In the current hybrid work context, the significance of employee well-being and the enduring concern over job insecurity have become increasingly emphasised. However, our understanding of how the intricate interplay among the technology environment, individual behaviour, and personal characteristics impacts employee well-being and job insecurity remains incomplete. To bridge this knowledge gap, we have proposed a moderated mediation model grounded on the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT). This study delves into the impact of ubiquitous connectivity feature of technological environment (encompassing compatibility and presenteeism) on employee well-being and job insecurity. Additionally, we explore the mediating role of individual behaviour (i.e. Enterprise social media (ESM) enabled embeddedness), and the moderating role of personal characteristics (i.e. ESM self-efficacy) within these associations. By collaborating with a large biotechnology company in China, we conducted a two-wave survey. 189 responses from both study waves are used for final analysis using Partial Least Square (PLS) approach. The results revealed noteworthy mediation effects of ESM-enabled embeddedness and significant moderated mediation effects of ESM self-efficacy. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Motivated by the phenomenon of customer entrepreneurship in China and the associated research gaps, we conduct a case study to explore how customer entrepreneurs realize benefits from light entrepreneurship enabled by guanxi circles and social commerce affordances. Our study derives a process model that describes how customer entrepreneurs benefit from light entrepreneurship through acquiring knowledge and sharing knowledge within guanxi circles embedded in social media. We also demonstrate the roles of the mass entrepreneurship climate and the social commerce affordances in this benefit realization process. This study contributes to the research and practice with respect to technology-enabled customer entrepreneurship.

We investigate how employees react when confronted with an enterprise system (ES) that does not fit with work processes dictated by local realities. We draw on interview data (n = 31) from a multinational company to reveal how employees devised and coordinated workarounds that were not compliant with corporate IT policy, but enabled the completion of essential activities, thereby creating value for the firm and its customers. The coordination of these workarounds proved essential to their persistence. We discuss both the theoretical implications of our findings regarding workarounds and the practical contributions associated with the idea that non-compliance can be beneficial.

Grounded on communication theories, we propose to use a data-mining algorithm to detect communication patterns within a company to determine if such patterns may reveal the performance of the company. Specifically, we would like to find out whether or not there exist any association relationships between the frequency of e-mail exchange of the key employees in a company and the performance of the company as reflected in its stock prices. If such relationships do exist, we would also like to know whether or not the company's stock price could be accurately predicted based on the detected relationships. To detect the association relationships, a data-mining algorithm is proposed here to mine e-mail communication records and historical stock prices so that based on the detected relationship, rules that can predict changes in stock prices can be constructed. Using the data-mining algorithm and a set of publicly available Enron e-mail corpus and Enron's stock prices recorded during the same period, we discovered the existence of interesting, statistically significant, association relationships in the data. In addition, we also discovered that these relationships can predict stock price movements with an average accuracy of around 80%. The results confirm the belief that corporate communication has identifiable patterns and such patterns can reveal meaningful information of corporate performance as reflected by such indicators as stock market performance. Given the increasing popularity of social networks, the mining of interesting communication patterns could provide insights into the development of many useful applications in many areas.

Instant messaging (IM) has become increasingly prevalent in social life. However, the use of IM at work remains controversial, owing to its unclear benefits to organizations. In this study, we employ media performance theories and the concept model of communicative ecology to examine the impact of an IM tool on shaping guanxi (i.e., interpersonal relationship) networks in the workplace. Specifically, we propose that IM has the potential to enhance guanxi networks by improving communication quality and building interlocutors' mutual trust in the workplace. The conceptual model is validated with 253 survey responses collected from working professionals in China. The data indicate that communication quality and mutual trust contribute to the development of guanxi networks. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Social media have transformed social interactions and now look set to transform workplace communications. In this exploratory study, we investigate how employees use and get value from a variety of social networking technologies. The context of this research is 4 software firms located in China. Notwithstanding differences in corporate attitudes toward social networking, we identify common themes in the way Web 2.0 technologies are leveraged as value is created by employees at all levels. We draw on the communication ecology framework to analyze the application of various technologies. We inductively develop 5 propositions that describe how social networking technologies contribute directly to horizontal and vertical communication in organizations, and ultimately to individual, team, and organizational performance. Implications for research and practice are discussed.