Effect of enterprise social media and psychological safety on employee's agility: mediating role of communication quality

Abstract

Enterprise social media (ESM) is an open and public platform that facilitates employee discussions on work-related issues. However, researchers and practitioners are vague about the advantages of ESM usage in the workplace to handle the work related uncertainties. This study investigated whether and how ESM usage, psychological safety can be positively associated with employee's agility. Employee's agility is the ability of the employee to react and adopt environmental changes more promptly and appropriately. Based on information processing theory, this study examines employee agility by considering the mediating effect of communication quality. Data was collected from 167 employees who adopted ESM in the workplace, the existing study supports our proposed hypotheses and mediating effect. The findings confirm the significant role of ESM usage and psychological safety in improving employee agility through communication quality. This research study contributes to the existing ESM literature by investigating communication quality and its role in developing employee's agility in the context of ESM and suggesting managerial implications of ESM usage in improving the employee's agility.