ESM have created new opportunities for groups of individuals to create networks of connections, including previously unknown others inside the same organization. The formation of social capital in the context of ESM is inherently affected by the visibility affordance of these tools, resulting in either visible or invisible groups. As such, ESM offered a unique opportunity to assess the effects of visibility on group processes, specifically in the context of social capital formation. Given that past research has had a strong positivity bias with respect to the role of visibility on organizational processes, we developed and validated a framework that incorporated both visibility and invisibility and suggested that social capital formation can emerge within both visible and invisible groups, yet, that the exact form of social capital—i.e., bonding or bridging—are shaped by the visibility settings of the group and the level of discussions ongoing in the group. Therefore, as researchers of ESM technologies, we must be cautious in generalizing about the unequivocal effects of visibility and instead must be sensitive to the idiosyncrasies of visible versus invisible groups and their emergent network structures. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
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This content will become publicly available on May 7, 2024
Living in a Fishbowl or Not: The Role of Transparency and Privacy in Creative Dialogues on Enterprise Social Media
Transparency—the observability of activities, behaviors, and performance—is often treated as a panaceafor modern management. Yet there is a conundrum in the literature, with some studies suggesting thattransparency may benefit group creativity and others suggesting that privacy may do so. A similarconundrum exists regarding the effects of different social capital types—structural holes vs. networkcohesion—on group creativity. Enterprise social media (ESM) provide a unique opportunity to solve theseconundrums by allowing groups to be “transparent” (non-group members can observe and/or participatein group activities) or “private” (group members and activities are hidden from the community) andenabling groups to develop distinct social capital structures. Using data from 28,083 written interactionsproduced by 109 transparent and 106 private groups in an ESM of a multinational design firm, we foundstrong support for our contingency hypotheses that both transparent and private groups may produce highlevels of creative dialogues, yet in different forms. Specifically, expansion-focused creative dialogues—those focused on combining or expanding existing concepts—emerge in transparent groups, but onlywhen the group’s social capital is characterized by structural holes. Conversely, we found that reframingfocused dialogues—those focused on challenging and rethinking—emerge in private groups but onlywhen the group’s social capital is characterized by network cohesion. Theoretically, these findings canhelp to solve the conundrums in the literature on group creativity and shed light on the role of ESM usein this context. Practically, our findings offer a critical reflection o contemporary initiatives for increasingtransparency, whether through physical design or digital transformation.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 1749018
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10484150
- Publisher / Repository:
- Association for Information Systems
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of the Association for Information Systems
- Volume:
- 24
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 1536-9323
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 846 to 881
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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