If you Build it, They Won’t Come: What Motivates Employees to Create and Share Tagged Content: A Theoretical Model and Empirical Validation

• Published in: International journal of information management 2020-10, Vol.54, p.102148, Article 102148
• Main Authors: Allam, Hesham, Bliemel, Michael, Ali-Hassan, Hossam, Blustein, James, Spiteri, Louise
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: altruism; Behavior; Digital media; Empirical analysis; Employee benefits; Employees; Knowledge sharing; Knowledge-sharing attitude and intention; Norms; perceived ease of use information refindability; pro-sharing norms; Public sector; Respondents; Social factors; Social media; Social networks; social presence; Tagging; Tags; Technology Acceptance Model; Technology utilization
• ISSN: 0268-4012; 1873-4707
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102148

•Employees enjoy sharing tagged resources when there is social presence.•Employees add tagged content when organizations adopt a sharing culture.•Employees add tagged content if it boosts their information efficiency.•Employees contribute tagged resources if they benefit other employees.•Employees add tagged content when the tagging tools are intuitively easy. The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors influencing employees’ knowledge-sharing behavior on social tagging supported systems. Using the strong theoretical background of the well-known technology acceptance model (TAM), this paper proposes and empirically validates a model that fits the social and technical nature of social tagging tools within the public sector. The analyses in this paper were based on data collected from a large survey of more than 480 respondents working for two public organizations in the United States. The findings demonstrate a significant impact of the role of social presence in encouraging employees to create and share content. Further, there is a strong relationship between the benefits employees receive from using tagging tools and their creation and sharing of tagged content. Specifically, the following factors showed a significant impact on employees’ creation and sharing behavior, specifically their attitudes towards and intentions to create and share tags: perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, social presence, and pro-sharing norms. For researchers, the paper offers an opportunity to further study knowledge-sharing behavior regarding social media technologies. The findings should motivate practitioners to inject these tools with a social aspect so that employees are encouraged to share content.