Impact of the usage of social media in the workplace on team and employee performance

Abstract

How does the usage of social media in the workplace affect team and employee performance? To address this cutting edge and up-to-date research question, we ran a quasinatural field experiment, collecting data of two matched-sample groups within a large financial service firm in China. We find that work-oriented social media (DingTalk) and socialization-oriented social media (WeChat) are complementary resources that generate synergies to improve team and employee performance. The instrumental value provided by work-oriented social media is reinforced by the expressive value provided by socialization-oriented social media, which help firms to create business value from information technology investments.