17. Wallace, Elaine & Buil, Isabel, 2023. "Antecedents and consequences of conspicuous green behavior on social media: Incorporating the virtual self-identity into the theory of planned behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    18. Yuanqin Ge, 2022. "RETRACTED ARTICLE: The impact of dynamic knowledge management capability on enterprise innovation performance," Operations Management Research, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 1048-1059, December.
    19. Wahab, Hamza Kaka Abdul & Tao, Meng & Tandon, Anushree & Ashfaq, Muhammad & Dhir, Amandeep, 2022. "Social media celebrities and new world order. What drives purchasing behavior among social media followers?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    20. Pang, Hua & Ruan, Yang, 2023. "Determining influences of information irrelevance, information overload and communication overload on WeChat discontinuance intention: The moderating role of exhaustion," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:7:p:6008-:d:1111932. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.