Start Date

10-12-2017 12:00 AM

Description

Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs) are increasingly implemented, as they promise to offer enormous potentials to enhance organizational collaboration, innovation, and performance. Nevertheless, many companies fail to encourage their employees to actively engage in ESNs. In order to understand the reasons for the lack of participation, we qualitatively surveyed 553 non-users of a multinational knowledge-intensive company. Using the concept of affordances as theoretical framework, we found our categories to be rooted in six affordances: visibility, persistence, editability, association, accessibility, and practicability. Furthermore, we provide empirical support for three propositions on non-usage: (1) Non-users do not actualize an affordance, because they are not aware of the affordance existence, (2) Non-users do not actualize the affordance owing to their subjective action goals, and (3) Non-users do not actualize the affordance due to negative effects created by the affordance. Our findings yield important practical implications on how to encourage non-users to participate in ESNs.

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Dec 10th, 12:00 AM

Why do you NOT use the Enterprise Social Network? Analyzing Non-Users' reasons through the lens of Affordances

Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs) are increasingly implemented, as they promise to offer enormous potentials to enhance organizational collaboration, innovation, and performance. Nevertheless, many companies fail to encourage their employees to actively engage in ESNs. In order to understand the reasons for the lack of participation, we qualitatively surveyed 553 non-users of a multinational knowledge-intensive company. Using the concept of affordances as theoretical framework, we found our categories to be rooted in six affordances: visibility, persistence, editability, association, accessibility, and practicability. Furthermore, we provide empirical support for three propositions on non-usage: (1) Non-users do not actualize an affordance, because they are not aware of the affordance existence, (2) Non-users do not actualize the affordance owing to their subjective action goals, and (3) Non-users do not actualize the affordance due to negative effects created by the affordance. Our findings yield important practical implications on how to encourage non-users to participate in ESNs.