The meteoric rise in the popularity of social networking sites (SNSs) has connected many employees with their contacts from work. However, clashes are catalyzed when individuals’ professional identities collide with their social ones. This paper aims to explore hotel employees’ identity conflicts stemming from cross-boundary friendships. Building on cognitive dissonance theory and conservation of resources theory, a multilevel model is proposed to examine how befriending colleagues on SNSs induces unfavorable workplace consequences through the mediation effect of identity conflict. The model further scrutinizes whether task interdependence intensifies this negative spillover. This study probes a novel identity issue aroused by SNS interactions in a professional context and advances research on interpersonal dynamics in organizations. It also provides new insights on the role of team-level situational factors. The results generate managerial implications for hotels and employees, suggesting that both groups should be better prepared for possible dilemmas embedded in cross-boundary relationships.

社交网站 (SNS) 的流行迅速将许多员工与他们的工作联系人联系起来。然而，当个人的职业身份与他们的社会身份发生冲突时，就会引发冲突。本文旨在探讨酒店员工因跨界友谊而产生的身份冲突。建立在认知失调理论和资源保护理论的基础上，提出了一个多层次模型来检验在 SNS 上与同事交朋友如何通过身份冲突的中介效应诱发不利的工作场所后果。该模型进一步审查了任务相互依赖是否会加剧这种负面溢出。本研究探讨了在专业背景下由 SNS 互动引起的新身份问题，并推进了对组织中人际动态的研究。它还提供了有关团队级别情境因素作用的新见解。结果对酒店和员工产生了管理影响，这表明这两个群体都应该为跨境关系中可能出现的困境做好更好的准备。