Whats…App at Work? Instant Messaging Improves Professional Well-Being

Whatsapp, instant messaging application, has radically transformed communication practices in different contexts. One of the most permeable contexts of virtual communication is the working environment. The study, with a positive view of analyzing the potentials of new media, aims to demonstrate how a Whatsapp group can be a support to network in helping professions, starting from the hypothesis that instant support, albeit virtual, from the team, it can be a useful facilitator. To evaluate this hypothesis, the Whatsapp communication group of operators of an Italian nursing home are analyzed in the research. The use of qualitative-quantitative methodologies, including Social Network Analysis (Wolfe, 1997), Sentiment Analysis (Pang & Lee, 2008) and Diatextual Analysis (Manuti & Mininni, 2017), allows to analyze how the virtual group can be an innovative way to resolve critical professional situations and how interactions, studied through a Social Network Analysis, can be predictive of the structuring of the online working group. Specifically, in the study 2237 conversational shifts of an Italian nurse house Whatsapp group were analyzed, from which three situations characterizing the help professions were extracted: the management of emergencies, decision making and problem solving. The positive sentiment shows that Whatsapp is a facilitator for organizational well-being.