The Relationship Between Profile Disclosure Breadth and Network Size on Professional Social Media: Gender as a Moderator

  • Professional social media (PSM) platforms, such as LinkedIn, enable professional networking. Larger network sizes on PSM are associated with benefits similar to those that result from bridging social capital. Disclosing profile information, in general, is related to increased network size. Thus, digital profiles may be useful features for shaping PSM network size. However, how profile disclosure breadth shapes network size and which profile information has the strongest effect on network size is unknown. Lastly, how gender affects the relationship between profile disclosure breadth and network size is unclear. To close these research gaps, this study applied regression analysis to 67,189 LinkedIn profiles to explore the relationship between profile disclosure breadth and network size on PSM moderated by gender. The results demonstrate that higher levels of profile disclosure breadth are associated with increased network size. Moreover, profile picture presence, profile headline length, and the number of skills listed affected networkProfessional social media (PSM) platforms, such as LinkedIn, enable professional networking. Larger network sizes on PSM are associated with benefits similar to those that result from bridging social capital. Disclosing profile information, in general, is related to increased network size. Thus, digital profiles may be useful features for shaping PSM network size. However, how profile disclosure breadth shapes network size and which profile information has the strongest effect on network size is unknown. Lastly, how gender affects the relationship between profile disclosure breadth and network size is unclear. To close these research gaps, this study applied regression analysis to 67,189 LinkedIn profiles to explore the relationship between profile disclosure breadth and network size on PSM moderated by gender. The results demonstrate that higher levels of profile disclosure breadth are associated with increased network size. Moreover, profile picture presence, profile headline length, and the number of skills listed affected network size the most. Women had smaller network sizes than men on average, indicating a gender network gap. Furthermore, while remarkable levels of profile disclosure breadth seem to benefit women more than men in terms of network size, the threshold levels required to manifest this benefit are not often achieved in practice.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author:Sebastian SchöttelerORCiD, Florian J. MeierORCiD, Eva GenglerORCiD, Sven LaumerORCiD
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3715966.3715972
ISSN:0095-0033
Parent Title (English):ACM SIGMIS Database: the DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems
Publisher:Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Reviewed:Begutachtet/Reviewed
Release Date:2025/02/18
Volume:56
Issue:1
Pagenumber:22
First Page:79
Last Page:100
institutes:Fakultät Informatik
Research Themes:Digitalisierung & Künstliche Intelligenz
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