Enterprise social media affordances as enablers of knowledge transfer and creative performance: An empirical study

Abstract

Extant research largely views employee creativity to be driven by individual characteristics, contextual factors, and interactions between them. However, the role of social technologies in enhancing employees’ creativity remains understudied. To address this gap, this study constructs and empirically examines a research model to explore the effect of enterprise social media (ESM) affordances on employee creative performance from the perspective of knowledge transfer. An analysis of survey data gathered from 365 Chinese employees using Dingtalk indicates that association, visibility, persistence, and editability affordances of ESM exert positive influences on knowledge acquisition and knowledge provision, which further facilitates creative performance. Findings show that the links between ESM affordances and creative performance are mainly mediated by knowledge provision. This study enriches the extant research on social technologies and user innovation, and provides guidance for enterprise practice.