Bolstering the initiative of construction project members: a self-determination lens combining project social media use

Abstract

Purpose

In today’s turbulent and complex era, initiative behavior is becoming more drawn to construction projects but challenging to arouse as it is free of the established regulations in project practice. Given the prevalence of social media (SM) in modern workplaces, this study is thereby motivated to investigate whether and how SM use can act to drive initiative behavior of construction project members (PMs) in this context.

Design/methodology/approach

This study sharply examines two distinct types of SM use – work-related and social-related – to explore their roles in driving the initiative behavior of construction PMs. Additionally, self-determination theory is employed to explore their underlying translation mechanisms and associated boundary conditions. A survey dataset collected from 229 construction PMs is used to empirically test the proposed theoretical model.

Findings

Empirical results show that role-breadth self-efficacy, psychological safety and project identification, by satisfying basic psychological needs respectively, act as crucial bridging roles in translating SM use into initiative behavior of PMs. Such mediation effects are applied to both work-related and social-related SM use with varied mechanisms. Besides, prevention focus is found to be a contingent moderator on these relationships, with a strengthening role toward role-breadth self-efficacy and a weakening role toward project identification.

Originality/value

This study digs into the nuanced mechanisms of how SM use benefits construction projects, especially in terms of PMs’ initiative. The findings of this research afford new insights into effectively invigorating the initiative behavior of construction PMs under the current digital momentum.

Citation

Jiang, S. and Jia, J. (2024), "Bolstering the initiative of construction project members: a self-determination lens combining project social media use", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-07-2024-0989