Public organizations are experiencing a burgeoning of workplace challenges involving employee use of social media. Comments, images, or videos ranging from racist remarks, to calls to violence, simple criticism of one’s organization, to full on whistle blowing significantly challenge public organizations’ policies for addressing speech that creates discord in the workplace. With the blurring of lines between personal and professional lives, these challenges create uncertainty for public organizations regarding how to maintain the efficient operation of the workplace, deal with the social and political fallout of such instances, and manage organizational liability. This article performs content analysis on 33 federal lower court opinions involving speech/social media workplace issues. The study analyzes the manner in which the lower courts apply free speech precedent on contemporary workplace speech cases. The findings suggest that patterns emerge from the opinions providing key insights for public managers regarding how to better manage these complex issues.

公共组织正在经历涉及员工使用社交媒体的工作场所挑战的迅速发展。评论，图像或视频，从种族主义言论，暴力呼吁，对组织的简单批评，到吹口哨，都极大地挑战了公共组织的处理演讲的政策，这些演讲在工作场所造成了不和谐。随着个人和职业生活界限的模糊，这些挑战给公共组织带来了不确定性，包括如何维持工作场所的有效运营，如何应对此类情况的社会和政治影响以及如何管理组织责任。本文对涉及演讲/社交媒体工作场所问题的33个联邦下级法院意见进行了内容分析。该研究分析了下级法院在当代职场言语案件中运用言论自由判例的方式。调查结果表明，从意见中得出的模式为公共经理提供了有关如何更好地管理这些复杂问题的重要见解。