Organizational Social Computing and Employee Job Performance: The Knowledge Access Route

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical study investigating the impact of organizational social computing on employees' innovative and in-role job performance. Specifically, we suggest that two key uses of social computing, representing the use of social computing tools for maintaining social relations and for generating and sharing content, are positively related to employees' access to knowledge. Access to knowledge, in the form of expertise location and access to codified information, is in turn positively associated with employees' innovative and in-role job performance. For this study a conceptual model is developed and tested via a cross-sectional survey. The findings suggest that the two key uses of organizational social computing are positively associated with access to knowledge which in turn is positively related to the two forms of job performance at varying degrees. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, as are directions for future research.