Exploring the influence of social media on employee work performance

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of social media on employees’ work performance, as well as the underlying mechanism for how they create value at work. Design/methodology/approach – Based on media synchronicity and social capital theories, the authors propose that social media can foster employees’ social capital and subsequently facilitate knowledge transfer. Both social capital and knowledge transfer help promote work performance. Specifically, the authors adopt shared vision, network ties and trust to represent, respectively, the cognitive, structural and relational dimensions of social capital. The research model is tested using data collected from 379 Chinese working professionals. Findings – The empirical results reveal that social media can promote the formation of employees’ social capital indicated by network ties, shared vision and trust, which, in turn, can facilitate knowledge transfer. Shared vision and knowledge transfer positively influence work performance. Although network ties and trust do not have a direct impact on work performance, the influence is partially mediated by knowledge transfer. Practical implications – For organizations that wish to build knowledge networks in the workplace, connecting experts with various social media can effectively complement other knowledge management technology. Further, managers should encourage employees to consciously exploit the byproducts created via social media, e.g., social capital, to promote knowledge exchange. Originality/value – The integration of media synchronicity and social capital theories offers a new theoretical lens and reasonable explanations for investigating communication performance. The research offers empirical evidence regarding how the influence of social media on work performance is transmitted through social capital and knowledge transfer. The authors quantify social media’s benefits for organizations, providing managers an impetus to deploy them in the workplace with optimistic expectation.

Distraction or Connection? An Investigation of Social Media Use at Work

“…Incorporating social media into workplace is regarded as a two-edged sword [13]. On the positive side, social media use at work was found to foster social capital [20], promote knowledge transfer [4], improve sense of cultural belonging [21], and increase group effectiveness [7]. Although some studies have mentioned the negative side of social media use [7,21], few of them explicitly examined it in relation to job performance.…”

“…Extant research tends to investigate the mechanism of social media use by considering its positive outcomes, such as social capital [2], knowledge sharing [4], and job performance [5]. For instance, Moqbel, Nevo, and Kock [5] found that the intensity of social media use at work is positively related to job performance.…”

The culture of social media at work place

“…Firstly, the studies of relationship the social media and knowledge transfer. One of research was found that the social media was facilitated the knowledge transfer and work performance (Cao, Guo, Vogel, & Zhang, 2016). In the other research, the social media technologies were allowing for the transfer of tacit and explicit knowledge (Murphy, 2013).…”

“…The Culture of organization was means the special values and characteristics in an organization (Schein E. H., 1985;Schein E. H., 2004). Today, the social media is a part of organizational culture for reach the performance of employee and corporate (Shaqiri, 2015;Baloh & Trkman, 2003;Anderson, 2012;Cao, Guo, Vogel, & Zhang, 2016;Trainor, Andzulis, Rapp, & Agnihotr, 2013).…”

“…The social media technology effected to the organizational performance (Anderson, 2012;Cao, Guo, Vogel, & Zhang, 2016;Trainor, Andzulis, Rapp, & Agnihotr, 2013).…”