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Explaining the emergence of hedonic motivations in enterprise social networks and their impact on sustainable user engagement: A four-drive perspective

Christian Meske (Department of Information Systems, Freie Universität Berlin and Einstein Center Digital Future, Berlin, Germany)
Iris Junglas (Department of Business Analytics, Information Systems and Supply Chain, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA)
Stefan Stieglitz (Department of Computer Science and Applied Cognitive Science, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany)

Journal of Enterprise Information Management

ISSN: 1741-0398

Article publication date: 21 May 2019

Issue publication date: 21 May 2019

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Abstract

Purpose

Enterprise social networks (ESNs) in organizations have become an increasingly important technology to support the exchange of information and knowledge. Many ESN projects fail due to insufficient engagement in the long run, leading to the high risk of sunk costs. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how hedonic motivations, along with normative motivations, play an important role in determining an employee’s intention to continuously participate in ESN. Based on the Four-Drive Model and hence borrowing from behavioral economics, it is investigated how such hedonic motivations emerge in organizational ESNs.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is set within the context of a global enterprise of the logistics and courier industry. The authors first derived hypotheses from the Four-Drive Model to build the research model on the emergence of hedonic motivation. Then, the authors derived hypotheses from existing adoption literature regarding the impact of hedonic motivations and normative motivations on ESN use continuance. Following, a quantitative survey was conducted to test these hypotheses. In the study, structural equation modeling is applied, based on partial least squares.

Findings

The results show that the extent to which an ESN supports the drives to comprehend, acquire, bond and defend starkly influences an employee’s hedonic motivations. In addition, it is shown that hedonic motivations have a much stronger influence on use continuance than normative motivations.

Originality/value

Research on hedonic motivations in the work context is still underrepresented, in management science as well as information systems (IS) research. Hence, theoretical approaches to explain and predict the emergence of hedonic motivations in IS usage are missing. With the study, the authors will close this theoretical gap. The study contributes to IS research not only by evaluating the role of hedonic motivation for ESN usage, but also by providing an approach to explain key drivers behind it. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to empirically test the Four-Drive Model in a voluntary IS context, adding valuable knowledge about human behaviors in digital work environments.

Keywords

Citation

Meske, C., Junglas, I. and Stieglitz, S. (2019), "Explaining the emergence of hedonic motivations in enterprise social networks and their impact on sustainable user engagement: A four-drive perspective", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 436-456. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEIM-08-2018-0177

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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