Impact of Self-Construal on Choice of Enterprise Social Media for Knowledge Sharing

Abstract

Researchers have rarely focused on organizations choosing the right knowledge-sharing media according to users' individual-level variables such as self-construal. We investigated the impact of self-construal (independent vs. interdependent) and organizational relationship (ingroup vs. outgroup) on employees' motivation, self-efficacy, and openness of sharing through two widely adopted online knowledge-sharing social media: wiki (e.g., Wikipedia, a volunteer-contributed encyclopedia) and a question and answer (Q&A) archive. Quantitative responses to 4 scenarios were collected from 232 Chinese employees. The results indicated that when sharing with outgroup members, interdependent employees (but not independent employees) had higher self-efficacy and openness of sharing using wiki than using Q&A. No difference between the two social media was found in the ingroup sharing. Theoretical implications and implications for practicing managers are discussed.