The impact of enterprise social media platforms on knowledge sharing

Abstract

Purpose Enterprise social media platforms (ESMPs) are web 2.0-based computer media tools that facilitate knowledge sharing by employees. The purpose of this paper is to outline the potential of ESMPs in both enabling and hindering knowledge sharing from the perspective of affordances. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper which integrates the literature on ESMPs’ affordances and knowledge sharing. Findings This paper finds that prior research on affordances only considered artifacts without much attention on the role of individual goals and organizational context. ESMPs may both enable and hinder knowledge sharing by affording different user behaviors contingent on artifacts, individual goals and organizational context. Practical implications The results of the paper will help managers and ESMPs designers to better understand the potential of ESMPs and pay attention to the positive and negative impacts of ESMPs in the process of knowledge sharing. Originality/value The paper derives a new categorization of affordances based on individual goals and organization context and portrays a model to describe how and when these affordances enable knowledge sharing through the development of transactive memory system and social capital and hinder knowledge sharing through overload, groupthink and privacy invasion.

Excessive Enterprise Social Media Use Behavior at Work: Role of Communication Visibility and Perspective of Uses and Gratifications Theory

“…It represents the combination of the features of the object and the behavioral intention of the subject, not just the specific attributes or properties of the object [59][60][61]. Therefore, adopting the concept of affordance will help us clarify why, when, and how ESM affects individual behavior [17,18]. An important affordance enabled by ESM is communication visibility, which describes the unique visibility capabilities brought by new media technologies, such as ESM [22,42,62].…”

“…Affordance refers to the possible actions endowed to users by technical features [15], and it can help us consider both the ESM technical features and the perception of users when they interact with these features [4,16]. Adopting the perspective of technology affordances helps provide a comprehensive explanation of why, when, and how ESM affects individual behavior [17,18]. Also, some studies indicate that the most unique affordance of ESM is communication visibility [19][20][21][22], which includes message transparency and network translucency, whereby users can easily see the communication information and the communication network of their colleagues.…”

Help Comes from Understanding: The Positive Effect of Communication Visibility on Employee Helping Behavior

“…On the other hand, communication visibility theory also argues that communication visibility includes network translucence [ 5 ]. The apparent social networks can make employees develop an awareness of coworkers’ connections [ 32 ], allowing employees to quickly find common ground [ 33 ], similar interests and visions, which may result in trust among coworkers [ 1 ]. Levin [ 34 ] indicates that although frequent interactions may not always build trust, bringing employees together may spur conversations that can signal one’s benevolence.…”

“…Nowadays, enterprise social media (ESM), such as Yammer and Jive [ 1 ], are widely used in increasing numbers of enterprises. The prevalence and practical value of ESM have attracted the attention of scholars [ 2 , 3 ].…”

How Newcomers’ Work-Related Use of Enterprise Social Media Affects Their Thriving at Work—The Swift Guanxi Perspective

“…For instance, recent studies find that these platforms promote communication [5,6] and organizational knowledge sharing [4,7,8] among employees. Further exploring the advantages of ESM, scholars in related fields consider that ESM is conducive to enhancing the social network [9][10][11] and social capital [7,12,13] of employees.…”