Facilitating or inhibiting? The role of enterprise social media use in job performance
Information Technology & People
ISSN: 0959-3845
Article publication date: 30 August 2022
Issue publication date: 8 September 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Organizations use enterprise social media (ESM) platforms to operate, function, and develop. However, the effectiveness of the use of ESM is inconclusive. This study aims to explore the mechanism and boundary conditions of the relationship between employee ESM use and job performance.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a 2-wave survey design, with a final sample of 481 employees from a large automobile company.
Findings
The results indicate that ESM use is beneficial and detrimental to job performance. On the one hand, ESM use is positively related to work overload, decreasing job performance. On the other hand, ESM use is positively associated with informational support, increasing job performance. A mediation test revealed that both work overload and informational support mediate the relationship between ESM use and job performance. Furthermore, job autonomy weakens the positive relationship between ESM use and work overload, but strengthens the positive relationship between ESM use and informational support.
Originality/value
This study provides a more balanced view of how ESM use influences job performance by demonstrating the opposing mediating roles of work overload and informational support. Further, this study fills a research gap by considering job characteristics when examining the boundary conditions of ESM use. Third, this study validates the generalization of the job demands-resources model in social media research.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Program of National Natural Science Funds of China (No: 72032006, 71731009 and 71772149). There are no competing financial interests.
Citation
Shang, Y., Pan, Y. and Richards, M. (2023), "Facilitating or inhibiting? The role of enterprise social media use in job performance", Information Technology & People, Vol. 36 No. 6, pp. 2338-2360. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-04-2021-0268
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited