To read this content please select one of the options below:

Employee creativity in a digital era: the mediating role of social media

Pawel Korzynski (Department of Management, Kozminski University, Warszawa, Poland) (Department of Business Economics, Harvard University, Swampscott, Massachusetts, USA)
Jordi Paniagua (Department of Applied Economics II, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain)
Eduardo Rodriguez-Montemayor (Department Economics, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France)

Management Decision

ISSN: 0025-1747

Article publication date: 14 May 2019

Issue publication date: 27 April 2020

1613

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the use of social media can facilitate employee creativity. Departing from theories on social capital and knowledge management, this study examines the relationship among individual characteristics, the use of social technologies and employee creativity. The main hypothesis of the study is that online social networking mediates the relationship between personal innovativeness and creativity.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were obtained through an online survey of 80 engineers and 12 managers working in a large IT company listed by the Fortune 500 (n1=80, n2=12). The empirical strategy relies on fixed-effects structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analysis with a quasi-experimental design to study the structural relationship among creativity, online social connectivity (OSC) and personal innovativeness.

Findings

The study provides three major findings. First, the results show that personal innovativeness regarding new technologies is positively associated with creativity. Second, 18 percent of the association between personal innovativeness and creativity is explained by the latent mediator OSC (a construct of online networking and knowledge management). More specifically, the partial mediation is driven by online networking, specifically establishing new connections. Finally, contrary to the expectations, there is no significant evidence that the relationship between creativity and personal innovativeness is mediated by online social knowledge management.

Practical implications

Understanding the ways in which online connections and online knowledge management as well as personal innovativeness are related to employee creativity helps in building innovative organizations. This study may facilitate recruitment and selection strategies and encourage organizations to implement platforms with user-friendly functionalities of connecting with other employees and searching data.

Originality/value

The main question of this study is whether all features related to social technologies make people more creative. Evidence is still scarce, but there are hints that creativity is not only an innate personal feature but also a social phenomenon. This study explains the benefits of OSC for enhancing employee creativity.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Jordi Paniagua gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Generalitat Valenciana (GV/2017/052) and the Spanish ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (RTI2018-100899-B-I00).

Citation

Korzynski, P., Paniagua, J. and Rodriguez-Montemayor, E. (2020), "Employee creativity in a digital era: the mediating role of social media", Management Decision, Vol. 58 No. 6, pp. 1100-1117. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-05-2018-0586

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles