English abstract
Social media has been widely adopted and extensively used by individuals worldwide to share
information, connect, communicate, socialize, and collaborate. In recent years, government
agencies have also recognized the opportunities that lie in social media adoption. Thus, social
media has become an accepted interactive communication channel in the public sector to interact
with citizens, communicate important and timely information, extend public services, and boost
civic engagement.
However, many government organizations, especially in developing countries, have failed to
develop social media strategic plans aligned with their strategy, therefore not harnessing great
benefits from investing in social media platforms. Additionally, there has been little empirical
research to understand how social media strategic plans are aligned with organizational strategies
in the public sector. Therefore, it is not clear how successful government organizations are
implementing social media aligned with their visions, missions, and objectives. Furthermore,
privacy and security of social media becomes concern to the governments.
Therefore, this study aims to develop an integrative framework for social media-business strategic
alignment in the Sultanate of Oman's municipal sector. A case study approach was used for data
collections from the municipal sector of the Sultanate of Oman. Data was collected using
Netnography and semi-structured interviews from Muscat Municipality.
The key findings of the study demonstrated nine factors that enable and inhibit social media business strategic alignment in the municipal sector, including communication, competency,
governance, partnership, skills, community participation, resources, crisis management, and
customer services management. The enables and inhibitors factors of social media-business
strategic alignment that collected from the strategic and social media people has been formulated
to the proposed framework.
This is the first research study that investigated the social media–strategic business alignment in
the municipal sector, particularly in developing countries such as Oman. This study leads to several
significant contributions and practical implications to practice in general and Oman's municipal
sector in specific. It provides social media professionals with a deep understanding of social media business strategic alignment enablers and inhibitors. It proposes a framework for successful social
media-business strategic alignment. Future researchers can use this research to investigate other
public organizations or other sectors in Oman.
