Understanding the Continuance Participation of Enterprise Social Media Using the Self-Determined Theory

Abstract

Enterprise social media (ESM) technologies are increasingly adopted by organizations to improve organizational processes. Since ESM can afford high communication visibility, employees may be afraid of being supervised. Drawing from self-determination theory, this paper examined how communication visibility moderates the process from two types of motivations (i.e., autonomous motivation and controlled motivation) to employees' subsequent participation provision. Factor-based structural equation modeling was used to analyze a recall-based sample, including 358 employees who are using an ESM tool named DingTalk, within their organizations. The results revealed that autonomous/controlled motivation could indirectly increase/decrease continuance participation intention by positive affect. Also, communication visibility can undermine the positive effects of autonomous motivation and then continuance participation intention. These findings suggest the necessity of stimulating ESM participation with autonomous motivation and balancing the communication visibility afforded by ESM.