Enterprise Social Networks Research Articles

Altruistic and egoistic behaviors on enterprise social network platforms: Analysis using PLS-SEM and fsQCA

Enterprise social network platforms (ESNPs) are thriving in workplaces. Past studies have provided two competitive explanations − employees engage in egoistic behaviors to facilitate knowledge hiding and personal enjoyment or altruistic behaviors to facilitate knowledge sharing and offering assistance. However, these perspectives have generally not been synthesized into a unified model. We adopt an integrated perspective to reconcile the two paradoxical behaviors, using PLS-SEM and fsQCA from 174 employees. The results of PLS-SEM show that social and utilitarian motivation facilitate altruistic use, while social motivation reduces egoistic use, and utilitarian motivation and egoistic use have an inverted U-shaped relationship. Institutional deterrence positively moderates the relationship between egoistic use and work performance. Altruistic use mediates the relationship between three motivations and work performance. The fsQCA reveals causal configurations that portray the recipes of how different modes promote altruistic use, egoistic use, and work performance, which are complementary to the findings of PLS-SEM.

The role of perceived proximity and employee voice in teleworkers’ well-being

PurposeThis paper studies the impact that perceived proximity and employee voice have on the affective well-being of employees working from home (WFH). Drawing on Wilson et al.'s (2008) model of perceived proximity in virtual work, we believe that effectiveness in the use of the enterprise social network (ESN), communication and workmate identification increase the perceived proximity of teleworkers. We also propose that employee voice and perceived proximity have in turn positive implications in terms of well-being.Design/methodology/approachThe study analyzes a dataset of 542 professionals with experience in home-based telework. Structural equation modeling (SEM) has been used to test the proposed hypotheses.FindingsResults show that perceived proximity is significant and positively associated with affective well-being. Conversely, the expression of direct voice using electronic channels has a negative influence on the well-being of home-based teleworkers.Originality/valueThis study reveals the need to re-think the challenges of telework after the forced experiment of WFH provoked by the COVID-19 pandemics. Building on the “far-but-close” paradox, it emphasizes the role of workmate identification and communication and the perceived effectiveness of the ESN as sources of perceived proximity. At the same time, the paper adds to telework research by explaining how the expression of direct voice through electronic channels and indirect voice can have consequences in terms of well-being.

The visibility paradox: Impediment or benefit to vicarious learning in hybrid work environments?

AbstractOrganisations have increasingly adopted enterprise social networks to mitigate the challenges of hybrid work environments for workplace learning, particularly vicarious learning. However, the improved communication visibility intended to facilitate vicarious learning may paradoxically create tensions that could potentially undermine the benefits of communication visibility, recreating the invisibility of knowledge work. Through an in‐depth single qualitative case study at one of the Big Four consulting firms, which serves as a paradigmatic case for hybrid work, we explain how the visibility enabled by enterprise social networks can alleviate or impede vicarious learning in hybrid work environments. We identify three instances of the visibility paradox—performance, information overload, and availability—that create a burden on both knowledge sources and seekers. Consequently, their individual strategic responses render knowledge work invisible, thereby preventing third‐parties from capitalising on the potential benefits of vicarious learning that an enterprise social network could afford.

Exploring Boundary Violations Among Remote Workers with ICTs

ABSTRACT The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic prompted a widespread shift to remote work, solidifying its status as a prevalent and mainstream employment model. As the world emerges from the health crisis, remote work maintains its popularity. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) played a pivotal role during the pandemic, enabling virtual work from any location at any time. However, the increased reliance on ICTs has elicited both praise and criticism for its potential impact on “work-life balance,” a concept gaining prominence. Notably, the use of instant messaging (IM) and enterprise social networking (ESN) platforms in remote work has become commonplace, raising questions about boundary violations within existing boundary theory research. This study aims to explore the extent of these violations and confirms that the use of IM and ESN tools, in conjunction with job satisfaction, can moderate boundary issues within the boundary theory framework. It contributes valuable insights for optimizing work-life balance and well-being in the context of remote work, thereby benefiting organizations and individuals in the evolving work landscape.

We’re in This Together: Visible Social Support Actions in Virtual Teams Using Enterprise Social Media

Enterprise social networks (ESNs) are a communication standard within virtual teams. Among other affordances, ESNs enable colleagues to provide each other with social support. In this paper, we analyzed the message logs of virtual teams in a large open-source software project to determine how virtual teams use ESNs to provide particular forms of social support to each other and, secondly, to determine how the visibility of these interaction patterns influences team functioning. Our findings reveal distinct ESN use patterns in relation to four types of social support, each described using a metaphor: a dynamic notice board for information sharing, a community of practice for teaching and knowledge sharing, a team huddle for emotional support, and a job board for instrumental support. The findings provide structure to the diverse set of social support actions in this context and identify the higher-order functions that the visibility of social support produces.

The use of enterprise social networks for knowledge sharing: the impact of intra-organizational trust and governance

PurposeThis study aims to understand how organizations in the service industry can encourage the use of enterprise social networks (ESNs) for knowledge sharing, focusing on the concepts of intra-organizational trust and governance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors gathered data through an online survey of 104 participants from the financial services industry. Data were analyzed using structural equation modelling to test the proposed model and evaluate the constructs’ reliability and validity.FindingsThe findings of the survey data indicate that intra-organizational trust and governance are related to the use of ESN for knowledge sharing to enhance service innovation. Further, the findings suggest that, although trust directly affects service innovation, using ESN for knowledge sharing partially mediates the relationship between trust and service innovation. The findings also reveal that governance significantly moderates the relationship between ESN for knowledge sharing and innovation.Originality/valueThis paper provides insights into the relationship between trust, knowledge sharing and innovation. The novelty of this study demonstrates that governance strengthens the relationship between ESN for knowledge sharing and innovation. Further, the study suggests that firms using or intending to use ESNs could keep track of the evolving nature of ESNs, develop an open culture and create a trusted environment in their organizations.

Social Behavior Analysis in Exclusive Enterprise Social Networks by FastHAND

There is an emerging trend in the Chinese automobile industries that automakers are introducing exclusive enterprise social networks (EESNs) to expand sales and provide after-sale services. The traditional online social networks (OSNs) and enterprise social networks (ESNs), such as X (formerly known as Twitter) and Yammer, are ingeniously designed to facilitate unregulated communications among equal individuals. However, users in EESNs are naturally social stratified, consisting of both enterprise staffs and customers. In addition, the motivation to operate EESNs can be quite complicated, including providing customer services and facilitating communication among enterprise staffs. As a result, the social behaviors in EESNs can be quite different from those in OSNs and ESNs. In this work, we aim to analyze the social behaviors in EESNs. We consider the Chinese car manufacturer NIO as a typical example of EESNs and provide the following contributions. First, we formulate the social behavior analysis in EESNs as a link prediction problem in heterogeneous social networks. Second, to analyze this link prediction problem, we derive plentiful user features and build multiple meta-path graphs for EESNs. Third, we develop a novel Fast (H)eterogeneous graph (A)ttention (N)etwork algorithm for (D)irected graphs (FastHAND) to predict directed social links among users in EESNs. This algorithm introduces feature group attention at the node-level and uses an edge sampling algorithm over directed meta-path graphs to reduce the computation cost. By conducting various experiments on the NIO community data, we demonstrate the predictive power of our proposed FastHAND method. The experimental results also verify our intuitions about social affinity propagation in EESNs.

Using an Enterprise Social Network to build faculty engagement in Higher Education: An Experiment at Jammu, India

Abstract— Indian Higher Education is rapidly transforming with a national mission to improve quality and attain enhanced outcomes. Faculty is the bedrock of all institutional transformation initiatives. Faculty development has thus received significant attention from policy makers with several national initiatives in the offing. However, faculty support, engagement and true empowerment has not received the desired attention in a large majority of the institutions in the Indian Higher Education space. Apart from institutional commitment to building faculty engagement, an entire supporting ecosystem is required to create a culture of sustained performance leading to measurable outcomes. During the Covid-19 pandemic, online platforms for facilitating employee engagement gained traction across several industry verticals, a trend which has continued in the postpandemic world. We present a case study on implementing an Enterprise Social Network (ESN) at an educational institution in India for building faculty engagement. Initial results establish the effectiveness of Enterprise Social Networks for facilitating information flow, communication, sharing success stories and recognition, besides effectively chronicling events, activities, and achievements. We recommend adoption of such platforms, subject to some caveats. Keywords— Faculty Engagement; Higher Education; Social Networks.a

The S-O-R paradigm in explaining enterprise social network (ESN) discontinuous usage intention

PurposeThis study aims to show that employees' excessive work-related use of enterprise social networks (ESN) can be accompanied by some work-related strains, hindering them from continuing utilization of ESN at work. To this end, the impact of employees' excessive work-related utilization of ESN on their discontinuous usage intentions by mediating roles of employees' impression management concerns, privacy concerns and ESN fatigue will be evaluated.Design/methodology/approachStimulus-organisms-response (S-O-R) framework has been drawn to support the design of this research. Using an entirely random data collection, 173 ESN users from 10 Iranian organizations were surveyed. The model was assessed using partial least squares structural equations modeling (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe results of the study confirm that employees' excessive work-related use of ESN positively affects impression management and privacy concerns, resulting in ESN fatigue. Furthermore, ESN fatigue plays a predicting role in ESN discontinuous usage intention.Originality/valueAccording to the obtained results, if work-related use of ESN exceeds a normal threshold (i.e. excessive usage), employees will stop using ESN in their work due to the work-related strains delivered to them, revealing the dark side of ESN usage in organizations.

From slack to strength: Examining ESNs impact on mental toughness and cyberslacking in the workplace

The increasing reliance on information technology has generated concerns regarding employees' engagement in cyberslacking behavior. However, an existing research void exists concerning effective non-invasive strategies to mitigate this behavior. Our study draws from self-determination theory (SDT) to propose a framework aimed at augmenting employee mental toughness (MT) through the utilization of enterprise social networking (ESN) tools, with the ultimate objective of reducing cyberslacking behavior. Our research aims to examine the intricate relationship between ESN usage and the cultivation of employee MT. We particularly emphasize how this bolstered MT subsequently influences the mitigation of cyberslacking behavior. Furthermore, we incorporate information processing theory (IPT) into our investigation to scrutinize the moderating roles played by communication quality and frequency in shaping the effects of ESN on both MT and cyberslacking behavior. By conducting a multi-wave data collection initiative, we find that the strategic deployment of ESNs indeed contributes to the augmentation of employee MT, consequently leading to a reduction in their proclivity for cyberslacking behavior. Nonetheless, our study brought to light an intriguing and counterintuitive moderating effect linked to communication quality. We elucidate this phenomenon in-depth and offer nuanced insights into its implications for the intricate dynamics of ESN utilization within organizational settings.

Employees’ reskilling and upskilling for industry 5.0: Selecting the best professional development programmes

The current research aims at developing a multi-criteria decision-making methodology, based on analytic network process (ANP), for selecting the appropriate professional development programmes for enhancing employees' reskilling and upskilling, in the Industry 5.0 context. Thus, a four-stage methodology, which combines the qualitative approach of the Delphi study with the quantitative approach of the multi-criteria decision-making technique of ANP, is proposed and tested in the three largest companies from the Romanian manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products industry. The results show that teamwork, online communities of practice and enterprise social networks are among the best options. Furthermore, the most influential factors are employees' psychological profile (namely, interpersonal trust and self-efficacy) and human capital (especially, inclusiveness and job satisfaction). These findings have both theoretical and practical implications. At the theoretical level, they provide a nexus between human resource management and operations management by showing how a methodology based on ANP can be applied for solving a human resource issue. At the practical level, they help managers to decide which professional development programmes to implement for employees' reskilling and upskilling by providing them an easily customizable tool that takes into account employees' characteristics and company's human and structural capital.

Public information sharing in enterprise social networks: a communication privacy management perspective

PurposeThe advancement of enterprise social networks (ESNs) facilitates information sharing but also presents the challenge of managing information boundaries. This study aims to explore the factors that influence the information-control behavior of ESN users when continuously sharing information.Design/methodology/approachThis study specifies the information-control behaviors in the “wall posts” channel and applies communication privacy management (CPM) theory to analyze the effects of the individual-specific factor (disposition to value information), context-specific factors (work-relatedness and information richness) and risk-benefit ratio (public benefit and public risk). Data on actual information-control behaviors extracted from ESN logs are examined using multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression analysis.FindingsThe study's findings show the direct effects of the individual-specific factor, context-specific factors and risk-benefit ratio, highlighting interactions between the individual motivation factor and ESN context factors.Originality/valueThis study reshapes the relationship of CPM theory boundary rules in the ESN context, extending information-control research and providing insights into ESNs' information-control practices.

Knowledge sharing quality on an enterprise social network: social capital and the moderating effect of being a broker

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to show that an important antecedent of perceived knowledge quality is an employee’s position in the organizational network due to their participation in different interest groups. In particular, this study theorizes that brokers establish a network of groups, which increases perceived knowledge quality vis-a-vis the social capital that employees draw on.Design/methodology/approachTo test this study’s hypotheses on the influence of the structural position of knowledge brokers on the positive effects of social capital on perceived knowledge quality, this study combines data from an online survey with longitudinal archival data from a youth-care organization who used an enterprise social network (ESN) for knowledge sharing.FindingsThis study found a mitigating effect of being a broker on the relationship between trust and perceived knowledge quality, and also between inter-team interaction and perceived knowledge quality for lower levels of both trust and inter-team interaction on perceived knowledge quality.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the hypotheses are supported, in light of prior research, the authors would have expected stronger and positive effects.Practical implicationsThis research is particularly interesting because it emphasizes the important role of social capital. For organizations that deal with trust issues, it might help to stimulate employees to broaden their activity on ESNs by becoming active in multiple groups.Originality/valueWhile knowledge sharing on ESNs is generally conducive for creating organizational value, there is a lack of understanding of what drives employees’ perception of the quality of shared knowledge, and how this perception may depend on their position in the social network. To investigate this question, the authors turn to social capital theory.

Information technology in supply chain management: Perspectives from key actors in the Nigerian petroleum sector

This research examines the potential impact of information technology (IT) on supply chain management (SCM) in the Nigerian petroleum industry. Specifically, the study seeks to identify the IT systems utilized by the key actors in the industry, the challenges facing SCM operations, and the potential benefits of IT for addressing these challenges. The field survey used 266 individuals, comprising regulators, production units, transporters, vendors, and customers. The study employed inferential statistics, and hypotheses were tested using the chi-square statistical test. The findings reveal that enterprise social networks, real-time track and tracking systems, warehouse management systems, and electronic invoice and fund transferring systems are the IT systems most commonly utilized by the key actors in the Nigerian petroleum industry. However, monitoring and evaluation remain the most challenging area for IT development in SCM operations. The study recommends that the government implement policies that encourage the adoption of IT in SCM operations, as well as incentives to encourage industry players to digitize data. The original contribution of this research is that it identifies the key IT systems utilized by the actors in the Nigerian petroleum industry and the challenges facing SCM operations, as well as proposing policy recommendations.

Model Pengukuran Working Out Loud (WOL) Terhadap Adopsi Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs)

This study aims to examine the concept of Working Out Loud (WOL) in measuring the success rate of implementing Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs) in companies. The adoption of this technology has not been widely implemented by companies in Indonesia. Implementing ESNs in companies as a tool to drive increased employee collaboration requires integration of social media and enterprise technology infrastructure. This platform does provide benefits for companies in the areas of innovation, increased productivity, and also employee engagement; but on the other hand there are several failures caused by employee factors that only focus on implementing technology without changing employee behavior patterns and also how to measure this behavior. The concept of Working Out Load (WOL) is an indicator tool that can be used to measure the success of ESNs implementation. Although the concept of WOL is still unclear, it provides many benefits. Not much research has discussed the benefits that exist in this relationship. The initial hypothesis of this study is that the two behavioral factors above exist and influence each other but are different, so measurements can be made with the developed scale. This study uses a survey distributed to employees of PT. Djarum (one of the large companies in Indonesia) which has implemented ESNs technology in the period October - November 2022. Processing exploratory analysis and data confirmation using SPSS 22 and AMOS 22 with a total of 313 respondents; which was divided randomly with 200 respondents for confirmation analysis and the rest as data for exploratory analysis. Departing from the abnormal nature and ordinal nature of the item scale used, this study uses the Spearman method (not Pearson). This aims to confirm the hypothesis so as to produce a rating scale for individuals and groups of WOL, so that researchers and practitioners can find WOL behavior in a company as a continuous process. The results of this study can be used as a reference for companies in Indonesia to develop ESN technology and measure the success rate of their operations.

Social strategies for information technology adoption: Social regulation process of mandated enterprise social network systems

In knowledge-intensive organizations, such as IT companies or consultancy firms, knowledge and knowledge sharing constitute key resources for competing in a dynamic business environment. To enable knowledge sharing, large, diversified organizations increasingly introduce Enterprise Social Network Systems (ESNSs) to connect employees and teams working in geographically distributed units. Although previously the literature on the introduction of IT tools primarily focused on functional objectives, many questions remain regarding the influence of power dynamics on the ESNSs adoption process. Through the lenses of institutional and social regulation theories, this paper aims to better understand the interactions between the organization that mandates the use of ESNSs and the actors expected to adopt it. Our results point to three types of strategies the different actors implement to align their own practices with the logics the new social networking tool introduces, namely: 1) the parallel use strategy, 2) the overuse strategy, 3) and the tolerant strategy.

Exploring the role of enterprise social networks as a driver of inclusion

La démocratisation du numérique et des outils digitaux modifie les pratiques d’organisation du travail et redéfinit les relations sociales au sein des organisations. L’objectif de notre article est d’étudier l’impact des réseaux sociaux d’entreprise (RSE) en termes d’inclusion des salariés au sein des organisations. Nous avons mené une étude de cas multiples sur quatre entreprises à travers 59 entretiens semi-directifs et 50 heures d’observation non-participante en ligne. Nos résultats mettent en évidence la capacité des réseaux sociaux d’entreprise à renforcer le sentiment d’appartenance des employés mais aussi à promouvoir et à favoriser l’authenticité au sein des organisations.

Use of Slack for COVID-19 disaster response in Hyogo Prefecture.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused great disruptions in education and healthcare systems. However, before the COVID-19 pandemic, Hyogo Prefecture did not have a centralized system for sharing information among hospitals, public healthcare centers, the government, fire departments, and medical associations. In March 2021, we used Slack,® an enterprise social network, to invite people from hospitals, healthcare centers, the government, fire departments, and medical associations to join our workspace. This study was undertaken to verify whether the use of Slack can improve information sharing during a disaster. A questionnaire on whether information-sharing tools such as Slack are useful for disaster response in Hyogo Prefecture, including for COVID-19, was administered using a Google Form. Of the 19 people who responded to the questionnaire, 15 (78.9 percent) were first-time users of Slack and 18 (94.7 percent) found it easy to use. All 19 participants stated that Slack proved useful in providing pertinent information regarding preventive measures for the control of COVID-19, and they believed that it would be a helpful tool if such disasters were to occur in the future. Regarding the launch time of Slack, 11 respondents (57.9 percent) answered that it was launched at the appropriate time, while five respondents (26.3 percent) answered that it was launched too late. The participants thought that Slack was effective for accelerating their communication. The use of Slack could also improve future disaster response communications.

Social Business Object Ontology (SoBOOnt): A formal description of a novel concept for social features

In this paper, we introduce the novel concept of “social features for process-oriented business objects” that extends existing research on the Social Network of Business Objects (SoNBO). In SoNBO, data is extracted from heterogenous source systems in the form of business objects and a user-specific knowledge graph is generated and used as a navigation structure in a web application (the so-called SoNBO Explorer). Up to now, the SoNBO Explorer has been limited to information retrieval and access, which is now enriched with interactive functionality, the so called “social features”, that allow the user to add content and thus interact with the information objects. The solution builds on the idea of “social profiles” that are used to represent people in Enterprise Social Networks and extends this idea to business objects. People and objects become (equal) nodes in a knowledge graph on which the user can perform (social) functionality (e.g. following, liking, commenting, tagging, etc.). This way the idiosyncratic functionalities of human-centred collaboration software is applied to process-aware ERP systems. We present the formalisation of our concept in the Social Business Object Ontology (SoBOOnt).

Bright and dark side of knowledge management practices in firms using information systems: examining different moderating impacts

PurposeThis research aims to find out the impact of knowledge sharing (KS) and knowledge hiding (KH) on employee creativity (EC) and eventually on firm innovativeness (FI). The study also investigates the moderating roles of incentive focus, preventive focus and enterprise social networking (ESN) adoption on EC and FI.Design/methodology/approachThe study used an empirical research approach and created a research model using resource-based view theory and literature. The model was validated using the partial least squares structural equation modeling technique to analyze data from 347 respondents from Indian firms.FindingsThe authors found that there is a considerable moderating impact of all three moderators on EC and firms’ innovativeness. KS has a positive impact and KH has a negative impact on EC.Research limitations/implicationsKnowledge can be shared within a firm by using an ESN tool. KS is the brighter side of the knowledge management process, whereas KH is the darker side of it. The study presents insights into and prescriptions for the bright and dark sides of knowledge management. The study results also imply that the firm managers must try to properly integrate the knowledge acquired from various stakeholders such as institutions, customers, competitors and suppliers as well as to focus on the tacit, precious and distinctive knowledge helpful to sustain long-term relationships with the valued external sources. The study empirically validates the model with the respondents from Indian firms, and thus the proposed model cannot be generalized.Originality/valueFew research studies have examined both the bright and dark sides of the knowledge management process. There is a growing interest among researchers and practitioners to explore these sides of the knowledge management process using information systems and knowledge risk. Moreover, the proposed theoretical model has a high explanative power that makes the model effective and unique.