Analysing Employees' Willingness to Disclose Information in Enterprise Social Networks: the Role of organisational Culture

Due to the rise of social media, many companies have started to implement enterprise social networks (ESNs). Compared to existing systems supporting communication and collaboration in organisations, ESNs can foster employees’ productivity and innovativeness by making previously invisible communication among employees visible. However, this visibility can prevent employees from disclosing information within ESNs. As the success of ESNs depends on users’ contributions, it is crucial to understand which factors influence employees’ behaviour in this regard. In this research, we investigate the role of organisational culture in fostering employees’ trusting and mitigating their risk beliefs, two factors we transfer from research on Online Social Networks (OSNs) and hypothesize to be highly relevant for information disclosure in ESNs. Based on data obtained from 282 employees, we find support for our hypotheses and illustrate that group and development culture significantly affect employees’ trusting and risk beliefs, and their willingness to disclose information. Our results imply that organisations should carefully assess employees’ trusting and risk beliefs as well as their culture to account for possible obstacles preventing employees’ information disclosure.

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