The comparison study on employees’ adoption of public and enterprise social networks

2.1 Definition of PSNs

PSNs are platforms to build social network/ relations among people who share interests, activities, background or real-life connections [11, 12]. The classical ones include Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Sina Weibo, WhatsApp, Instagram, Skype, Viber, China’s WeChat, Japan’s Line etc [13]. PSNs allow users to express themselves, connect to a social network, while develop and keep good relations with others. Compared with ESNs, PSNs are normally used by individuals on public SNSs platforms, while ESNs are just used by employees on company-boundary SNSs platforms.

2.2 Definition of ESNs

What are exactly ESNs? Ref. [14] define them as: “Web-based platforms that allow workers to (1) communicate messages with specific coworkers or broadcast messages to everyone in the organization; (2) explicitly indicate or implicitly reveal particular coworkers as communication partners; (3) post, edit, and sort text and files linked to themselves or others; and (4) view the messages, connections, text, and files communicated, posted, edited and sorted by anyone else in the organization at any time of their choosing”. However, according to Carr and Tayes’s notion for social media [6], our definition of ESNs is internet-based, which involves web-based applications and other applications of the internet, file transfer protocols (FTP), and media streaming to facilitate communication by circumventing the web all together.

Leonardi and his colleagues believe that there are four affordances provided by ESNs that are made distinct from other communication technologies commonly used in organizations: visibility, persistence, editability and association [15, 16]. More specifically, the new set of tools provides people an unprecedented level of visibility into the knowledge, activities, and work behaviors of others; the possibility of preserving and analyzing the traces of communicative actions over time; the ability to carefully craft a communicative act for designated audience; and the opportunity to connect with new people and information. As a result, these new technologies have been poised to greatly improve the efficiency of knowledge workers and unlock a tremendous amount of business value.

2.3 Literature review

Table 1 shows an overall of previous studies on enterprise and public social networks’ user adoption. In general, it can be found that most of the current researches have only focused on PSNs rather than ESNs. Fewer academics have been using the adoption theory to test the use of SNSs in enterprises. Take a study of Yammer conducted in one Fortune 500 company as an example. An employees’ ESNs behavior analysis is performed in this study, the end of which talks about the barriers to adopt ESNs, such as the noise-to-value ratio paradoxes. Sledgianowski studies the micro-blogging adoption in enterprise and discovers that perceived usefulness and privacy concerns will influence employees’ usage [17]. Engelstätter and Sarbu explore the adoption of ESNs, but their work is merely conducted on the company-level, without considering the viewpoint of individual employees. More importantly, few studies have done a comparative analysis on individual’s adoption mechanism between these two social network sites [18]. Although Engelstätter and Sarbu discuss about this topic, they only have a content analysis of the 5000 public posts from 34 employees on Twitter and their ESNs, yet fail to involve adoption mechanism. Xiong compares human behaviors and motivations behind behaviors toward using enterprise and public social networks, without involving the adoption mechanism difference between the ESNs and PSNs [1]. Therefore, we believe it will be meaningful to study why employees use ESNs at an individual level by comparing the adoption of PSNs and ESNs. Table 1 shows the summary of our literature review.

3.1 Perceived usefulness and perceived playfulness

The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) is often used in social psychology research that assumes intention as the main predictor of behavior. The theory was derived from previous research on the theory of attitude, which led to the study of attitude and behavior. The theory posits that behavior intentions, as immediate antecedents to behavior, are a function of salient information or beliefs about the likelihood that performing a particular behavior will lead to a specific outcome.

Generally, TRA assumes that: (1) the more favorable the attitude of an individual toward a behavior, the stronger the individual’s intention to engage in such behavior will be; (2) the greater the subjective norm is, the stronger the intention of the individual to perform the behavior will be; and (3) the stronger the intention of the individual to engage in a behavior, the more likely the individual will be to perform it.

TRA has been widely used in social psychology research to explain a variety of people’s behaviors. Davis et al. adapt the theory into their development of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)[19]. TAM suggests that two factors — perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness — are two significant determinants of behavioral intention to use computer systems. Meanwhile, this notion omits subjective norm, which is also considered in TRA as a determinant of behavioral intention. TAM considers a determinant of behavioral intention and its validated measurement scales have facilitated research into IT acceptance, therefore, TAM has gained tremendous acceptance within the IS research community [20].

A lot of research effort has been devoted to the factors of the perceived usefulness and the perceived ease of use, while partial study of those factors in TAM cannot help us to thoroughly understand the mechanism of accepting certain technology and how it can be accepted by the end users, especially the process and the essence of this acceptance. Moreover, it seems that the period of TAM introduced coincides with the time when computers are only used for professional technicians rather than widely spread among general users. Thus we could raise a question: are the factors of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use still valid to test the current technology world? Just as Padilla-Mel e ´ Ndez et al. has said, more intrinsic motivators such as playfulness, enjoyment and flow etc. should be taken into account together with the extrinsic motivators of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness [21].

Although there are several alternative intrinsic motivators, playfulness has been employed as cognitive absorption [22]. Moon and Kim then adopt playfulness to explain behavioral intention to use the World Wide Web (WWW) and name it ‘perceived playfulness’ [23]. They define perceived playfulness as the extent to which the individual perceives that his or her attention is focused on the interaction with the World Wide Web; is curious during the interaction; and finds the interaction intrinsically enjoyable or interesting. As a result, they show that perceived playfulness is an important factor in encouraging more people to use WWW. Lin finds perceived of playfulness as an important determinant for user’s continuance visiting of a web site [24]. Agrifoglio (2012) et al. investigate user continuance of using Twitter [25]. Based on TAM model, they also discover that playfulness would affect user’s intention. Further, Oum and Han study the intention to participate in user-created contents services, in which the effect of perceived playfulness on intention to use is shown to be highly significant, suggesting users’ need in something else: playfulness [26].

Since most of the social network tools emphasize very much on user experience, ease of use is an essential requirement for any SNS product to enter into market. Therefore, in this paper, we select perceived usefulness (PU) as the extrinsic motivator, and perceive playfulness (PP) as an intrinsic motivator for employees to adopt SNSs.

3.2 Employees’ ESNs and PSNs’ participation behavior

There are four options for individual users to take actions when using social network services. Here listed our understanding of these definitions:

Action to Post (AtP): defines the behavior that an individual uses the social network to post information content.

As can be seen, the difference among the above four kinds of individual participation of social network is that users contribute their original contents in AtP, whereas they contribute secondary contents in other cases. So we further classify the user’s participation on social network into original participation and secondary participation.

Original Participation: means AtP.

3.3 Conceptual model and hypotheses

The study aims to compare the adoption mechanisms of ESNs and PSNs from companies’ employees. As discussed above, we choose perceived of usefulness and perceived playfulness as two motivators, and select AtP, AtrP, AtF, and AtC as four kinds of employees’ usage behaviors to ESNs and PSNs, in the hope of finding out how the public use context and organizational use context to affect employees’ usage of social network services. Thus, our conceptual research model can be shown in Fig. 1.

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Fig.1

Conceptual research model.

Prior studies have widely used the motivation theory to explain individual’s behavior of accepting information technology. Deci et al. divide the motivations of underlying individual’s behavior into extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation [27]. Extrinsic motivation refers to the commitment of an action due to its perceived helpfulness in achieving values (e.g. the performance of improvement), while intrinsic motivation refers to the engagement of an action due to an interest in the action itself, rather than external reinforcement [19].

Furthermore, from a psychological perspective, Self-Determination Theory distinguishes between different types of motivation based on the different reasons or goals that give rise to an action. It regards intrinsic motivation as a motivation of doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable. While extrinsic motivation refers to a motivation of doing something because it leads to a separable outcome. Thus, in accordance with most of the adoption models in the previous research, in this study, perceived usefulness is deemed as an extrinsic motivator while perceived playfulness an intrinsic motivator.

Since motivators always have positive influence on a person’s behavior of taking actions, it is believed that when a person uses different social networks, the perceived feelings that this person would largely affect his/her perceived attitudes toward usage could leads to different behavioral actions during his/her use of social networks. Thus, the following hypotheses can be generated:

PP is positively related to employees’ participation of ESNs.

Generally, motivation is conceptualized as either intrinsic or extrinsic. The relationships between intrinsic motivators and extrinsic motivators may be complex. Deci et al suggest that extrinsic motivation for a task can be changed into intrinsic motivation, and vice versa [27]. But in the IS adoption research area, intrinsic motivators mostly impose positive influence on extrinsic motivators. In a systematic review of TAM (Technology Acceptance Model), Legris et al. generalize that in most cases of the classical TAM model and the later extended models, intrinsic motivators have a significant and positive effect on intrinsic motivators [20]. Faganet al. further prove that there is a positive relationship between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, and that intrinsic motivation can increase extrinsic motivation perception [28]. Thus, the following hypotheses are developed:

PP is positively related to PU in employees’ participation of ESNs.

3.5 The relative influence of PP and PU in ESNs adoption

Despite a growing trend of research concerning the use of micro-blogging services like Twitter, few attempts have been made to investigate micro-blogging in a work environment. Stuart et al. conduct a content analysis and compare the messages of 34 employees posted publicly on Twitter with the ones they posted on an intra-firm micro-blogging platform [29]. They find significant differences in individuals’ use of the two systems. Employees use the company-internal system mostly to engage in “Q&A” and personal, directed interaction, whereas Twitter is mostly used to share information with a larger community. Semi-structured interviews shed more light on the underlying motivation of employees in using micro-blogging. In particular, the interviewees mention the benefits of communication, such as the ability to share information in real-time and to be aware of what colleagues are working on. At the same time, employees see micro-blogging as a way to enhance their reputation.

Davis et al. interview 11 active Twitter users and build theories on interpersonal communication and social psychology to explore potential benefits micro-blogging that can bring to informal communication at work [30]. Their results hint at relational benefits such as building common ground, managing people perceptions, and creating a sense of contentedness, as well as personal benefits such as the acquisition of valuable information.

Similarly, Stuart et al. use an interpretive approach to investigate the case of a corporation use of an in-house social software development that shows close similarities to micro-blogging [29]. They find that employees see micro-blogging as a good information source and an efficient tool to stay aware of activities in the company. On the flipside, their finding suggests that employees have concerns regarding privacy-related aspects such as the monitoring of their work.

Based on the above research, it seems that, in the working context, extrinsic motivator is more importance that intrinsic motivator for employees’ adoption of ESNs, which means the effect of perceived usefulness on employees’ ESNs participation is bigger than that of perceived playfulness. Thus, the following hypotheses are generated.

In terms of ESNs, the influence of PU is always higher than that of PP.

3.6 The relative influence of PP and PU in PSNs adoption

Taking Facebook, Friendster and Myspace as their research background, Sledgianowski and Kulviwat introduce the Social Network Site Adoption model to examine the effect of perceptions of normative pressure, playfulness, critical mass, trust, usefulness, and ease of use on usage intention and actual usage of these sites [17]. They figure out that all the hypothesized determinants have a significant direct effect on intent to use, with perceived playfulness and perceived critical mass the strongest indicators. The intension to use and perceived playfulness have a significant direct effect on actual usage.

Built upon the social capital perspective, Xiao et al. provide a general social networking site experience model regarding the impact of the interaction between user-perceived competence and the user identification on user satisfaction through playfulness in the context of public social networking sites. Their research proves the mediating role of playfulness through which social network site users’ competency and identification factors are transmitted and predict user satisfaction [32].

It seems that, compared with ESNs, in public social platforms, intrinsic motivation is more important than extrinsic motivations. Thus, the following hypotheses are produced:

In terms of PSNs, the influence of PP is always higher than that of PU.

3.7 Public use context versus enterprise use context

ESNs are not simply a Facebook behind a firewall. Every enterprise has its distinct needs and nuances that require a reframing of a social network. The main tasks of ESNs are communication, information dissemination and sharing, management activities and problem solving, training and learning, and collaboration and innovation, etc. [32]. ESNs provide a new platform for informal networks to emerge and function. Studies of IBM’s enterprise social networks have shown that increased use of the tool can lead to increased social capital among both new and existing relationships and workers’ perceived closeness to their co-workers. Other studies have shown that blogging is an effective communication and collaboration tool within large companies to promote collaboration across departments [33, 34]. Hence, the specific functions of ESNs developed by companies are all aiming at improving firms’ operation efficiency. This determines that employees’ perceived usefulness should be a very important factor for companies to design their ESNs.

For PSNs, enlarging individual’s social network is one of the main functions. Zhang and Pentina conduct a study of motivations and usage patterns on Weibo [4]. The authors design a list of motivations with an online survey asking respondents to rate all 40 Weibo related motivations. Afterwards, they identify the most relevant eight factors, namely: 1) professional development; 2) emotional release; 3) information seeking; 4) citizenship behavior; 5) social connection; 6) visibility; 7) self-expression; and 8) interaction with Weibo. As a result, the similar motivations to promote the use of Twitter and Weibo prove to be informational and social. And Weibo users also join the service to facilitate their professional development, fulfill emotional needs, reciprocate by helping other users with advice and information, enhance their social status, express themselves, and interact with the site and other users. More importantly, the authors find that Weibo facilitates both self-expression and interactivity, leading to more frequent contributions and longer stay on the site. Some of the eight factors can be considered as the antecedent variables of perceived playfulness [35].

Further, Turban et al, conduct a content analysis and compare the messages of 34 employees posted publicly on Twitter with the ones they posted on an intra-company micro-blogging platform [32]. They find significant differences in individuals’ use of the two systems. Employees use the company-internal system mostly to engage in “Q&A” and personal, directed interaction, whereas Twitter is mostly used to share information with a larger community.

Via the comparison, it seems that the adoption of employees’ ENSs is more utilitarian oriented, while the employees’ adoption of PSNs is more hedoni-oriented. Thus, we speculate that the role of perceived usefulness is stronger in ESNs than that in PSNs, while perceived playfulness is stronger in PSNs than that in ESNs. Here listed two groups of hypotheses:

In terms of employees’ participation, the effect of PU in ESNs is higher than that of PU in PSNs.

4.1 Enterprise social network (Happy work)

In 2010, China Mobile Beijing introduced their first Enterprise Social Network (ESN, hereafter) – Happy Work site. It is incorporated with the internal Industry and Information Technology department and maintained by IBM Corporation. The average age of employees in Beijing Mobile is about 28, with 81% of them aged under 30. Due to this reason, the design of Happy Work is oriented toward the most IT popular trend - Social Network Site (SNS) and the easy-of-use notion. Here, the site is based on a group level, instead of an individual level.

The site is aimed to build a newly work environment towards the idea of “Team Building”. It focuses on improving internal employee communication between different groups and departments, between different departments and regions, as well as bottom-top interactions. Thereby employee could experience a new way of corporate culture in a virtual corporate society.

Happy Work site is set on the background of an ancient city with some classical Chinese elements. The content includes different topics such as:

General Information: Daily updated news on events or employees within organization;

Furthermore, there are two special areas – Events and Employee Happy House – where employees are currently encouraged to actively participate. Events area is the places where department can post their events and attract qualify employee to join. However the events are normally mid-term or long-term that are held throughout the year, organized by administration. It should be noted that some of the events can be highly related to team performance evaluations. On the other hand, Employee Happy House is designed for promoting employee social life, and each of its department has their own plant in the country farm. There are specific farmers taking care of their vegetables in the plant. When the harvest season comes, employees can order vegetables that grow in their own plant, ask the farm deliver to the company and pick up after work.

4.2 Public social network (Sina Weibo)

The banning of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube in China has created an opportunity for domestic providers such as social networking sites Renren and Kaixin001, micro-blogging service Weibo, and video sharing service like Youkou. One of most successful micro-blogging services is Weibo operated by Sina Corporation – the largest Chinese-language infotainment web portal. Much like Twitter, Sina Weibo enables users to post short (140 characters or less) messages that are displayed on a user’s Weibo page. A user’s Weibo page is open to anyone, where followers (known as fans) can exchange private messages. However, Weibo recently enables the classification of followers for message display and the closure of friends pages.

Weibo involve games, voting, radio, music, and file sharing. It promotes interactivity and engagement by offering Weibo medals for participating in various Weibo activities, tweeting for several consecutive days, re-tweeting brand event announcements, etc. However, unlike members of SNSs, Weibo users are more oriented toward the exposure of strangers, including field experts, stars, and social celebrities, with less attention paid to the messages from friends and acquaintances. The loose social network on Weibo establishes user relationship through rich information flow. Since the launch of Weibo, many SNSs users have joined the platforms and now spend more time on Weibo than on SNSs [4].

Over the past five years, academic researchers have studied the use of social networking whereas most of them are focused on investigating (external) public social networks (PSNs, hereafter), such as Facebook and Twitter. However, few are paying attention to internal use of social networks in the organization, known as enterprise social networks (ESNs). Prior researchers on the utility of social networks have explained that, these social networks can be used for sharing information, following updated news, and directly and indirectly informing and communicating with others [36, 37]. This leads to the first research purpose of understanding the benefits of using social networks in public, and this case concerns with the use of Sina Weibo.

On the other hand, prior researches have proven that enterprise use of social networks differ from that of (external) public social networks [33, 38]. However, studies have barely used a comparative analysis, therefore our research purpose is to investigate what differ in motivations behind of people use public social networks (e.g. Sina Weibo) and enterprise social networks (e.g. Blue Twit).

5.1 Measurement

5.2 Survey design and sampling

Our research is aimed to investigate the motivation behind each user’s behaviors, therefore, we follow the approaches of most relevant studies and conducted a survey among staff users in Beijing Mobile. We design sampling quota by gender, age, and occupation in accordance with the demographics of this target population. We measure perceived attitudes and participation behaviors on a five point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, while 5 = strongly agree). All items measurement are mixed up and re-categorized into different topics of questions. The research instrument is developed on the basis of prior studies in the west. For the convenience of our Chinese sample group, the English questionnaire is translated into Chinese. We conducted 15 in-depth interviews with random samples in China Mobile to ensure the face validity of the measures. For details, please see the Appendix 3.

Invitation to participate for online survey is spread through Labor Union within Beijing Mobile, and posted on internal Survey System. The Labor Union post an announcement to ask each department to fill out the survey (the quota sampling is requested by the research team beforehand). The duration is about one month. After that, the Labor Union collects the survey results and sends them to the research team.

5.3 Construct reliability and validity

Self-reported data collection and logical constructs of items lead naturally to variance in the measurement method [41]. Whereas this variance is commonly acknowledged, very few papers actually address it, despite the popularity of self-report survey method [42].

Given the measurement of perceived playfulness, perceived usefulness, action to post, action to repost, action to follow and action to comment with information gathered from the same respondents, the issue of common method variance must be addressed. We conduct a Harmon single-factor test, which reveal that the common method variance unlikely to be a concern. Table 4 shows the results of the adjustments, with zero-order correlations below the diagonal and adjusted correlations above it. Our results do not show a substantial bias due to common method variance. All relevant correlations remain significant after the correction.

6.1 Assessment of model fit

To test the model’s effectiveness, we apply it to the ESNs context and the PSNs context, respectively. Tests are performed using the AMOS 17.0 software. For the chi-square is very sensitive to the sample size, item numbers and factor numbers in the model, as well as other fit indices, such as goodness-of-fit index (GFI), adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI), root mean square of approximation (RMSEA), and Comparative Fit Index (CFI) are used to assess overall model fit. These results are reported in Table 5. In general, all these results suggest that our model fits the data well (See Table 5).

We use structural equations to analyze the relations between perceived playfulness, perceived usefulness and their impacts on employees’ participation, according to the theoretical conceptual model in Fig. 1. The AMOS 17.0 software is used.

Table 6 presents the analysis of the relationships among different variables in the conceptual models. The three models are quite consistent: all the relations are significant (p < .001), except for those between perceived usefulness and employees’ secondary participation of PSNs.

Based on this observation, we modify the model as shown in Fig. 2.

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Fig.2

Modified Conceptual Research Model.

After the modified model in Fig. 2 is analyzed, we present the path coefficients in the structural equation models in Table 7.

7.1 Theoretical implications

In the introduction section, we raise the question that we want to address in our research: “Is the adoption mechanism of ESNs the same as that of PSNs?” After the entire data analysis, we are now in a position to answer it. The hypothesis test results are present in the Table 10.

The answer is partly yes and partly no. As for the general adoption mechanisms, PSNs and ESNs are almost the same. However, as for the relative roles of PP and PU in PSNs and ESNs, there are obvious differences. These similarities and differences construct the main theoretical implications of this study.

Firstly, our study discovers that the general adoption mechanisms of PSNs and ESNs for both employees’ original participation and secondary participation are nearly the same: the original participation is a both utilitarian-oriented and recreational-oriented adoption, while the secondary SNS participation is a recreational-oriented adoption. Our study shows that both perceived usefulness and perceived playfulness are all the factors to influence employees’ original PSNs and ESNs participation. However, for employees’ secondary PSNs and ESNs participation, only perceived of playfulness is the influencing factor. According to the classification, we can deduce that employees’ original participation for PSNs and ESNs are dual-purpose (utilitarian-oriented and recreational-oriented) IT behavior, while the usefully perceived of playfulness and the uselessly perceived usefulness in the employees’ secondary participation of PSNs and ESNs indicate that the secondary SNS participation is a recreational-oriented IT behavior. Individual’s original SNS participation is dual-purpose and secondary SNS participation is recreational-oriented. This conclusion is suitable for both PSNs and ESNs. This is a very unique research finding of our study. Previously, people take it for granted that PSNs is recreational-oriented until Xu et al. find that utilitarian gratifications and hedonic gratifications together become the important factors for individual’s PSNs usage [43]. However during their work, user’s different SNS activities are dealt with as a whole although they measure the general SNS usage from posting, viewing, sharing, replying and playing etc. Therefore, we can see that our work deepens Xu et al. ’s study, and further detects which PSNs activities are utilitarian-oriented and which ones are recreational-oriented. As for ESNs, people are also likely to simply think that ESNs is a utilitarian-oriented adoption. At this point, our study firstly proves that the adoption of ESNs is also both utilitarian-oriented and recreational-oriented [44–46].

Secondly, although the general adoption mechanism of PSNs and ESNs is the same, the relative influences of PP and PU in the adoption of PSNs and ESNs are different. Our study finds that the influence of PP in PSNs is bigger than that of PU in PSNs, indicating that although the adoption of PSNs is found to be dual-purpose, it actually prefers recreational-oriented adoption to utilitarian-oriented adoption. As for ESNs, our study indicates that for individual’s original ESNs participation, the influence of PU is higher than that of PP, while the direction of the relationship is opposite to individual’s secondary ESNs participation. The results for ESNs mean that although individual’s first original participation is dual-purpose, it is more inclined to be utilitarian-oriented. To generalize, our findings show that the individual’s adoption of PSNs is more inclined to be recreational-oriented in individual’s original participation while individual’s adoption of ESNs is more inclined to be utilitarian-oriented, although both of them are proved to be dual-purpose. If our research results about the similar adoption mechanism between PSNs and ESNs are not in conformity with people’s common experience, here, the different roles of PP and PU in the adoption processes of PSNs and ESNs are in line with people’s common experience [47–49].

Thirdly, although PP and PU are both the influencing factors for individual’s ESNs and PSNs original participation, and as PP is the only influencing factor for individual’s ESNs and PSNs secondary participation, the comparative power is different. The role of PU in the original participation of ESNs is stronger than PU in that of PSNs, and the role of PP in PSNs is stronger than PP in that of ESNs for both original and almost all secondary participations. This means that PP is the most important factor affecting the behavior of individual’s PSNs adoption. This conclusion is supported by other related work. For example, the study of Ref. [50] shows that enjoyment is the most influential factor in people’s continued use of PSNs. Lin et al. find that appraisal factors (pleasure, awareness, connectedness, and system quality) are strong determinants of emotional reaction on PSNs continuance intention. Compared to PSNs, PU has higher influence in ESNs adoption [51].

7.2 Managerial implications

Our research has implications for companies’ ESNs development. First, ESNs are not just for work. They are also for fun. Although most people resist that ESNs can bring values to companies, there are also some difference voices concerning the time wasted, juggling multiple personas, personal views affecting career progression and crossing organizational hierarchy, etc. of ESNs. Our research gives clues of disagreement of these voices. Our study shows that PP has positive relationship with PU, and employees’ adoption of ESNs is dual-purpose for original participation and recreational-oriented for secondary participation. This indicates when designing an internal social network, companies can take these both PU and PP into account, especially on system playfulness. From this implication, we believe the design of Happy Work Site in China Mobile has indeed provided a good example. Secondly, different employees’ ESNs participations have different roles. Companies should make some intensive policies to encourage all kinds of employees’ ESNs participation. The more utilitarian-oriented original employees’ participation may lead to higher working productivity, while the more recreational-oriented secondary employees’ participation may increase the connections between employees, and may reduce the employees’ turnover. Thirdly, companies should also carefully manage ESNs to balance the utilitarian function and recreation function to harvest their best of benefits. Although we pretest the forbidding opinions on ESNs, and also support that PP is much important for employees’ adoption of ESNs, we still suggest companies to balance the utilitarian functions and recreation functions of ESNs since too many recreation functions will let ESNs not ESNs, but more and more like PSNs, and make companies aim of ESNs further away.

Our research also has implications for PSNs development. First, PSNs are not just for fun, especially for people’s original participation. In particular at this moment, PSNs have developed to very high level, so we suggest the providers of PSNs strengthen the utilitarian functions of their platforms to attract more and more users to generate contents. Second, PSNs are mostly for fun. When the providers want to add more and more utilitarian functions to PSNs, they should never forget that the biggest value of PSNs for users is to enjoy happiness. Too many utilitarian functions to PSNs maybe make the platforms lose fun, and drive users away. Third, the providers of PSNs should also balance the utilitarian function and the recreation function to get the largest number of users, and enhance the activities of users. The providers of PSNs should give more weight to recreation functions than utilitarian functions, and make utilitarian functions full of fun if possible.

7.3 Limitations and future research directions

Although our study provides meaningful implications to both enterprises and public social networks, it has a few inherent limitations.

Our study is a first empirical study on the comparison of ESNs and PSNs adoption mechanism based on the data from China Mobile. Concerning the characteristics of China Mobile, a state-owned big telecommunication operator, despite of the strong support given by the data to our empirical study, they also bring limitations to our study. Our conclusion may not be suitable for other companies different from China Mobile, such as the ones in West cultures, the ones with small size or middle size, the ones not in IT industry, etc.

Our study just uses micro-blogging services to be one example of SNS. Both Happy Work and Weibo are micro-blogging services. We do not use other SNS formats, such as Blogging service, Forum etc. to test our research results. Thus, we cannot make sure whether the research conclusions are still fit in other SNS formats.

In summary, future research is suggested to investigate the difference of using social networks between Eastern and Western countries, between big companies and small or middle size companies, between IT industry and non IT industries.

Finally, considering the purpose and functionality of establishing ESNs, it is suggested that later scholars can combine both organizational behaviors and leadership theories for developing a relevant research model to investigate how ESNs can be adopted by different companies.