Shaping digital workspaces: how organizational social media design and functionality shape employee interaction

Organizational Social Media (OSM) is one of the widespread social technologies that organizations design. Unlike other organizations’ work-related systems, OSM is a social application that allows users to interact instantly without prior authorization. However, there are concerns and doubts about the organization’s expertise and capabilities to design OSM that meet users’ expectations. Drawing on Social Exchange Theory (SET), this research aims to investigate and evaluate OSM’s design and functionality, as well as its impact on end-users’ engagement. SET is found to be valuable because it is based on reciprocity, recognizing and magnifying the importance of users’ social engagement interactions in OSM. Two triangulated sets of qualitative data were collected, comprising 28 semi-structured interviews—20 conducted with end users and 8 with IT designers and managers of the OSM system—alongside document analysis that encompassed 362 computerized, typewritten comments submitted by end users across both cross-sectional and longitudinal sources. Due to the organization’s lack of readiness and expertise, the analysis of findings revealed that the organization’s placement of the filtration process in OSM limited user-generated content, ultimately affecting users’ engagement with OSM. Moreover, the traditional design/layout of the OSM platform, along with the absence of interactive features, made the user experience difficult to use OSM. This research made several contributions: theoretical, methodological, empirical, and practical implications.