Empirical Investigation of How Social Media Usage Enhances Employee Creativity: The Role of Knowledge Management Behavior

Abstract

Employee use of social media in the workplace has become a common phenomenon. Thus, how to effectively manage and utilize employee social media usage in the workplace has become a new issue. This study examines how employees’ work-related and social-related social media usage at work can present different impacts upon their creativity through knowledge management behaviors. To test the research model, this study collected data from 425 employees in various industries in China and utilized a covariance-based structural equation model (CB-SEM) to test the hypotheses. The results suggested that work-related social media usage enhances employee creativity through promoting knowledge sharing and restraining knowledge manipulation. On the contrary, social-related social media usage cannot indirectly influence employee creativity through knowledge management behaviors. This study contributes to the literature on social media research by providing theoretical arguments on how employee use of social media for different purposes affects their creativity. Furthermore, this research offers the insight of the different paths of work-related and social-related social media usage that influence employee creativity rather than treating social media usage as a unitary concept and linking it simply with work results. This study also explores the role of three knowledge management behaviors in the relationship between social media usage and employee creativity.