The Relationship between Employees Self-Presentation on Social Media and Peer Envy: Workplace Friendship as a Moderator

Employees increasingly use social media to showcase achievements, but this self-presentation may unintentionally provoke envy among peers. While past studies have examined workplace envy in offline settings, little research explores how active self-promotion (e.g., posting accomplishments) and passive browsing (e.g., viewing others’ posts) on platforms like LinkedIn, Face-book, or Instagram contribute to envy. Additionally, the role of workplace friendships in reducing this effect remains unclear. This study investigates how employee self-presentation on social media influences peer envy and whether workplace friendship weakens this relationship. Using Social Comparison Theory, we propose that employees who frequently post about their successes trigger envy, especially among colleagues who passively consume such content. We test this through a two-wave survey of 300 full-time em-loyees, measuring self-presentation, peer envy, and workplace friendship. Results show that active self-promotion significantly increases peer envy (β = 0.28, p < 0.01), while passive browsing has an even stronger effect (β = 0.35, p < 0.001). Workplace friendship moderates this relationship, but only for active posters (∆R² = 0.06, p < 0.05), suggesting that close colleagues may downplay envy when they have strong interpersonal ties. Our findings extend recent work on digital workplace behaviors by highlighting how different social media activities shape envy. For managers, this implies that encouraging genuine offline interactions may mitigate envy, even in digitally connected teams.