PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the various enablers of and constraints on employees' information sharing on an enterprise social media platform. It draws on two theoretical perspectives, communication privacy management theory and the technology affordance framework, as well as on empirical data in an attempt to paint a comprehensive picture of the factors shaping employees' decisions to share or not share information on enterprise social media.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative field study is based on semi-structured interviews and enterprise social media review data from a large Nordic media organization.FindingsOn an enterprise social media platform, privacy management principles shape employees' information-sharing decisions in relation to personal privacy boundaries, professional boundaries and assumed risks, online safety concerns and perceived audience. Additionally, the technological affordances of visibility, awareness, persistence and searchability shape employees' information sharing in varying and sometimes even contradictory ways. Finally, organizational factors, such as norms, tasks and media repertoires, are associated with employees' information-sharing decisions. Together, these three dimensions, personal, technological and organizational, form a model of the enablers of and constraints on employees' decisions to share information on enterprise social media.Originality/valueThis study extends the understanding of different factors shaping employees' decisions to share or not share information on enterprise social media. It extends the two applied theories by uniquely combining interpersonal privacy management principles with a technological affordance framework that focuses on the relationship between the user and the technology. This research also furthers the authors' knowledge of what privacy management principles mean in the organizational context. This study shows connections between the two theories and extends the understanding of technology affordances as not only action possibilities but also constraining factors. Additionally, by revealing what kinds of factors encourage and inhibit information sharing on enterprise social media, the results of this study support organizations in their efforts to manage information sharing on enterprise social media systems.

Communication technology is an essential part of virtual teams in working life. This article presents a qualitative study on the meanings of communication technology in virtual team meetings. The study was conducted by examining frames of technology-related virtual team interaction. Observational data was gathered from six expert team meetings. Technologyrelated communication episodes (N=88) were identified from team interaction and then analyzed by means of frame analysis. Four frame categories were found: the practical frame, work frame, user frame, and relational frame. Team members talked about technological properties and functions as well as giving and receiving technological guidance. They also discussed technology in relation to work tasks, contemplated technology users' attributes, and built and maintained relationships with technology. The results indicate that virtual team members give meanings to communication technology while interacting. Communication technology has several meanings-it is seen as a tool for work, a reason for uncertainty, a useful benefit, a challenge, an object of competence, an entity of technical properties, a subject of guidance, a way to express closeness, and a shared space. The results presented in this article deepen our understanding of the role communication technology plays in the dayto-day interaction of virtual teams. The results recommend developing both technological systems and team members' ways of using them, as well as providing opportunities to negotiate the meanings of technology and thus avoid frame disputes. In addition, ensuring that virtual teams use technological systems that support their unique communicational needs is suggested.

Digital communication environments consist of various kinds of communication technologiesand collaboration platforms. These enable employees to communicate through text, audio, video, and graphics, often in an open and networked way. Complementing the popular standalone communication tools regularly used in workplaces, such as email and instant messaging, digital communication environments enable the sharing, editing, and storing of information publicly within the organization and sometimes externally among its stakeholders. This chapter reviews and analyzes digital communication environments as well as their affordances and constraints for communication and social interaction in the workplace. The chapter considers the issues that need to be discussed and taken into account when digital communication environments are implemented and used in organizations. These environments provide a variety of affordances for task-related communication and effective team performance, and they can support relational communication, foster the creation of new social ties, and strengthen the existing relationships in the workplace. However, questions concerning privacy, surveillance, lack of motivation for use, and reluctance to share information in these environments should also be considered.

Nonhuman communicators are challenging the prevailing conceptualizations of technology-mediated team communication. Slackbot is a social bot that can be configured to respond to trigger words and, thus, take part in discussions on the platform. A set of 84 bot-related communication episodes were identified from a journalistic team’s Slack messages (N = 45,940) and analyzed utilizing both qualitative content analysis and interaction process analysis (IPA). This integrated mixed-methods analysis revealed novel insights into the micro-level dynamics of human–machine communication in organizational teams. In response to Slackbot’s greetings, acclamations, work-related messages, and relational messages, we identified how the team members respond to the bot, discuss it, and summon it to appear on the platform. Further, the IPA revealed that the bot-related communication episodes are shaped by the bot’s responses toward more socioemotional and personal functions. Findings suggest that a team-configured social bot can manifest and facilitate relational team communication. Lay Summary New communication technologies not only support but also take part in organizational team communication, challenging how we see the agency of these technologies. This paper examines Slackbot, a bot that “participates” in team discussions based on the use of triggering words that are configured by the team members. We used integrated mixed methods to study a set of Slackbot interactions with team members. Specifically, we examined how team members summon, interact with, and discuss the bot based on the bot’s greetings, acclamations, relational comments, and work-related messages. We found that Slackbot changes the nature of the team interaction. The analysis showed that when the bot participates in the discussion thread, it becomes more relational and less task focused. These findings suggest that a social bot can facilitate relational communication and provide assets that support organizational teamwork.

Viestivät tekoälyt eli luonnollisella kielellä käytävään keskusteluun kykenevät algoritmit ovat yhä tyypillisempiä vuorovaikutuskumppaneita erilaisilla teknologisilla alustoilla. Yksi tyypillinen viestivän tekoälyn muoto on botti: automaattinen ohjelma, joka käyttää verkkopalvelun käyttäjätiliä tavallisen käyttäjän tavoin ja suorittaa yksinkertaisia toimintoja tai viestii. Tyypillisesti botit tavalla tai toisella pyrkivät näyttäytymään ihmiskäyttäjinä, tai ainakin niille ohjelmoidaan ja suunnitellaan ihmisenkaltaisia piirteitä.Artikkeli tarkastelee bottien roolia vuorovaikutuskumppaneina sisäisessä ja julkisessa mediatilassa kytkeytymällä tuoreeseen ihmis-koneviestinnän tutkimusalaan. Keskitymme kahteen empiiriseen tapaukseen: mediaorganisaation sisäisellä alustalla viestivään SlackBot-bottiin sekä Fazerin mainoskampanjan osana toimineeseen LoveBot Blue -bottiin, joka puuttui vihapuheeseen verkossa. Artikkelin johtopäätöksenä toteamme, että bottien inhimillistäminen on tärkeä osa niiden toimivuutta sosiaalisissa ja vuorovaikutuksellisissa tilanteissa. Boteille osoitetaan toimijuutta erityisesti niiden kanssa viestivien ihmistoimijoiden vuorovaikutuksen kautta. Tuloksemme todentavat ihmis-koneviestinnän kirjallisuudessa esitettyä tarvetta uudelleenmääritellä viestinnän, vuorovaikutuksen ja toimijuuden kysymyksiä viestivien tekoälyjen kontekstissa.Bot as a Chat Buddy – Communicative AI as an Anthropomorphized Interactive CompanionCommunicative artificial intelligence, or algorithms capable of communicating in natural language, are becoming increasingly typical inhabitants of technological platforms. One typical form of communicative AI is a bot: An automated program that manifests through a user account like a regular (human) user and performs simple functions or commands. Bots, in one way or another, tend to appear as human users, or at least they are programmed and designed to incorporate human features.This article explores the role of bots as interlocutors in organizational communication and on social media platforms, by building on the emerging literature of human-machine communication (HMC). We focus on two empirical cases: SlackBot, an interactive, programmable bot in operation on Slack within a media organization, and LoveBot Blue, part of Fazer’s ad campaign that was designed to battle hate speech online. In conclusion, we suggest that the anthropomorphization of bots is an important part of their functionality in social and interactive situations. Bots are endowed with agency particularly through the communication of the human actors who interact with them. Our results highlight the call presented in HMC literature that the emergence of new digital interlocutors generates a need to redefine the existing conceptualizations of communication, interaction, and agency in the context of communicative AIs.