Enterprise social media (ESM) is changing how knowledge workers interact and share information; however, a debate persists as to whether ESM is an adequate knowledge management system. ESM provides a rich set of affordances for organizational knowledge work, such as improved organizational memory, but also constrains knowledge work performance because of digital interruptions. Extending and complementing existing scholarship, this study asks the following research question: How can organizations design ESM to realize its knowledge work benefits? Using a computational agent-based model that incorporates the design features of ESM, workers’ attitudes, and resulting ESM-use affordances and constraints, this study shows how ESM-use outcomes are contingent both on the design of and users’ attitudes toward ESM. Specifically, the negative effects of ESM interactivity are mitigated when employees have a low transparency preference and access ESM without posting as much. The study further unpacks asymmetric engagement as the mechanism that leads low transparency configurations to be more resilient to the negative effects of interruptions driven by ESM interactivity. Asymmetric engagement—learning from posted content without interacting often—enables the gradual creation of organizational memory while maintaining a broad user base by minimizing interruptions. These results ultimately contribute a multilevel model of ESM use and knowledge work outcomes, enhancing the theoretical understanding of previously studied mechanisms such as communication visibility and providing implications for organizations designing ESM.

中文翻译：

---

平衡可供性和约束：为组织知识工作设计企业社交媒体

企业社交媒体（ESM）正在改变知识工作者互动和共享信息的方式；然而，关于 ESM 是否是一个适当的知识管理系统仍然存在争论。ESM 为组织知识工作提供了丰富的可供性，例如改进的组织记忆，但也由于数字中断而限制了知识工作的绩效。本研究扩展和补充了现有的学术成果，提出了以下研究问题：组织如何设计 ESM 来实现其知识工作效益？本研究使用基于计算代理的模型，该模型结合了 ESM 的设计特征、工人的态度以及由此产生的 ESM 使用可供性和约束，表明 ESM 使用结果如何取决于 ESM 的设计和用户对 ESM 的态度。具体来说，当员工的透明度偏好较低并且访问 ESM 而无需发布太多内容时，ESM 交互性的负面影响就会减轻。该研究进一步揭示了不对称参与的机制，该机制导致低透明度配置对 ESM 交互性造成的干扰的负面影响更具弹性。非对称参与（从发布的内容中学习而不经常互动）可以逐渐创建组织记忆，同时通过最大限度地减少干扰来维持广泛的用户群。这些结果最终贡献了 ESM 使用和知识工作成果的多层次模型，增强了对先前研究的机制（例如通信可见性）的理论理解，并为设计 ESM 的组织提供了启示。