On Enterprise Social Media: An Exploration of the
Relationship between Job Involvement and
Affordances of Enterprise Social Media within
Part-time and Full-Part-time Employees
Marjolein de Graaf
S3272028
21-06-2019
MSc BA Change Management
Thesis Supervisor: Dr. I. Maris – de Bresser
Co-assessor: Dr. C. Reezigt
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Abstract
This qualitative case study focusses on exploring the influence of the perceived affordances of Enterprise Social Media (ESM) on job involvement for full-time and part-time employees. ESM is defined as a platform for “internal communication and social interactions within the enterprise”(Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield, 2013). Affordances is the term used for the potential for action provided by technology to the users of this technology (Leonardi & Vaast, 2017). Thorsteinson (2003) stated that job involvement includes participation in company activities, such as networking, exchanging knowledge, and sharing information.
By conducting a case study, and comparing the results of 14 interviews and three observations of full-time and part-time employees, this study aimed to find out what affordances of ESM are perceived by employees. The objectives were to understand job involvement, to get insight into how the perceived affordances influence job involvement and to identify differences in perceived affordances and their influence on job involvement for part-timers and full-timers. The affordances of collaboration, sharing knowledge and visibility, and persistence of communication were identified. Full-time employees perceived all three, whereas part-time employees only perceived the affordance of visibility and persistence of communication. Job involvement for full-time employees was defined as something inherent, a norm, and could be increased by external influences, whereas for part-time employees, it was something that had to be encouraged and rewarded. Affordances of ESM strengthen job involvement through the building of social capital and engagement of employees. It is most strongly affected by the affordance of visibility and persistence of communication, and the effect is stronger for full-time employees, as they also perceive additional affordances.
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Introduction
As the world becomes increasingly digital, so does communication and collaboration within companies. Kane (2017) stated that over the past two decades, companies have been looking for ways to use IT to manage knowledge and share information. A platform that facilitates just that, “internal communication and social interactions within the enterprise” is what Leonardi et al. (2013) defined as Enterprise Social Media (hereafter ESM). From a material point of view, it is an online environment that allows users to find each other, post messages and view each other’s profiles. From a social point of view, it affords much more than this. According to Leonardi & Vaast (2017), an affordance can be defined as the potential for action provided by technology to the users of this technology. When we look at ESM, it allows for communities to be built, ideas to be shared, inspiration to be gained and latent relationships to be discovered (Burns & Friedman, 2012; Muller et al., 2012).
Numerous factors impact ESM’s effectiveness in supporting communication and collaboration: the size of the team, demographics, and type of employment (Orlikowski, 2010). Leonardi et al. (2013) also recognized that social media use amongst youth and college students had been investigated extensively, but the impact within organisational context has not yet been broadly investigated within the field of communication. Martin & Sinclair (2007) mentioned in their research that it would be interesting to further investigate working conditions and effects of these working conditions on online communication and collaboration across part-time and full-time employees. Therefore, this research will focus on the differences in perceived affordances amongst these two types of employment.
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As ESM is the key means of communication within many enterprises (Kane, 2017) and part-time employees were found to be less involved than full-time employees (Thorsteinson, 2003) whilst they are a growing part of the work-force (CBS, 2018), this research will look at whether ESM could provide a solution towards closing this gap. Sharma & Bhatnagar (2016) hinted briefly at ESM’s potential to increase employee engagement and reach collaboration objectives. From an academic perspective, the relationship between ESM affordances and job involvement has, to the best of my knowledge, not been studied yet. This research will give further insight into the role of ESM within organisations, especially with relation to job involvement.
This study aims to determine whether the perceived affordances of ESM influence job involvement and if there are differences in this relationship for part-time and full-time employees. The outcome of this research contributes to current literature on ESM usage in organisations, more specifically the perceived affordances of ESM amongst part-time and full-time employees and its influence on job involvement and it will help managers to understand the influences of ESM better. The objectives of this research are to find out what affordances of ESM are perceived by employees, to understand how job involvement is experienced, to get insight into how the affordances influence job involvement, and to identify differences in perceived affordances and influence on job involvement for part-timers and full-timers. Therefore, this research will focus on the following question:
How do the perceived ESM affordances influence the job involvement of part-time and full-time employees?
This study will answer this question through a qualitative research based on interviews and observations within a multi-national company situated in Groningen, The Netherlands. Their ESM has been in use for the past decade and is the central means of communication within departments, between departments and throughout all levels of the organisation. The work-force consists of 40% full-time employees and 60% part-time employees and is, therefore, a perfect fit to study the relationship between the perceived affordances of ESM and job involvement, and whether the effect is different for different types of employment.
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Literature review
Enterprise social mediaThere are many social media that have transformed the way individuals connect and communicate with each other, e.g., Six Degree (’97), Friendster (’02), MySpace (’03) and Facebook (’06), (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Kaplan & Haenlein (2010) define social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content” (p.61). Boyd & Ellison (2007) identified three elements that social networks sites contain; they allow users to constructs a (semi-)public profile, make a list of other users with whom they share a connection and explore one’s own and other’s lists of connections. Turban, Bolloju, & Liang (2011) found that social media does not only affect one’s way of living but also of working, as more and more organisations use social media for e.g., advertising, knowledge sharing, and communication, both internal and external.
That social media has also made its way into an organisational context, can be seen in the increased use of social media for communication with external parties, e.g., their customers, and internal communication amongst employees, which is used for social interaction within the enterprise (Leonardi et al., 2013). This social media for internal communication is often referred to as Enterprise Social Media (hereafter ESM), which is defined as:
“Web-based platforms that allow workers to (1) communicate messages with specific co-workers or broadcast messages to everyone in the organisation; (2) explicitly indicate or implicitly reveal particular co-workers as communication partners; (3) post, edit, and sort text and files linked to themselves or others; and (4) view the messages, connections, text, and files communicated, posted, edited and sorted by anyone else in the organisation at any time of their choosing.” - (Leonardi et al., 2013, p.2)
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But is how ESM is actually used? Even though the designers of ESM might have certain functions in mind, its usage is also influenced by the users. The usage of ESM is often studied in literature from an affordance perspective (Brzozowski, 2009; Ellison, Gibbs, & Weber, 2015; Leonardi, 2017; Leonardi et al., 2013; Oostervink, Agterberg, & Huysman, 2016; Treem & Leonardi, 2012). As such, in the next section, the theory of IT affordances is introduced.
IT Affordances
The term affordance was proposed by Gibson (1978), who tried to understand human perception from an ecological approach. The term was used to describe perception and action enabled (i.e., afforded) by features of the environment. Gibson (1978) described that the perception of an ‘object’ always led to some type of action. Which perception leads to which action, depends on the environment and the actor. Hutchby (2001) was the first to adjust the concept of affordances to technology. He stated that “affordances are functional and relational aspects which frame, while not determining, the possibilities for agent action in relation to an object” (Hutchby, 2001, p. 444). This view allows researchers to look at technological artefacts in a new way, as artefacts that are influenced by and influence human interactions. This addition of the influence of users’ characteristics, such as capabilities and goals, created the relational view on technology. The affordances of IT are defined as “unique to the particular ways in which an actor, or a set of actors, perceives and uses the object” (Treem & Leonardi, 2012, p. 145). Alternatively, IT affordances can also be defined as “the mutuality of actor intentions and technology capabilities that provide the potential for a particular action” (Faraj & Azad, 2012, p. 3).
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examined (Faraj & Azad, 2012; Majchrzak et al., 2013; Markus & Silver, 2018; Orlikowski, 2010).
Focusing specifically on ESM, Treem & Leonardi (2012) identified visibility, persistence, editability, and association as the affordances of ESM. The affordance of visibility refers to the ease with which information can be located. Persistence of communication means that the form of it does not change after it was presented. The editability affordance refers to the option to craft and recraft communication before it is viewed but also gives the option to modify or revise content. The fourth affordance, according to Treem & Leonardi (2012), is association with individuals or pieces of information.
Empirical research showed that the affordances that ESM offers have a positive effect on organisational communication processes (Mark, Guy, Kremer-Davidson, & Jacovi, 2014; Treem & Leonardi, 2012). Leonardi & Vaast (2017) determined that ESM plays a role in three organizing processes: communication, collaboration, and knowledge sharing. ESM affords visibility and increases the transparency of the social system within organisations because networks can be viewed online, it helps build social capital (Fulk & Yuan, 2013; Van Osch et al., 2015), which is crucial for knowledge sharing. Guy et al. (2013) expect that ESM either makes people feel comfortable enough to author a post without being an expert or that such content is used to raise awareness and generate discussions. Therefore, authors do not always have to be experts but may have a high interest in the topic, which reflects the affordance of association. To ensure active usage of the ESM, several factors should be considered. Community management is essential for triggering and managing the use of the ESM and for finding a way to ensure members from all parts of the organisation (from top to bottom) are involved and treated well (Chin et al., 2015). Brzozowski (2009) and Muller et al. (2012) also considered managers as key influencers. Affordances depend on IT features as well as user characteristics and goals; these two concepts will be explained in the next two subsections.
IT Features
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only be indirectly described are classified as abstract. The second dimension, Griffith (1999) refers to is core vs tangential technology. The core concept in this dimension is criticality, where tangential features of the technology are seen as optional, and the core features need to be present in order not to change the overall nature of the technology.
In this feature-focussed view, most researchers see technology as something that is defined by its functionality (Faraj & Azad, 2012). Orlikowski (2010) found that technology was seen as ‘hardware’, separate from humans and organisations and was expected to have a direct impact on human behaviour. Within the concept of affordances, the IT features are still an important part of the IT; however, they are not seen as determining behaviour. When combining the IT features with the user characteristics and goals, they determine which IT affordances are perceived, and this is used in literature to explain behaviour (Leonardi et al., 2013). Therefore, in order to understand what affordances an IT is facilitating, it is essential to start with an analysis of its IT features and how they are used.
In order to better understand ESM’s, several studies have looked at their IT features. The features of ESM were defined by Boyd & Ellison (2007):
“A social network site is a networked communication platform in which participants (1) have uniquely identifiable profiles that consist of user-supplied content, content provided by other users, and/or system-provided data; (2) can publicly articulate connections that can be viewed and traversed by others; and (3) can consume, produce, and/or interact with streams of user-generated content provided by their connections on the site.” (p. 158)
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features of ESM on their own facilitate certain possibilities for action. The actualization of these actions depends on ESM user characteristics and goals; this is explained in the next section.
User characteristics and goals
Van Ittersum et al. (2006) found that the characteristics of users in the organisational context can be classified into two categories; employee demographics and psychographics. They also found social influences and issues of training, communication, and experience to influence an individual’s acceptance of the technology. When looking at the individual employee demographics, Van Ittersum et al. (2006) looked at the age, gender and education of the users and found that tenure in the workforce and position in the organisation may also have significance. For employee psychographics, they found user involvement and intrinsic motivation to increase the chance of technology acceptance (Van Ittersum et al., 2006).
The previous sections showed that every employee, depending on their characteristics, may respond differently to technology and the actualization of affordances might be dependent on this. This has also been researched specifically for ESM, and three types of users have been identified; Readers, Moderate Contributors, and Active Contributors (Holtzblatt, Drury, Weiss, Damianos, & Cuomo, 2013). Readers perceived only little benefit from the ESM, whereas Active Contributors experienced benefits such as knowledge management, social connection, situation awareness, and collaboration (Holtzblatt et al., 2013).
Reasons for people to participate depends on the goals people have for using the ESM. It may come from competition amongst employees (Huang et al., 2011), a need for locating knowledge (Weber & Shi, 2013) or a desire to communicate with others (Leonardi & Vaast, 2017). Participation is partially driven by a person’s overall engagement but is strongly modified by a person’s interest in a topic, participants, or tasks (Muller, 2012; Rode, 2016). Besides intrinsic motivation from enjoyment in helping others, extrinsic motivation for employees to participate comes from expected gains in reputation and anticipated reciprocal benefits (Rode, 2016).
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2009) can be used to help people who use ESM to discover latent relationships. These relationships can help them find other people, projects, and organisations (Burns & Friedman, 2012; Smit et al., 2009). In this way, the ESM, besides facilitating a platform for communication, can also stimulate it by providing insight into these latent relationships. This section showed that the perceived benefits, employee demographics and, psychographics and social context play a role in the actualization of affordances and that affordances might differ from person to person. As this research focusses on the relationship between perceived ESM affordances and job involvement, the next section explores how job involvement is defined and researched in literature.
Job involvement
According to Chugtai (2008, p. 169) “an individual’s psychological identification or commitment to his / her job” can be defined as job involvement, which can be seen as part of the employee psychographics described in the previous section. For people with high job involvement, work is an important part of their lives and how they feel relates closely to their job performance (Chugtai, 2008). The literature identifies two perspectives on job involvement. Firstly, job involvement occurs based on certain individual characteristics and secondly that certain types of job or work situation characteristics increase job involvement. Examples of job characteristics are task significance, task identity, and participative decision making (Chugtai, 2008). Chugtai (2008), Ineson, Benke, & László (2013) and Zopiatis, Constanti, & Theocharous (2014) all conclude that job involvement has a positive effect on organisational commitment and besides this also fosters more positive attitudes and behaviours.
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The before mentioned needs for job involvement are all facilitated by ESM, as it allows for communication, sharing of ideas and suggestions, and finding information. A study by Zhang, Ma, Xu, & Xu (2018) concluded that social media use had a positive relation to job satisfaction and organisational commitment, two concepts that are closely related to job involvement, and that social media use also improved employee engagement. King & Lee (2016) found in their qualitative study that communication benefits a sense of belonging, greater trust, because employees make fewer mistakes, and boosts self-esteem through recognition from their colleagues. Combining all this, it can be said that ESM affords communication, the building of social capital and employee engagement and could therefore potentially benefit job involvement. Yet one could still ask if the perceived affordances of ESM do influence job involvement, and if yes, how.
Type of Employment
Now that we have looked at how IT features and user characteristics are influencing perceived affordances and a possible relationship between ESM affordances and job involvement has been described, we look at factors that might affect this relationship. Orlikowski (2010) suggested that the relationship between user characteristics and effectiveness would possibly be influenced by the size of the team, status of the employee or, most relevant for this study, type of employment. Thorsteinson (2003) recognizes that differences between part-time and full-time employees affect organisational behaviour. The difference found in their research was that full-time employees are more involved than part-time employees are (Thorsteinson, 2003). Martin & Sinclair (2007) found that companies that relied heavily on part-time workers are continuously faced with recruitment, hiring, and training of new employees. They state that any measures to involve part-time employees in the organisations’ activities might help to solve some of the retention issues. The question remains whether the use of ESM can support the job involvement of these part-time employees; therefore, this research explored the perceived ESM affordances of this user group and possibly identify ways ESM can be used to support the job involvement of these part-time employees by comparing their perceived affordances to those perceived by full-time employees.
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Theoretical argument Supported by
ESM features and ESM-user characteristics and goals influence which affordances are perceived
Faraj & Azad, 2012; Leonardi et al., 2013; Leonardi & Vaast, 2017; Majchrzak et al., 2013; Treem & Leonardi, 2012
ESM facilitates Communication by making information visible and persistent
Leonardi et al., 2013; Smit et al., 2009; Van Osch et al., 2015; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010 ESM use improves (or can improve)
Employee engagement
Karanges et al., 2015; Sharma & Bhatnagar, 2016; Zhang et al., 2018; Zopiatis et al., 2014 ESM can be used to build Social Capital
because it affords sharing knowledge and collaboration
Fulk & Yuan, 2013; King & Lee, 2016; Van Osch et al., 2015
Communication, employee engagement, and Social Capital building benefit Job Involvement.
Leonardi et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2018; Zopiatis et al., 2014
Full-time employees are more involved than part-time employees
Thorsteinson, 2003
Table 1 Synthesis of theoretical arguments identified in the literature
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The next chapter will explain how this research identified the perceived ESM affordances and their influence on job involvement for both part-time and full-time employees, through a case study including interviews, observations and document analysis.
Methods
Within this section, the methodology used for this research is explained. It consists of an explanation of the research approach, after which more details on the research site are given, and finally details on the data collection and analysis are laid out.
Research Approach
A qualitative case study is used for this research. A case study was defined by Yin (2009, p. 18) as “an empirical inquiry about a contemporary phenomenon (e.g., a “case”), set within its real-world context—especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident.”. Meyers (1997) argues that this type of research is useful in situations where the focus is on managerial and organisational issues as it gives researchers insight into participants’ perspectives and helps them understand phenomena within organisations. The case studied for this research is one regarding social media use in organisations and the effect of this on job involvement. Specifically, I looked at which affordances of ESM are perceived and the influence of these affordances on job involvement. This research is exploratory because current literature does not provide a comprehensive understanding and is limited regarding this topic. This lack of knowledge makes that a qualitative approach is very suitable for this type of research (Miles and Huberman, 1994; Eisenhardt, 1989).
Research Site
The company, in which this research was conducted, is one of the largest telecom providers in the Netherlands. Part of their customer service call centre is located in Groningen, and this was the site for this research. It suited the research as it employs both full-time and part-time workers and provides a sufficiently large sample to select subjects to interview. All employees were selected from the same department in order to prevent bias caused by different ways of being trained in using the ESM. Within this department, there are currently 67 employees and four managers. Of these 67 employees, 40% works full-time, and 60% works part-time.
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inspire, and share. The platform was developed in-house and is also maintained in-house by the internal communications department. The ESM is accessible for anyone working at the company, at any location and in any department or layer of the organisation. Each employee has his/her customized version of the platform, depending on the part of the company they work in (Retail, Customer Service or Mechanics) and can customize it further by joining groups or following tags that interest them.
Data Collection
In order to ensure triangulation, two sources of primary data were combined to provide stronger constructs and ensure the validity of the data (Gräbner & Eisenhardt, 2007). The first source of data was observations. They were used to get an initial insight into interviewees’ ESM use, which features were used, when they use it and what their goals are when using the ESM. Besides this, observing one full-time and one part-time employee allowed me to get familiar with their use and the ESM. The observations consist of a description of the physical setting, the participant, activities and interactions, conversations, any subtle factors, and my own behaviour (Merriam & Tisdell, 2009). These observations were performed by me, making sure to record this data anonymously to guarantee that it cannot be traced back to the participants. Besides observing how the employees use the ESM, I also looked at the ESM myself to be able to study all features of the ESM in detail. The field notes from all three observations are included in Appendix III and IV. Merriam & Tisdell (2009) stated that observations could be used to generate knowledge of the context and as a reference point during interviews, and that is exactly what they were used for in this study.
Semi-structured interviews were used as the primary source of evidence for this research. The semi-structured nature of the interviews was chosen to provide rich data and to allow follow up questions where needed (Adams, 2015). In line with the exploratory nature of this research, the interviews consisted of mostly “what”, “how”, and “why” questions. The purpose of the interviews was to get a deeper understanding of the influence of the perceived affordances on the job involvement of part-time and full-time employees. The questions of the interview were based on the key concepts found in the literature review, which can be found in chapter two of this paper and on the observations previously conducted. I made sure that each question served a purpose and that the priority of questions was clear in the interview guide (Adams, 2015). The interview guide can be found in Appendix I.
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purpose do you use [esm] most often? . The second concept was job involvement, which included questions as; What does job involvement mean to you? and What does currently have to strongest effect on your job involvement?. The third topic was the influence of the perceived affordance on interviewee’s job involvement. One of the questions I asked here was; Does having the option to use [esm] make you feel more involved? Why?. Finally, I put together all concepts into the last section and questioned the interviewees about their perception of the difference between part-time and full-time employees. And ended with the question; How do you believe [esm] use is influencing job involvement across the different types of employment (part-time/full-time)?.
The goal of the interviews was made clear to the participants in advance and that even though the interviews will be recorded, anonymity will be guaranteed by not using any names or other elements that could identify subjects in the transcripts. The interviews were conducted in Dutch in order to allow the participants to respond as naturally as possible (Russell Bernard, 2000). Similarly, transcription of the interviews was done in Dutch, after which the direct quotes were translated to English for use in the final research. In total, I conducted 14 interviews with seven part-time and seven full-time employees. The length of the interviews was between 19:10 and 49:30 minutes. Table 2 below gives more details about the various interviewees. The interviews took place in a conference room at the company, and interviewees were selected based on their use of ESM and the number of hours they work per week to ensure a balance between part-timers and full-timers.
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Interviewee 11 FT_Int3 32 32:32
Interviewee 12 FT_Int2 32 49:30
Interviewee 13 PT_Int6 12-16 32:38
Interviewee 14 PT_Int7 20 28:51
Table 2 Overview of interviewee codes, hours per week and length of the interviews
Additional data was gathered from company documents to provide more illustrations and examples. Two documents were consulted for this analysis. The first was called “[esm] 3.0” and provided information about the developer’s reasons and goals for this updated version of the ESM. The second was called “haal meer uit [esm]”, which would translate to “get more out of [esm]” in English. This basic manual is presented to every new employee, with the basic explanation about the functionalities of the platform and describes how one can make the most out of the use of the platform. I was supplied both documents by one of the managers of the department; I did the interviews at after I asked if he had any background information about the platform. The use of triangulation will prevent this research from instrument bias, as various instruments were used to obtain information.
Data analysis
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Once the coding in atlas.ti was done, the program was used to analyse the common concepts and differences within the groups and between the part-time and full-time employees. This has allowed me to do a within-case analysis and a cross-case analysis. Within the ESM affordances code, I looked for the perceived affordances for each user group (part-time and full-time employees). For each affordance, I looked at what features of the ESM were associated with it, what the goals of the employees were when using the ESM for this affordance and in the cross-case analysis if the affordance was perceived by both groups in the same way. The second selective code, job involvement, explored how part-time and full-time employees perceived job involvement and what influenced the level of job involvement. I compared the words part-timers used to describe job involvement to the words full-timers used and used this to describe the differences in perception of job involvement. Within the final selective code, I compared how the full-timers and part-timers experienced the influence of the employment type on the use of ESM and the view on job involvement. Not only how they perceived the influence of their own employment type but also how they perceived the influence of the other employment type. I then compared part-timers’ perceptions of full-timers and full-timers’ perceptions of part-timers, with their own description of the influence. This in order to find out
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whether the perception of the influence differs from employees’ own interpretation of the influence of their job type.
The next chapter represents the outcomes of these comparisons. The results are a combination of the three sources of information in order to give a complete picture of the findings of this research.
Results
This section displays the results I obtained from the interviews, observations and document analysis. Starting with a general description of the ESM based on the company documents and my observations, followed by a description of the perceived affordances, views on job involvement, and the influence between these two, based on the interviews with the part-time and full-part-time employees. Each section, except the first, will be divided into the view of the full-timers, view of the part-timers and a summary of the differences.
General description of the enterprise social media
The ESM is described by its developers as “an internal social platform for all employees of [company]. A platform for information, inspiration, and connection” (N.A., 2016). It consists of various types of content, such as company information, news, blogs, messages, and wiki pages (N.A., 2016). My observations of the home page (see Figure 2 and for more details Appendix III) determined that it includes the most recent updates regarding department news, company news, a personalised timeline depending on which groups you joined and tags you follow, and an overview of current disturbances. These are mostly in the form of blogs, and on the start page; only the title is displayed. After clicking on the title the blog opens on a new page and exist of a text, sometimes there is a vlog or picture incorporated in the blog. Beneath it, the name and function of the writer and the tags that have been deemed relevant are displayed. The option to like the blog and a comment section, in which every comment can also be liked, is on the bottom of the page.
For every employee, an automated user profile is created that the employee can fill out with his / her personal information (N.A., 2016). An example of this page can be found in Appendix III. The developers designed it in
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such a way that it included a profile picture, a cover photo, personal information, indicators to address one’s strengths, education and work history. This profile can be linked up with an employee’s personal LinkedIn page or filled out manually, depending on the employee’s preference (N.A., 2016). I observed that on an employee’s profile page you can also see whom this employee is following, who he or she is followed by, who else works in his / her department and also all company related information about the employees such as which department he/she works in, who his / her manager is and how he/she can be contacted.
I observed that via the foldaway menu, the ESM also offers its users access to all websites relevant for the company, including programs useful for work, the internal vacancies, an internal environment where e-learning’s can be made, and courses can be found, and a personal HR page. It also gives an overview of all groups an employee has joined and allows you to switch between them. These groups can be created by anyone and have the option to be private, only readable by members, or public (N.A., 2015). In these groups, blogs and documents are shared regarding specific topics or departments (N.A., 2016).
The search function at the top of the pages allows you to look for news, colleagues, information, vacancies, and groups (N.A., 2016). The pencil next to the search box allows you to post something to the ESM. It opens a pop-up where you can determine the title of your message, the content of your message and the group in which the message will be placed. It also allows you to use “tags”, which are keywords that can be used to find the article. Once posted, you are able to share the post in other groups or via email. Authors are also able to edit it, if it has been edited, the date below the article will show when it was edited last.
Perceived affordances
21 User groups and goals
The full-time employees of this study tend to interact with the ESM often and in an active manner. Of the seven full-time employees that were interviewed, four were active contributors on the ESM. This includes posting comments, ‘liking’ articles and writing blogs. FT_Int1 indicated that he uses the ESM on average three to four times per day, and if he finds the information interesting, he is likely to ‘like’ the post and respond to it. FT_Int2 is more moderate in his use of the ESM; he explained that he feels that often the information shared is outside his expertise, and therefore, he does not always feel the need to respond. He also uses the ESM on a daily basis. FT_Int5 described that he recently changed from a reader to an active contributor. He discovered how well it works to respond to articles for more information and is now using this more often. About the
frequency of his use, he stated: “Every day, I have it available. It is the first page I open to see if there is any important news … next to this I always keep it open and refresh it every now and then to see if there is more news.” (FT_Int5)
The second group of users are part-time employees. As can be seen from Table 3, most of these users are typed as readers. About their frequency of use, they described that they use it every time they start work because it links them to the check-in page. Almost all, except PT_Int7, described that they additionally use the ESM about one time a week to look up information for clients or find colleagues. PT_Int7 uses the ESM more often, even in her spare time, and occasionally contributed something.
When looking at the goals, the different user groups have when using the ESM; the part-time employees are mainly focussed on finding information and want to stay up to date with job specific information in order be able to help clients. Whereas the full-time employees use the ESM to work together with colleagues from other departments or locations, share information and stay up to date with job specific, company-wide information and information of personal interest.
Affordances perceived by full-time employees
Three affordances have been identified and are described below: collaboration, visibility and persistence of communication, and sharing knowledge.
Full-time Part-time
Readers FT_Int3 PT_Int1, PT_Int2,
PT_Int3, PT_Int4, PT_Int5
Moderate Contributors
FT_Int2, FT_Int7 PT_Int6, PT_Int7 Active
Contributors
FT_Int1, FT_In5, FT_Int6, FT_Int4
22 Collaboration
The first affordance perceived by full-time employees is collaboration. Full-time employees tend to use the ESM to connect with colleagues in various ways, such as finding people who belong to a specific department, working together on a project, or giving and receiving feedback. It also enables collaboration through the feature of user profiles. These profiles display a lot of basic information about each employee and can be filled out by employees themselves with a description of their current job, their common activities within this function, their strengths when it comes to product and job knowledge and additional remarks about their current job. It also displays the username for this employee, which is used in all the systems and is therefore often searched for, their employee and department code, the name of their direct manager including a link to his / her profile, and finally an area where the employee can choose to display personal information about his / herself. A screenshot of such a profile page can be seen here on the left (Figure 3). These profiles make it possible to quickly find a lot of information about colleagues working at any location of the company. This eases collaboration and makes approaching someone for feedback less complicated. Interviewees said that it affords more information about their colleagues; “reaching colleagues, instead of the limited user name that can be found in the client file program, you can see to which manager he/she belongs and in which departments he/she works.” (FT_Int5), “Finding colleagues when I need someone, for example, phone numbers, mail addresses or location of work. … I often use it when I need someone for a project, and someone else tells me maybe try someone from a specific department. Then I think which department is that? And then I search for this” (FT_Int7). Besides collaboration within the company, these profiles are also used to speed up regular processes when the situation calls for it. FT_Int6 described:
“I was talking to a client this week who had filed a complaint with regards to damage in this house. This case ended up somewhere; I could see this in the call system. But I could not get any information from it about how or what. Through [esm], I did find the contact details of this person and was able to, during the talk with the client, involve
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this person. Because of this network, the client will be helped more quickly, and the problem could be solved directly.”
The quote above shows that the ESM enables collaboration among colleagues, and with this, it adds value for the customers and makes the job of the customer service experts easier. Another feature that was referenced many times when talking about collaboration with colleagues is the search function. Interviewees described that they use this search function when they need to email a colleague about a client they spoke to
before (FT_Int2) or for finding a colleague because of the note in client file they left (FT_Int5).
Collaboration is also afforded for those that use the feedback giving and receiving option provided by the ESM. On the right, is an example of the feedback form provided on the ESM (Figure 4). By selecting the username, first or last name of the employee, the ESM automatically connects the feedback to the right person. Then some additional details are asked about the topic of the feedback, including the department it regards, what product it is related to and what the reason for the feedback is. It then provides an empty box, in which the feedback can be typed and allows you to send it to the colleague directly, and he/she will receive a notification on their profile. This feedback is not visible for anyone else besides the sender and receiver unless the receiver decides to make it visible for training purposes, then his / her direct manager can also see the feedback. This enables mutual learning through collaboration via the ESM.
Visibility and Persistence of Communication
The second affordance that full-timers credited to the ESM is that of communication, to be more specific, the visibility and persistence of communication. This affordance refers to reading communication provided by others and three types of information where identified during the interviews; job-specific information, which is communication entailing information that is directly relevant to the interviewee’s job and is essential to have; the company-wide information, which is background information about current activities of the company or
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changes that are going on but not directly affecting the interviewees’ job; information that is of personal interest for the employees because of previous jobs, future ambitions, or general interests.
When looking at the first type of information, full-timers received this information through the ESM in the form of blogs or vlogs. This information is used “directly in client conversations to clarify problems and write them down clearly.” (FT_Int1). I also observed FT_Int3 uses the information directly in his conversations with clients. FT_Int1 also described that the information varies a lot:
“Actually, everything that I can use in my conversation with clients. From the introduction of [product], in which areas it is being implemented. The [product] and price changes are also published there. Maintenance in various systems, what is happening when and when these same systems temporarily cannot be used. Actually, everything that I need for the client is published on [esm].”
Through the affordance of visibility and persistence of this communication, employees are better informed, stay up to date and know what changes can be expected. Communication about marketing efforts, disturbances in systems, current and future discounts, and terms and conditions can be found on the ESM (FT_Int2, FT_Int5). Another example of communication that is provided through the ESM is tips and tricks from the experts of other departments. “Currently there are around 50, these are things that they run into often as unknown by others, but the normal employees do not. For example, certain processes that can be followed, of which I did not know they existed before. Very convenient to find out that they exist”. (FT_Int5) The fact that this information is visible for all employees in the customer service area of the company makes communication easier and increases the reach of these experts beyond their department.
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that were interviewed all but one mentioned to be aware of this commenting feature or use it regularly.
The second, company-wide information is also mentioned by full-time employees. FT_Int6 explained that:
“On the main page, you can find updates from the management, a summary of the business call where only a couple of people were present. In this, the vision of the company is discussed, what has been realised in the past months and what can be improved. Besides this, you can also find all disturbances that have been reported on this main page.”
The fact that this information is shared on the ESM and can be accessed by anyone within the company makes that the visibility of this information is greatly improved through the ESM. Also, to the best of the interviewees’ knowledge the updates are never removed, and this makes the information provided through the ESM very persistent and allows the employees to revisit the information at a later stage if they need it.
The final type of communication is that of personal interest for the full-time interviewees. This includes for, FT_Int1 and FT_Int6 the vacancies that are shared because they are looking for new career opportunities. The ESM includes a section where all vacancies are shared; this exists of a description of the vacancy, including contact information for the person posting the vacancy, and a search function where vacancies can be filtered on location, employment type, years of experience and field of profession. The ESM also provides the user with a form after each vacancy, where one’s motivation and resume can be submitted. The interviewees (FT_Int1, FT_Int6) described that this allows them to quickly find relevant information about vacancies and the skills/experience needed for these types of jobs. FT_Int4 explained that if he has the time, he also looks into security cases. The fact that communication about this is also visible makes it easy for him to satisfy his curiosity.
Sharing Knowledge
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groups eases the secure sharing of sensitive information and ensures that the right people get the right information. The ESM allows its users to post blogs and/or vlogs in groups or on the central news pages. Because the author can determine where it is posted, they can also determine with whom it is shared. The second feature that the interviewees indicated that helps them share knowledge is the fact that they can share blogs of others. This way, they can repost information and emphasise its importance for those that might not have read the blog. Finally, the commenting feature also creates the possibility to share additional knowledge with the author of a blog or vlog. FT_Int4 mentioned:
“The comments are read by people from the process management, which is something I find positive. You have the person who places the article, and with this, you also have a functional manager that belongs to the topic. He/she is also always mentioned, for example, an implementation manager or a process manager. You see that some of them are very active in responding to comment underneath, the questions or remarks, and if you look at this, I do notice those process managers that do this generate a lot more information and responses than those that do not.”
This indicates that when the comments are used actively, they can be a facilitator for additional knowledge and a place where knowledge can be shared. However, not all full-time employees shared this opinion. FT_Int2 stated that:
“Underneath every news message, you can post a reaction… However, this is not a function that I am currently using; however, the function is there. So, at the moment, in that sense, it is mainly one-directional communication, but that is also because I do not see it as a means for interaction.”
When asked for the reason for not using this feature FT_Int2 explained that most of the time the content of the articles is very technical, outside of his expertise, and he does not feel the need to respond to these messages.
Affordances perceived by part-time employees
27 Visibility and persistence of communication
The affordance that became apparent from the interviews with the part-time employees is that of visibility and persistence of communication. The part-time employees mainly look for job-specific knowledge when using ESM. How ESM affords them to find this information is via news-blogs, the calendar with upcoming events and the overview of current disturbance within systems they use. PT_Int6 explained: “[esm] is the facebook of the company. You can find anything there, regarding mechanics, what is planned with regards to campaigns or changes in systems. Price changes, product changes, which planner is currently working. Every site we work with, with all the programs is on it. Also, disturbances in systems are on it.” During my observation, I observed that PT_Int6 mainly uses the ESM when clients ask for specific information. PT_Int3 said that the information she finds on the ESM helps her stay up to date about changes and important information on the company. She described that it helps her in her daily activities because she can always find the information, and it remains there.
“It helps me because I am more quickly informed about changes or news, which I can then use in my conversations. This information also comes to me via email or via colleagues, but on [esm] it is always nicely summarised, and the information stays accessible. This is also convenient because some clients call four or five weeks after something happened to find then out why it changed, and this way, you can always retrieve the information again. The only struggle I sometimes have is that I cannot find information quick enough, but besides that, I mainly see advantages to using [esm]” (PT_Int3)
The other part-timers described that they mainly use the homepage (Figure 5) when opening the ESM to check in and they are drawn to a certain news-blog or disturbance they click on it to find out more. I observed that the home page (see Appendix III) consists of: relevant news, which is focussed on the department you work in; company news and blogs, which is more general information; by my colleagues, where blogs written by direct co-workers
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are displayed; the notifications about disturbances, where updates can be found about current problems with internal systems.
PT_Int2 gave an example of job-specific information that was essential to know and which was communicated via the ESM. The way of logging in on the phones, which you need to do to be able to do your job had been changed. PT_Int2 explained: “another example is the change in the use of the phones. The way you log in has recently been changed; this was also communicated via [esm]. Far in advance it was announced and on the day itself in the office, it was once more pointed out that we could find there what new way of working was.”
PT_Int6 stated that the calendar was one of the components of the ESM that she uses very often because it gives her a direct overview of what the upcoming changes/events are. You can scroll through it and get an overview for the next two and a half months. An example of the current calendar is displayed on the right in Figure 6.
Summary of differences
Full-timers are more focussed on the company as a whole and are looking for knowledge and opportunities outside their direct job field. They also perceived one affordance the part-timers did not, which is the affordance of collaboration. Part-part-timers are more client-oriented and tend to look for job specific information related to their own department. They tend to use the ESM more passively by just gathering information by reading instead of actively contributing to it.
Job Involvement
The following subchapter gives an insight into the experience of job involvement and influences on it from respectively a full-time and a part-time perspective. The findings in this subchapter are based on the interviews conducted with both the full-time as well as the part-time employees.
Full-timer’s view on job involvement
When asked for their definition of job involvement, full-timers gave various answers. FT_Int1 indicated:
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“For me, it means that you have an interest in what is going on in your work field, and therefore you are up to date of what is going on in the department. For example, now with the price changes going on, actually all the relevant information you need in conversation, that you know of this. That is involvement, minimal involvement according to me.”
FT_Int2 agreed with this definition, stating:
“Staying up to date with what happens. So, I think, if something is announced, if I know what is going in my job, I think that is important. In order to be able to retain customers, it is important to be involved with what is going on with the customers I speak to. This is always the goal with customer service, but for me, this job is very important, so I find that important. Moreover, well, it is also that I know the description of my job very well, doing everything I can to keep the client satisfied and retain them.”
As described in the previous two quotes, the full-timers see job involvement as a normal part of their job. FT_Int4 and FT_Int5 also agree that it is a standard part of the job description. FT_Int6 even described that job involvement means to her that she and the company are one. She finds it important that she carries out values that are deemed important by the company, especially because she has to communicate about this daily. FT_Int7 stated that he does not only see job involvement as wanting the best for the company but also his colleagues and the clients.
When looking at the influences on job involvement, the full-timers mentioned their intrinsic motivation to be a positive influence (FT_Int1). Other positive influences include their managers’ involvement (FT_Int1), the access to information (FT_Int1, FT_Int4, FT_Int7), company-wide activities to promote involvement (FT_Int1, FT_Int5, FT_Int6, FT_Int7) and their colleagues (FT_In3, FT_Int4). FT_Int1 gave an example of how access to information can have a positive influence:
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Negative effects were attributed to the lack of time to get involved (FT_Int1, FT_Int7). Also, the communication of information was not always seen as optimal; for example, interviewees indicated that unclear or inconsistent information (FT_Int2) also has a negative influence on their involvement. Furthermore, the timing of information could often be improved (FT_Int2, FT_Int4). FT_Int2 indicated the information is often shared with employees and customers at the same time, if not later than with the customers, and the reasoning behind certain statements is often not explained which makes answering the client’s questions more difficult, if not impossible. The final factor that was described to have a negative influence on the full-timers job involvement was lack of appreciation when doing something outsides of their direct job description (FT_Int3, FT_Int5).
Part-timer’s view on job involvement
Job involvement through the eyes of a part-time employee includes staying up to date, getting the best results possible for the company within your own abilities and to do more than the average employee. PT_Int4 described it as:
“I think it is staying up to date with what is going on in the company. Staying up to date with what colleagues are doing or are not doing. And trying not to do the job with your own interests in mind but in the interest of the company and the people you are helping”. PT_Int6 added to this by saying:
“I think if someone is involved with the company, they have the company in their heart. He does not have to agree with everything but does do everything in his power to do the job that he does as well as he can and does even something extra here and there. And with this does try to do everything to stay up to date, work as well as possible and dares to ask questions. Because I think when you are afraid to ask questions, you feel there is a distance, and you are not really involved. For me, it is having the company in your heart”.
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Looking at the influencing factors on the level of job involvement of the part-time employees, there were two factors that were indicated to have a positive influence, the first being communication. PT_Int1 described that the company communicates often and supplies the employees with much information; this, for him, has a positive influence on his involvement. PT_Int6 explained that the diversity of information that is supplied makes that there is always something that sparks your interest. Therefore, if you do read it, and it increases your level of job involvement.
The second factors that were mentioned by multiple interviewees are the rewards given and appreciation shown, PT_Int2 and PT_Int3 talked about the funds they get every year to invest in their own chosen development opportunities, such as additional courses or certificates they would like to obtain. PT_Int6 and PT_Int7 both declared that appreciation is essential to increase their involvement. PT_Int1 also referred to appreciation/bonuses, which makes the employees feel more appreciated and therefore more involved. PT_Int6 explained that this appreciation does not only has to come from her manager but also the opinion of her colleagues has an influence on her job involvement. She explained:
“It helps you to look at your colleagues critically, and together to achieve the best possible results. I think it is important to give a compliment every now and then because I am probably not the only one who needs that appreciation. I do think it has to come from both sides, it does not per definition have to help me, maybe just because I become more aware of it, but mostly it helps the colleagues on the other end of the line. Because if a colleague says, hey you are really doing a good job, or hey maybe you should pay attention to this. This way, you are encouraged to develop yourself and think about what you are doing. In this way, the whole organisation gets more involved in achieving goals together. And I definitely think this can have an influence on job involvement.” (PT_Int6)
It is clear that she feels job involvement brings people together, and part of this is appreciating each other and helping everybody develop so that they and the company can reach their full potential.
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goals for the incentive he needs to make compromises in the way clients are served and the company suffers from this. He said, “the service is sacrificed for the targets”. PT_Int6 agree with this and mentioned that the incentives are more focussed on hard work than on involvement. She feels that the incentives are impossible to achieve and just not the right type. Besides this PT_Int6 also mentioned that the number of hours a week she is at the company also has a negative influence on her involvement. She described, “Sometimes I hear colleagues talking about things, and I think what are you talking about? Then it turns out that the information was shared on [esm] earlier”.
Summary of differences
To summarise, for full-timers involvement is seen as normal and as something that has to come from an individual’s intrinsic motivation. Part-timers seem to feel like it is the company’s job to involve them. They do know what involvement should entail but also mentioned that this is not what they feel towards the company. Both groups did explain that communication, more specifically, timely and correct communication, is essential for them to feel involved. Appreciation plays a vital role too, when it is not given, it has a negative influence, but when it is given, it has a positive influence on the level of job involvement. Influence of perceived ESM affordances on job involvement
The findings on the influence of the perceived ESM affordances on job involvement according to full-time and part-time employees are described here. This section combines the answers from the previous two sub-chapters and adds to this some additional knowledge gained from the interviews and observations.
Full-timers’ point of view
As described before, full-time employees associated three affordances with the ESM. These being collaboration, visibility and persistence of information, and sharing knowledge. The following section will describe how each affordance contributes to the level of job involvement of these full-time employees.
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also describes that he sees the ESM as something that could increase colleagues job involvement and their enthusiasm, by assisting them with finding information and solving the problems they encounter, which is related to the affordance of sharing knowledge.
Full-time employees also indicated that the second affordance, visibility and persistence of communication, is related to their level of job involvement. They indicated that quicker access to information helps them better help the clients, which cancels out the negative effect of not having information in time. Therefore, being supplied this information via the ESM improves the opportunities for full-time employees to inform themselves and the facilities for an increase in their level of job involvement. The relationship between the perceived affordance and job involvement is present in the eyes of the full-time employees. However, it does work both ways. If the information can be found, then it has a positive influence. However, if information cannot be found easily, the influence could just as well be negative. FT_Int4 did mention that this affordance could contribute to job involvement, but only when the information exchange goes both ways. If information is shared, which creates questions, it is important that a response to the questions is given as soon as possible.
The last affordance perceived by full-time employees, which is sharing knowledge. The full-time employees did not indicate any direct links between the possibility to share knowledge and their job involvement. FT_Int4 felt that because he could share knowledge, he was able to make others more involved but did not mention a direct effect on his level of involvement, there it could be related to the building of social capital.
To summarise, two job characteristics turned out to have the biggest impact on job involvement for full-time employees. Namely, the provision of information, which is related to the visibility and persistence of communication affordance, and support and cooperation with their colleagues, which is related to the collaboration affordance.
Part-timers’ point of view
The influence of the perceived affordances for part-timers on their job involvement is related to the affordance that was identified previously, namely visibility and persistence of communication.
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the ESM. They stated that it often feels like catching up with yesterday’s news, and they do not read it often enough to be helpful for their job involvement. Some do, however, recognize the potential, by indicating that if they do have time to read everything, it will improve their job involvement. PT_Int7 explained that:
“Because it is a lot. I work Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. And I do notice that on Tuesday and Sunday I often check it. So actually I use the system full-time, whilst I am a part-timer. But yes, normal people do not do this. Because it is a lot. I know, for example [name colleague], she is very busy, she does not work much, and she cannot keep up. She says [esm], where do I find this, where do it find that. She gets lost in the forest of [esm]”.
This statement indicates that those who do not take the extra time to check it daily or read everything before they start just do not have the same options for being involved because they simply do not know everything that is going on. PT_Int1 explained that his job involvement was influenced less by the ESM because his focus is on other things, not just the company. PT_Int5 agreed with this and added to it that he does not feel the desire to increase his involvement as it is just a part-time job for him and not his main focus.
For part-timers, the job characteristic that is deemed most important is the provision of job specific information, which is related to the affordance of visibility and persistence of communication on the ESM.
Summary of differences
Full-timers are more active in using the ESM and, therefore, it enables many ways of involvement for them. Part-timers struggle to find the relevant information and time to catch up. Part-timers do feel that if they had time, the ESM could be useful, but not as it is right now.
The affordance of visibility and persistence of communication is perceived by both user groups and linked to job involvement through the need for information and the enablement of employee engagement thanks to the supply of information. The affordances of collaboration and sharing knowledge are related to the building of social capital, which is part of job involvement. Because the ESM affords cooperation throughout all departments, the potential for social capital becomes company-wide instead of just with direct colleagues.
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motivated and feels a high level of involvement and thus takes the time to use the ESM often, also outside her working hours. This is in line with PT_Int5 indication that once the employees are motivated or involved enough to start using the ESM more often, it can help strengthen their job involvement, but some level of involvement needs to be present for the employees to start using the ESM.
Discussion
This chapter discusses the findings of this study in relation to the literature, describes the theoretical contributions of this research and makes recommendations for managers, based on the data found in the research. The next section explains the limitations of this case study and highlights areas for future research. The last section gives a summary of the results in the conclusion.
The research question for this study was: “How do the perceived ESM affordances influence the job involvement of part-time and full-time employees?” This study determined that the perceived affordances of ESM strengthen job involvement, and the effect is stronger for full-time employees than part-time employees. To be more specific, the perceived affordances of collaboration, visibility and persistence of communication, and sharing knowledge benefit the building of social capital and engagement of employees, which are part of job involvement. The perceived affordances vary based on the type of employment. For example, full-time employees perceived more affordances than part-time employees, as they spent more time on the ESM and were more familiar with the different features it offered.
Moreover, full-time employees felt intrinsic motivation and external factors influenced job involvement, while part-time employees described that it should instead be something that is encouraged by external factors. However, the results of this research also indicated that frequent use and a certain level of familiarity are essential in this. And that to generate this a basic level of job involvement is needed. Therefore, it can be said that the perceived affordances of ESM strengthen job involvement rather than generate it. This combination of perceiving different affordances and defining different influences on job involvement makes that the effect is stronger for full-time employees.
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McAfee, 2006). This research confirms that these features are still used nowadays and are part of the IT features that form the basis for the affordances of ESM. The literature already described that affordances perceived depend on IT features and user characteristics and goals (Leonardi, 2017; Leonardi et al., 2013; Leonardi & Vaast, 2017; Treem & Leonardi, 2012). Also, it suggested that employment type could affect the perception of affordances (Orlikowski, 2010); the direct influence of employment type had not been studied before. My findings show that the part-time employees who were mainly looking for information on the ESM, to help the clients, also related the features they perceived to the affordance of visibility and persistence of communication. Whereas the full-time employees, whose goals were working together, sharing information, and staying up to date on job-specific-, company-wide- information and for some even topics that personally interested them, related the same features to more affordances. Besides the affordance of visibility and persistence of communication, they also perceived the affordance of collaboration and sharing knowledge. This research found that affordances do vary amongst employment types and that frequency of use and user goals have a positive impact on the affordances perceived.
Definitions of job involvement within this research turned out to be similar to past studies (Chugtai, 2008; Ineson et al., 2013; Kuhnel et al., 2009; Zopiatis et al., 2014). The key elements that were defined, by both the full-time and part-time employees, were; carrying out values deemed necessary by the company, wanting the best for both the company and your colleagues, and knowing what is going on. However, the results of this study showed a clear difference in the generation of this involvement between full-time and part-time employees, which previous studies did not highlight. Chugtai (2008) did state that job involvement depends on individual and job characteristics and this research found the same influences. However, this research adds that the part-time employees relied more on the job characteristics, such as rewards or appreciation of their manager, to increase their job involvement. Whereas the full-time employees felt job involvement was intrinsically motivated and thus based on the individual characteristics, such as caring for colleagues or wanting to do well at your job and complimented by job characteristics, such as advancement opportunities or praise of a manager.
