Role of social media to improve job performance with mediating role of transactive memory capability and employee creativity

The increased usage of social media in organizational settings has raised questions about its effect on job performance. This study explains the interplay between social media usage, transactive memory capability, employee creativity, and job performance within the Chinese organizational context. The rationale for this study stems from the need to understand how social media usage can enhance job performance through cognitive and creative processes within teams. On the basis of earlier literature, the survey questionnaire was designed to collect data and the survey included validated scales to measure these constructs. The data is collected from 816 employees in China via online resources like social media and emails and then Structural Equation Modeling is used for empirical analysis through AMOS software. The findings show the positive impact of social media on job performance while transactive memory capability and employee creativity mediates this relationship. These findings contribute to a better understanding of how social media can be leveraged to improve job performance. Practical implications highlight the importance of fostering transactive memory capability through social media platforms, facilitating employee creativity, and ultimately, bolstering job performance. Additionally, this study underscores the need for organizations to strategically harness the potential of social media as a catalyst for innovation and knowledge sharing, thus optimizing workforce performance in the digital era.

Mediation of transactive memory capability in relationship of social media usage and job performance

This study explores the role of transactive memory capability as a mediator in the relationship between social media usage and job performance. Drawing on transactive memory theory, we hypothesized that individuals who use social media more intensively for task-oriented purposes and relationship building are more likely to develop transactive memory capability, which in turn enhances their job performance. A survey was conducted among 816 employees in China from various industries to collect data on their social media usage patterns, transactive memory capability, and job performance. Results from structural equation modeling indicate that social media usage has a positive impact on job performance. Additionally, transactive memory capability mediates the relationship between social media usage and job performance. This study has contribution in literature by demonstrating the beneficial effects of social media usage on the development of transactive memory capability and job performance. It is suggested that social media usage can be used a valuable tool for enhancing performance of employees. Employees should gain an understanding of how social media fosters the development of transactive memory capability to utilize it more effectively. These findings also suggest that the way individuals use social media can influence their ability to access and share knowledge within their social networks, ultimately impacting their job performance.

Home Care Nurses at the Heart of the Communication Web: Communication Synchronicity and Effects on the Psychosocial Work Environment

This qualitative study explores how communication practice affects Swedish home care nurses' psychosocial work environment. Data consisted of interviews and field observations, analyzed from the perspective of Media Synchronicity Theory and the Job-Demand-Control-Support model. Individual home care nurses were found to manage an interorganizational communication web. The results indicated that this web could have a protective function for the nurses. Synchronous communication was found important to control the work situation. Nevertheless, asynchronous communication was enforced when communicating with other health care organizations. This reduced the level of control for the nurses. However, when possible, the nurses also arranged their communication practice to gain control. Thus, local optimization for one group could result in suboptimization for others. We conclude that communication practice should be designed holistically and promote synchronous communication to foster well-functioning interprofessional teamwork and to create a healthy psychosocial work environment for both home care nurses and their collaborators.

Exploring users' content creation and information dissemination behavior in social media: The moderating effect of social presence

Users' personality traits reveal different social media behavior characteristics. In order to explore the intrinsic relationships between personality traits and social media behavior, this study analyzes the influence of users' personality traits on social media content creation and information dissemination behavior, as well as the moderating effect of social presence. We collect users' personality data via questionnaires, crawl social media behavior data of samples from social media sites, and then establish regression models to test the research hypotheses. The results show that extraversion has a positive impact on content creation and information dissemination behavior, conscientiousness has a negative impact on content creation behavior, openness and agreeableness have no significant impact on social media behavior, and social presence has significant moderating effects on the relationships between personality traits and social media behavior.

How the 5G Enabled the COVID-19 Pandemic Prevention and Control: Materiality, Affordance, and (De-)Spatialization

5G, the most disruptive innovation, had played a significant role in the COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control. However, as a novel technology and context, we have little knowledge about how 5G enabled pandemic prevention and control. This study collected 212 cases and conducted qualitative research to explore how the 5G worked in prevention and control. Based on the concepts of materiality and affordance, we grounded two affordances of spatialization and de-spatialization from the data. Spatialization provides non-contact ways to complete the tasks which are supposed to be completed in contact, and de-spatialization provides remote operations to complete the tasks which are supposed to be completed on-site. Spatialization and de-spatialization enabled the diagnosis and treatment of the infectors to relieve the unbalance of medical staff, cutting the infectious route to contain the viral spread, and logistic supply to support the prevention and control. Our study offers theoretical contributions to digital pandemic prevention and control, and the literature on 5G also offers practical implications.

Linking Green and Sustainable Entrepreneurial Intentions and Social Networking Sites; The Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy and Risk Propensity

This study investigated the impact of the use of social networking sites on university graduate students’ green sustainable entrepreneurial intentions by developing a mediating effect. This study provided a research framework using Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior and Shapero’s model to illustrate the relationship between self-efficacy and risk propensity towards green and sustainable entrepreneurial intentions. This research model posited a relationship between the use of social networking sites and green and sustainable entrepreneurship intentions with a mediating role of risk propensity and self-efficacy. The structural questionnaire was adopted, validated, and disseminated to the 300 respondents of university students. This study’s findings confirmed that there was a significant positive effect of the use of social networking sites on green and sustainable entrepreneurship intentions with the indirect impact of risk propensity and self-efficacy. These substantial outcomes have essential practices and academic implications for representatives, policy makers, and entrepreneurial institutes, such as how to direct the use of such relative niche technologies for communication and the role of the internet to promote green and sustainable entrepreneurial practices among young people.

A theory of multiformat communication: mechanisms, dynamics, and strategies

Extant communication theories predate the explosion of digital formats and technological advances such as virtual reality, which likely explains their predominant focus on traditional and format-level (e.g., face-to-face, email) rather than digital or characteristic-level (e.g., visual cues, synchronicity) design decisions. Firms thus lack insights into how to create and use emerging digital formats, individually or synergistically. To establish a holistic framework of bilateral multiformat communication for relationship marketing, this article reviews communication theory to establish a foundation for understanding multiformat communication and to identify any gaps (e.g., AI agents, simulated cues). The authors then review bilateral communication research in light of the identified theoretical gaps, to inform their framework. Finally, by decomposing these formats according to six fundamental characteristics, they predict how each characteristic might promote effective, efficient, and experiential communication goals, in light of distinct message, temporal, and dyadic factors. Ultimately, these combined insights reveal an overarching framework, with characteristic-level propositions grouped into five key themes, that can serve as a platform for academics and managers to develop multiformat communication theory and relationship strategies.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version of this article (10.1007/s11747-020-00750-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Does Identity Disclosure Help or Hurt User Content Generation? Social Presence, Inhibition, and Displacement Effects

How will disclosing users’ identities affect their content-generation activities? Will this identity-disclosure policy in one section also change users’ behaviors in the other section? We answer these questions by using a natural experiment where a large corporate online community chose to disclose users’ identities in one section (the focal section) but not the other (the neighbor section). Our analyses show that in the focal section, disclosing identity increases social presence and inhibits users’ willingness to generate content, resulting in greater effort spent per content but smaller content volume. Moreover, identity disclosure in the focal section has a strong displacement effect: users generate more pieces of content but decrease their effort per content in the neighbor section, where they remain anonymous. The intensity of these effects depends on users’ pursuit of volume- and effort-based image. For the managers of online communities, disclosing users’ identity information inevitably changes their content-generation activities, and the unintended displacement effect cannot be overlooked. Practitioners can adjust these effects by changing reward systems and how users earn image from content generation. Given that many websites rely on users’ voluntary content generation, the effects of relevant policies should be comprehensively evaluated.

Understanding Physicians’ Online-Offline Behavior Dynamics: An Empirical Study

Online healthcare platforms allow physicians and patients to communicate in a timely manner. Yet little is known about how physicians’ online and offline activities affect each other and, consequently, the healthcare system. We collected data from both online and offline channels to study physicians’ online-offline behavior dynamics. We find that physicians’ online activities can lead to a higher service quantity in offline channels, whereas offline activities may reduce physicians’ online services because of resource constraints. We also find that the more offline patients that physicians serve, the more articles the physicians will likely share in online healthcare platforms. These findings are of great importance to practitioners and policy makers. Our work provides evidence that online healthcare platforms supplement offline services and thus lessen the concern that physicians’ participation in online healthcare platforms will negatively influence offline healthcare services. Our findings also indicate the need for the improvement of online-offline coordination and better system design.

Financial Returns to Firms’ Communication Actions on Firm-Initiated Social Media: Evidence from Facebook Business Pages

Our paper shows that firm-initiated social media can contribute significantly to the value of firms. The findings provide a rationale for firms to invest heavily in their social media while countering those who question the value of social media. Using a sample of 63 South Korean firms across industries over a three-year period, we find that a firm’s social media actions yield significant financial returns, and the magnitude of these financial returns depends on the types of communication actions: that is, a firm’s (broadcasted) posts versus its responses to customer messages. Our conceptual framework and empirical methodology can help firms more accurately gauge the ROI of their social media investments and tailor their efforts accordingly. Specifically, our results suggest that promptly responding to customer complaints is a key to increasing customer satisfaction and firm performance. Taken together, our study provides guidance for firms on how to optimize their social media strategies to extract greater value from social media.

Information Sharing and Investment Performance in the Venture Capital Network Community: An Empirical Study of Environmental-Social-Governance Start-Ups

Information sharing plays a significant role in improving investment performance in the venture capital network community, which serves as an important requirement for the venture capital network to expand to the meso-level and promote its healthy development. Given the important role of Environmental-Social-Governance (ESG) start-ups in promoting sustainable development, this paper selects a sample of ESG start-ups in China to explore the relationship between venture capital network community information sharing and investment performance. We also examine the intermediary role of investment capability in this relationship. Empirical results show that venture capital network community information sharing, from both the prospective of breadth and depth, has a significant positive impact on investment performance of ESG start-ups. We also find that the investment capability, such as scouting and coaching, plays a partial intermediary role in affecting investment performance by community information sharing. This research helps to reveal the relationship between venture capital network community information sharing and investment performance. The results provide a theoretical basis and managerial insights for improving investment performance of ESG start-ups.

Teams, Time, and Technology: Variations of Media Use Over Project Phases

While the notion of task–media fit is inherent to most theories on communication in virtual teams, past studies have largely concentrated on single, isolated tasks—hence neglecting sequential and contextual effects of media use. Building on project management frameworks, this study abstracts from the task level to the broader and more practical level of project phases, linking these to changes in media use. In particular, the study illustrates the weekly use of communication media within 34 student teams during a 3-month project. In line with team process phase models, results showed differences in media use between project phases: While face-to-face communication decreased, the use of leaner media (i.e., telephone and chat) increased in later project phases. Moreover, the variation of media use within the project phases increased over time, emphasizing the temporal dynamics of task–media fit. Finally, implications especially for project managers and recommendations for further research are discussed.

Rethinking Media Synchronicity Theory

Information systems (IS) research often assumes team members have aligned goals. In practice, people interpret and pursue goals to suit personal agendas, even when they are collaborating. This motivates our examination of the cooperative assumption in Media Synchronicity Theory (MST)--a leading IS theory of communication performance. We assess the boundaries of MST by relaxing the assumption of cooperation. Our results support MST for explaining communication and task performance in a cooperative context. However, MST was insufficient to capture how media capabilities influence performance in a non-cooperative context. Our study shows that relaxing the assumption of cooperation changes MST in profound ways--altering which media capabilities are central to the model and the very processes that underlie communication.

Online Information Sharing About Risks: The Case of Organic Food

Individuals have to make sense of an abundance of information to decide whether or not to purchase certain food products. One of the means to sense-making is information sharing. This article reports on a quantitative study examining online information sharing behavior regarding the risks of organic food products. An online survey among 535 respondents was conducted in the Netherlands to examine the determinants of information sharing behavior, and their relationships. Structural equation modeling was applied to test both the measurement model and the structural model. Results showed that the intention to share information online about the risks of organic food was low. Conversations and email were the preferred channels to share information; of the social media Facebook stood out. The developed model was found to provide an adequate description of the data. It explained 41% of the variance in information sharing. Injunctive norms and outcome expectancies were most important in predicting online information sharing, followed by information-related determinants. Risk-perception-related determinants showed a significant, but weak, positive relationship with online information sharing. Implications for authorities communicating on risks associated with food are addressed.

An information sharing theory perspective on willingness to share information in supply chains

Purpose

The quality of information sharing is of the utmost importance for supply chains (SCs). The purpose of this paper is to improve understanding of the human attitude: willingness to share, its antecedents and its role in improving information sharing quality.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on information sharing theory, a theoretical model and research hypotheses are developed. Data from 387 respondents were collected to test the hypotheses and model fit using structural equation modelling and mediation analysis. The impact of social-psychological factors and information technology (IT) infrastructure capability on willingness to share information and, consequently, its effect on information sharing quality were analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics, PROCESS and AMOS.

Findings

The statistical analysis showed a good model fit. Trust is the most important antecedent for willingness to share, while the impacts of commitment and reciprocity are also significant. Interestingly, power is not a significant antecedent of willingness. Life satisfaction is a significant precursor to willingness to share information, whereas surprisingly overall job satisfaction does not play a significant role.

Research limitations/implications

Cross-sectional data were used and the scope was limited to SCs.

Practical implications

Managers should be aware that trust, commitment and reciprocity with their SC partners influence the willingness to share information with varying effects. Access to proper IT capabilities increases willingness as does the life satisfaction. SC individuals who are happy with life are more willing. Interestingly, high power might get the sharer to share information albeit unwillingly.

Originality/value

The model provides a social-psychological understanding of the antecedents of human willingness to share information, which is crucial to sharing quality information. Overall, the social-psychological and IT factors model based on information sharing theory is statistically valid for the SC context.

Exploring communication in project-based interventions

Purpose

The authors explore several aspects of communications theory to identify their relevance to managing a project-based productivity improvement intervention. The literature on communication accommodation theory, groupthink and trust appear to have important implications for improvements. The purpose of this paper is to develop a research methodology used in conducting empirical data collection in the field to test the developed conceptual framework. The authors emphasize the importance of management theory to project-based interventions. The focus of this work is summarized by the research question: “what facets of communication impact on the success of a project-based improvement intervention?”.

Design/methodology/approach

Following a focused literature review, learnings from specific research were used to identify a series of propositions. The scope of the work was established to limit the range of issues under review. Next, a conceptual framework was designed that allowed a case study to be tested with regard to validity of the propositions. Further testing will be undertaken in a single company.

Findings

There is clear evidence showing the relevance of effective communication when executing an intervention to seek performance improvement. In particular, understanding the need of stakeholders’ is paramount that allows the design of a communications strategy. Each phase in a project-based intervention requires different styles of communication. There is also a need to have varying degrees of trust. Total unchallenged trust invariably leads to groupthink that hinders critical decision making.

Research limitations/implications

The work contributes to the understanding of the application of communication theory to project-based interventions – that invariably aim at performance improvement initiatives. While currently the work is in the early stages of research, it does nevertheless show some useful early findings. Clearly further work is needed in international projects in the context of multi-cultural teams and external stakeholders.

Practical implications

With many interventions failing to meet their planned objectives there is a need to isolate possible reasons and to rectify or mitigate the causes. Project management and change management training should include a comprehensive understanding of management theories. This research will contribute to this knowledge base.

Social implications

Project-based activities are used in most walks of life; the need for excellent management is therefore important. Invariably interventions involve considerable capital investment and their success advances productivity of nations. Understanding and integrating communication theories to their management, therefore, has significant social benefits.

Originality/value

The importance of communications is identified in the project management literature and adjunct disciplines. Professional associations and leading bodies in performance and project management, while emphasizing the need for excellent communication, have not adequately addressed underpinning theories. There is little research focusing on communication accommodation theory, groupthink and risk in the context of project management. The authors’ have not been able to identify any research on an integrated framework that combines these theories with managing a project-based performance improvement intervention.

The Impact of Group Size and Social Presence on Small-Group Communication

This study evaluates the impact of varying group size and social presence on small-group communication. It compares key communication factors—faceto-face (FtF) without computer-mediated communication (CMC) support, FtF with CMC support, and virtual with CMC support—on two different small group sizes (3 and 6). Results indicate that smaller groups establish and maintain higher levels of communication quality, and FtF with CMC support groups have higher levels of communication quality than virtual with CMC support groups; however, no significant difference between traditional FtF groups and virtual groups with CMC support was found. Also, CMC minimized the impact of increased group size. Process losses that a larger FtF group might ordinarily experience can be reduced through the use of CMC. These results should help project managers plan for and deal with the difficulty of communication between project group members in virtual environments.

Face-to-face or not-to-face: A technology preference for communication

This study employed the Model of Technology Preference (MTP) to explain the relationship of the variables as the antecedents of behavioral intention to adopt a social networking site (SNS) for communication. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to SNS account users using paper-based and web-based surveys that led to 514 valid responses. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show that two out of three attributes of the attribute-based preference (ATRP) affect attitude-based preference (ATTP). The data support the hypotheses that perceived enjoyment and social presence are predictors of ATTP. In this study, the findings further indicated that ATTP has no relationship with the behavioral intention of using SNS, but it has a relationship with the attitude of using SNS. SNS development should provide features that ensure enjoyment and social presence for users to communicate instead of using the traditional face-to-face method of communication.

Paperless and Soulless

E-signatures are one of the fastest growing global practices because of their convenience. Much less is known, however, about whether people perceive e-signatures to be symbolically equivalent to traditional hand signatures. Results of four studies demonstrate that although functionally the same, e-signatures evoked markedly different psychological reactions than hand signatures. Namely, e-signatures evoked a weaker sense of the signer’s presence and involvement. This weaker sense of social presence, in turn, induced negativity: People were more likely to discount the validity of an e-signed application than that of an identical application signed by hand. They also anticipated that e-signed contracts would lead to greater likelihood of contract breaches. This negativity toward e-signatures persisted across five different types of e-signatures, regardless of an individual’s level of comfort with technology. Taken together, the studies reveal deeply rooted psychological reactions to a practice that is now prevalent worldwide.

Shared leadership, diversity, and information sharing in teams

Purpose

– Shared leadership is increasingly important in today's organizations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between shared leadership and team performance, the moderating role of demographic diversity and the mediating role of information sharing on this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

– The research used a field study design, quantitative data of employees from two different organizations. Data were analyzed with structural equation modeling analyses.

Findings

– Shared leadership was positively associated with team performance and this association was mediated by information sharing. Demographic diversity moderated the relationship between shared leadership and team performance, such that shared leadership was more strongly associated with team performance in more diverse teams and less in less diverse teams.

Research limitations/implications

– The results found support for moderating and mediating variables, explaining under what conditions and how shared leadership is associated with team performance in organizations.

Practical implications

– The findings highlight the importance of nurturing shared leadership, in particular as teams tend to grow more diverse in our todays’ work settings. They also highlight the importance of diversity in how shared leadership unfolds its potential.

Social implications

– The research highlights that shared leadership, diversity, and information are increasingly important in today's organizations and should be considered from a more positive standpoint.

Originality/value

– This research explored the association between shared leadership, demographic diversity, and information sharing with team performance. It represents a first step in examining the moderating and mediating variables of the shared leadership and team performance association.