Investigating the Impact of Passive Leadership on Online Interaction in Social Media with the Mediating role of Job Independence and Resilience

With the advent of the Internet and mobile devices, news organizations need to adapt to the digitalization process. Social media editors play a new role in the survival of news organizations. Editors have a responsibility to facilitate marketing, content production, and data analytics practices on social media. According to resource conservation theory, leadership and job independence both affect employees in the card environment. This study seeks to investigate the mediating role of job independence and resilience in the impact of passive leadership style on the performance (online interaction) of editors on social media. Statistical sample Using purposive non-probabilistic sampling method, the editors of Shahr-e-Ara newspaper of Mashhad were selected. In order to collect information, a standardized questionnaire of passive leadership (Kilowie et al., 2006), job independence (Bruigh, 1985), resilience (Stephen et al., 2013) and online interaction (Liu, 2003) were used. The research hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling using Smart-PLS software. The results show that passive leadership negatively affects online interaction and passive leadership negatively affects the job independence and resilience of editors and increases the resilience and job independence of editors facilitates online interaction and improves. Job resilience and independence also reduce the negative impact of passive leadership on editors' online interaction on social media.