Mohammad Olfat, Gholam Ali Tabarsa, Sadra Ahmadi and Sajjad Shokouhyar
The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to document that employees’ use of social networks (SNs) does not necessarily bring negative consequences and can indirectly benefit…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to document that employees’ use of social networks (SNs) does not necessarily bring negative consequences and can indirectly benefit organizations and second, to compare the roles of public SNs and enterprise social networks (ESNs) in bringing benefits to organizations. Consequently, this study, on the basis of stimulus‒organism‒response theory, directly investigated and compared the roles of public SNs and ESNs in promoting employees’ organizational commitment from affective, normative, and continuance dimensions with regard to the mediating role of job satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
For this purpose, 240 employees of Asia-Tech Company, one of the high-speed internet service providers in Iran, who had joined Skype for Business ESN, were included in this study. Partial least squares (PLS) method was used to examine the validity of the measurement and structural models. To this end, Warp-PLS software (version 5.0) was employed.
Findings
The results of the study suggested that public SNs have a positive impact on affective and normative commitment; however, no significant impact was observed for continuance commitment. ESNs directly affect none of the dimensions of organizational commitment. Although both types of SNs have impacts on job satisfaction, the greater impact was found for the public SNs. Job satisfaction also has a positive effect on all three dimensions of organizational commitment.
Originality/value
To the best of authors’ knowledge, no study has directly investigated and compared the roles of ESNs and public SNs in promoting organizational commitment from affective, continuance and normative dimensions with regard to the mediating role of job satisfaction. The most important theoretical contribution of the present research was to document that the employees’ use of SNs does not necessarily entail the waste of resources and has various advantages, such as strengthening organizational commitment (in affective, normative and continuance dimensions) and job satisfaction. In fact, this study disclosed the bright side of SNs in the workplace.
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Keywords
Mohammad Olfat, Sajjad Shokouhyar, Sadra Ahmadi, Gholam Ali Tabarsa and Atiye Sedaghat
This study, based on the cognitive dissonance and commitment theories, aims to show that employees with high organizational commitment take more advantage of enterprise social…
Abstract
Purpose
This study, based on the cognitive dissonance and commitment theories, aims to show that employees with high organizational commitment take more advantage of enterprise social networks (ESNs) due to work-related motivations. Furthermore, this study used the tricomponent attitude model to show that the employees' organizational concern and prosocial values mediate the impact of the organizational commitment on the work-related use of an ESN.
Design/methodology/approach
In all, 361 employees from seven Iranian companies using different ESN software packages were surveyed. The validity of the hypotheses was evaluated using partial least square–structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).
Findings
The results of this study confirm that the employees' organizational commitment has a positive impact on their work-related use of the relevant ESN directly and through the mediating roles of their organizational concern and prosocial values.
Originality/value
Previous studies have carefully addressed the role of organizational commitment in the implementation of conventional information systems. However, this is among the few studies addressing the role of commitment in the work-related implementation of ESNs. The results of this study shed light on how employees with a high level of commitment toward the organizations for which they work take advantage of ESNs due to a work-related motivation for the accomplishment of their duties, for bringing benefits into the organization and for helping their coworkers.
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Keywords
Gholam ali Tabarsa, Mohammad Olfat and Sajjad Shokouhyar
This study aims to investigate the influence of organizational members’ social use of social networking sites (SNSs) on employees’ destructive voice directly and considering the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the influence of organizational members’ social use of social networking sites (SNSs) on employees’ destructive voice directly and considering the mediating role of job satisfaction and affective commitment to the organization.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 240 employees of Asia-tech Company have participated in this study. To test the hypotheses, the researchers have used the partial least squares (PLS) method with the help of smart PLS software (version 2.0).
Findings
The results showed that organizational members’ social use of SNSs has a positive effect on destructive voice directly and considering job satisfaction as a mediator. However, social use of SNSs in the workplace considering the mediating role of affective commitment has a negative effect on destructive voice.
Practical/implications
The results of the study edify managers on how social use of SNSs in the workplace has paradoxical effects on destructive voice directly and regarding affective commitment as a mediating variable. Thus, the main contribution of this study is the fact that although social use of SNSs has many advantages such as promotion of job satisfaction and affective commitment in the workplace, it might have some detrimental effect such as reinforcement of destructive voice.
Originality/value
The model presented in this study is totally unique. Moreover, the investigations showed that there is no documented study regarding the examination of the effect of social use of SNSs on destructive voice directly and considering the mediating role of job satisfaction and affective commitment.