Abstract

Keywords

۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Methodology

۳٫ Theoretical background

۴٫ Direct and indirect effects of affordances on employees’ impression management strategies

۵٫ Contingent effects on the relationship between affordances and employees’ impression management strategies

۶٫ Discussion

۷٫ Conclusions

Acknowledgements

References

Vitae

Abstract

Enterprise Social Media Platforms (ESMPs) are arenas for self-presentation where employees construct, co-create, and maintain an online image among their colleagues. This study systemically evaluated the current literature to understand the potential of ESMPs in influencing employees’ impression management strategies from the affordance perspective. Drawing from a focused review of the literature on ESMPs’ affordances and impression management, this paper reclassified employees’ impression management strategies in the context of ESMPs. It proposes a conceptual framework that captures the complex relationship between ESMPs’ affordances and employees’ various impression management strategies. The framework highlights that ESMPs’ affordances affect employees’ impression management strategies, both positively and negatively, and proposes the contingent effects of individual motives and boundary management on the relationship between affordances and employees’ impression management strategies. Our literature review and proposed framework provide a useful basis for future studies on impression management on ESMPs. Our framework also helps employees manage impressions strategically and managers and ESMPs’ developers to fulfil ESMPs’ potential by understanding how affordance affects impression management strategies.

۱٫ Introduction

The advancement of web-based technology enabled social media (such as blogs, wikis, social networking sites, social tagging and microblogging) to proliferate rapidly, leading to new management practices in organisations (Cao & Yu, 2019). An increasing number of organisations in various industries are deploying social media to improve critical organisational processes (Kwayu, Abubakre, & Lal, 2021). According to McKinsey’s survey, 65 % of corporations reported using Web 2.0 technologies in their organisations (Bughin & Chui, 2010).

Enterprise social media platforms (ESMPs) are digital platforms based on Web 2.0 technologies that can help employees connect, collaborate and communicate (Azaizah, Reychav, Raban, Simon, & McHaney, 2018; Zhu, Sun, Jeyaraj, & Hao, 2021). The benefits of ESMPs also include improving employees’ agility (Cai, Huang, Liu, & Wang, 2018), team improvisation ability (Sun, Wu, Chen, Lin, & Shang, 2020), and team creative performance (Cao & Ali, 2018). ESMPs’ achievements are mostly due to their characteristics, which differ from other information and communication technologies. For instance, employees can observe the conversations and social connections among colleagues to promote knowledge transfer (Islam, Jasimuddin, & Hasan, 2017). Yammer, Chatter, Jive and Sharepoint are some of the popular ESMPs organisations use to encourage employees’ information and knowledge sharing and add value to their existing processes (Schrage, 2013).