How enterprise social media facilitate proactive socialization behavior and compensate for mentoring: The role of communication visibility

Although recent research indicates the positive role of enterprise social media (ESM) in the newcomer socialization process, the underlying mechanism and how it interacts with traditional mentoring to influence proactive newcomer socialization remain underexplored. Drawing on the social media affordance perspective and communication visibility theory, this study examines how ESM use for organizational communication influences proactive newcomer socialization behavior. In a lagged survey of 194 newcomers, we find that ESM use for organizational communication affects proactive socialization behavior positively via message transparency and network translucence. Furthermore, perceived mentoring quality reduces the effect of ESM use for organizational communication on proactive socialization behavior. These results contribute to the understanding of ESM’s role in promoting proactive newcomer socialization behavior.