Enterprise Social Media Usage and Team Performance with The Moderation of Workplace Integration: An Empirical Study of Telecommunication Sector in Pakistan

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) Business School, Malaysia.

2 Associate Professor, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan

3 Associate Professor, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan.

4 Business Incubation Center, University of Faisalabad, Pakistan; Skema Business School, Sophia Antipolis France.

Abstract

Enterprise Social Media (ESM) has been normally embraced by companies to boost team performance and agility for workers. The goal of this study is to investigate the mediating effect of workplace isolation on the relationships among usage ESM, employee agility and Team Performance along with exploration of the moderating influence of workplace Integrational study model. This research adds to corporate awareness in illustrating the impact of ESM use on team performance and employee agility based on theory of social exchange, theory of information processing and the theory of transactive memory. Cross-sectional survey was employed to collect data from telecommunication firms (public & private). 400 respondents were selected through purposive sampling technique and given close ended questionnaires, 348 questionnaires were selected for further analysis; through a number of statistical tools, after screening out the filled responses. It resulted in Suggesting ESM has a favorable effect on Employee Agility and Team Performance, but the negative relationships were observed among workplace isolation and employee agility and team performance. Further, Workplace Isolation mediated the relationship among ESM, Employee Agility and Team performance. Additionally, Workplace Integration strongly moderated the relationship between ESM and Workplace Isolation.  Experts and/or administrators should pay consideration to the impact of using ESM on agility and team performance of the workers. In addition, when implementing ESM to increase team performance they should concentrate on the extent of team diversity. By presenting the relationship between use of ESM, isolation in the workplace, workplace integration, agility of workers and performance of teams; it enriches the ESM use works by exploring the moderating functions of workplace integration while describing the beneficial consequences of workplace integration.

Keywords


The merits of employee agility in improving customer experience, quality of products, and organizational learning have been widely discussed (Sherehiy & Karwowski, 2014) but still such versatilities are rare (Cai et al., 2018). Agility represents the capacity of an employee to quickly sense and respond correctly to environmental influences, which include the collection, understanding and use of relevant knowledge (Alavi et al., 2014). Team output was shown to be affected by socio-cognitive systems under which a team having technical expertise is spread unequally among its participants (Choi, Lee, & Yoo, 2010). Previous research has shown that a possibly the best developed Transactive Memory System (TMS) greatly leads to increasing team performance (e.g., Tsai et al., 2016), For that reason value TMS helps employees to understand that needs to know what via TMS to acquire what they want and need and thus effectively carry out their coordination. TMS built in a team guarantees that knowledge and intelligence can be gained and accessed in an appropriate way (Moreland & Myaskovsky, 2000), since TMS incorporates from a common viewpoint what technical experience everybody has.

Enterprise Social Media (ESM) is an application which enables employees to interact and send message among companies (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). It provides an engaging atmosphere that promotes contact between workers and thus fosters the sharing of information and shared considerate (Ou et al., 2014). With the aid of ESM, organizational disputes can support the resilience of an employees and providing valuable knowledge for analysis, as opposition sides may grow from their distinctive experiences by good contact and common vision (Treem & Leonardi, 2013). ESM encourages their cooperation and enhances the sharing of ideas which allows them to acquire from one another reach agreement (Leonardi, 2013).

Fights exposed by ESM can exacerbate confusions between related parties and thereafter broaden the negative effects of those delusions (Mäntymäki & Riemer, 2016). ESM is allowing workplace collaboration to improve at work due to the social resources created by its usage. ESM can help develop and sustain social connections and linkages for institutional capital through social interacting sites or societies of attention (Ali-Hassan et al., 2015). That will help association employees become more aligned with their colleagues and the association.

Researchers began researching the virtual influenced human and issues facing (Arling & Subramaniet al., 2011; Shahzad, I. A., et al., 2018). Sometimes the lacking components in simulated work environments are considered social support and the need for association (Wiesenfeld, Raghuram, & Garud 2001). Study by Kenyon, Lyons, and Rafferty (2002b) proposed that embrace workplace isolation contributes to a greater degree of social alienation due to the lack of actual, face-to - face interaction. Visibility is a key element in both success and work fulfilment. Virtual environments employment differs significantly from visibility standpoint. In serious virtually contingencies, where there is no direct interaction with others, loss of visibility has a detrimental effect on job results, employee resilience and team success in comparison to emotional, physical, and informational isolation (Bartel et al., 2012).

In Pakistan's telecommunication industry, use of ESM increases daily. Mostly because of the pandemic all the physical labor was practically transferred to. Usage of ESM affects team success and endurance of workers. To resolve the study void, the use of ESM by organizations may not only impact the understanding of the job hierarchy of individual workers but can also show a vital part in the strategy and productivity of the whole team. How does use of ESM, for example, influence team performance? Therefore the primary motivation behind this study was to show the mediating effect of workplace isolation on ESM and employee agility and team performance, with workplace integration as a moderating function. For this study, an explanatory analysis was used, as it is the initial basis of study on this statistical paradigm that takes organizational social media as independent variable, team performance and employee agility as dependent variable. This research adds to the context of information management by using this prism to illustrate how use of ESM influences the influence of workplace isolation on the agility and team performance of employees.

Literature Review

The theory of social exchange posits that people are searching for social conditions that enhance their values and eliminate immediate inconveniences. For the intent of this systemic analysis, telework can be used to define work undertaken apart from the usual place of work. This was made possible by the technical advances. Telework is a flexible workplace system in which work is carried out separately from the workplace and sometimes at the home of the employee (Doyle, 2019). This situation may result in staff becoming alienated from the organization. According to the principle of social trade that originated in the 1960’s individuals retain an internal balance sheet. The benefits minus the expense lead to the performance (Miller, as of 2019; Shahzad & Bhatti, 2008). The company should make every effort to optimize the result. When there is a lack of monetary benefits, and workers will look for a job environment in which their expenses are minimized. This might lead to a Telework system breakdown. Further to this, a focus on information systems is introduced to clarify the processes for cultivating agility among employees.

The theory of info dealing out has been widely used in preceding analyses in information systems (Gao et al., 2018). Davis, & Agrawal (2018) explored as ESM to be conducive to better meaning and react to shifts in the demand for workers in exploiting workplace isolation. Employee resilience represents capacity to overcome environmental instability by detecting external changes and reacting to them (Muduli, 2017). To develop this resilience, workers need to have adequate knowledge sources and skills to handle that knowledge. Explicitly, agility includes the aspect of detecting environmental factors rapidly, enabling personnel to obtain a range of knowledge from different locations (Ma & Karaman, 2017). Furthermore, ESM helps workers build relationship between social media and networks, which allows them to access fine-grained, usable information from private correspondence on ESM, thus increasing their productivity of information management (Kwahk & Park, 2016). Consequently, ESM can be used to create optimal conditions for the successful production of knowledge, where the inherent advantages of confrontation in the workplace can be necessary to enhance mobility for workers.

Additionally Transactive Memory of Wegner hypothesis assumes a squad will do well if its participants are fully knowledgeable of their colleagues (Engelmann, Kolodziej, & Hesse, 2014). The theory of TMS first was suggested as a framework for illustrating how the external aids can expand human memory (Ren & Argote, 2011; Shahzad, Farrukh, Yasmin, 2020). TMS are effective strategies for intelligence management, which are strongly linked to lineup success (Liang et al., 1995). As members of team’s value respectively other's strengths and expertise, they would feel relaxed welcoming procedural advice from other members of the team and freer exchange of knowledge. Coordination is to the degree community members’ work well with little misunderstandings (Zhong et al., 2012). Scholars have suggested such causes that may affect team building in TMS, such as cooperation activities (Zhang, Hempel, Han, & Tjosvold, 2007), group preparation (Liang et al., 1995), interaction with the team (Lewis, 2004) and coordination. Between these issues, message the critical weapon will be the device organizer of TMS.

Enterprise Social Media: ESM is a category of social network created for the exchanging of information to allow knowledge sharing among employees, contact between employees, and the creation of computer-generated groups within the company (Kim et al., 2010), a new technology used by people at work (Dong et al., 2017). Many businesses grow their private ESM apps, such as "Beehive" by IBM, "Watercooler" by HP, "Dstreet" by Deloitte, "People Connect" by PG, and "Harmony" by SAP. ESM is known to be an important medium for collaboration and relationship creation in relation to work (Kang et al., 2017). The use of ESMs suggested in literature creates impact on employee efficiency (Cai et al., 2018). Explicitly, ESM offers innovative opportunities for workers to exchange information, develop, spread, and encourage job-related knowledge (Alalwan et al., 2017). Previous experiments have shown that using ESM can reduce the detrimental effects of contradictory relationships (Cai et al, 2018). We argue that ESM is causing organizational integration to increase at work due to the social capital created by its use. For main benefits, ESM can help develop and sustain social relationships and links through social networking platforms or groups of interest (Ali-Hassan et al., 2015), that can help organizational employees become more connected with their colleagues and the organization.

Employee Agility: Employee agility refers to an employee's willingness to adapt quickly and effectively to unpredictable changes and to exploit such changes as openings (Alavi et al., 2014; Cai et al., 2018). It consists, conceptually, of 3 components: proactivity, adaptability, and durability (Alavi et al., 2014; Sherehiy, 2008). In specific, proactivity refers to implementing behaviors that have beneficial impact on evolving conditions; adaptability refers to adjusting or altering oneself or one is actions in order to best suit the current environment; and adaptation refers to successful operation under stress, considering shifting circumstances and ineffective problem-solving techniques (Sherehiy, 2008). The literature suggests that agility of employees can be built in a versatile organizational system where experience and communication promote the sharing of knowledge between workers (Eshlaghy et al., 2010). Scholars also say that it is important for workers adapting to evolving conditions to access appropriate, timely information and a "line of sight" (Sumukadas & Sawhney, 2004). The knowledge thus plays a key role in helping workers gain resilience (Hopp & Oyen, 2004). Conflict of relationships represents the emotional incompatibility usually induced by employee stress, frustration, and hostility. It causes destructive relationships, unpleasant feelings, and employee unhappiness (Jehn, 1995). Such friction forces workers to waste time and resources addressing personal problems, rather than debating the activities at hand (De Wit et al., 2013).

Workplace Isolation: Isolation in the workplace consists of two separate sectors which consist of the absence of emotional and physical presence (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, Baker, Harris, & Stephenson, 2015). Scholars have researched that alienation at the workplace can first be seen as a consequence of solitude (Gozukara, Mercanlı, Çapuk, & Yıldırım, 2017). Research indicates, however, that physical separation can also be encountered when all immediate interactions are separated, and that there is no face-to - face interaction while conducting activities work related (Morgan & Symon, 2002). This means that job virtuality is at its highest degree while no face-to - face connections are established with those whose feedback is important in terms of knowledge and connections. Golden et al. (2008, p. 1413) claimed that "in terms of operating alongside peers, certain individuals can feel socially alienated," which typically happens when individuals lack contacts and access to services, resulting in a failure to obtain the necessary information. However, the negative consequences are not always noticed when there is no face-to - face interaction with members of the team). Since physical separation eliminates interactions with others and therefore chances to make friends, social alienation is growing. Home-office employees also have no direct ability to meet others. While Sims, Szilagyi and Keller (1976) did not find a clear correlation between work satisfaction and communicating with others and opportunities for friendship, later studies confirmed the frequent interaction with others and opportunities significantly influence satisfaction at work while and opposite finding were recorded recently by Zandi, Shahzad, Farrukh and Kot (2020) & (Zandi et.al., 2021).

Workplace Integration: this study claims that ESM is causing organizational integration to increase at work due to the social capital created by its use. For institutional capital, ESM can help develop and sustain social connections and links through social networking platforms or groups of interest (Ali-Hassan et al., 2015), which can help organizational employees become more connected with their colleagues and the organization. This study also assumes that the use of ESM by workers can inevitably improve their access to social capital, including enhanced access to services through a network of friendly links, mutual encouragement, common meaning, collective trust, and a sense of collective responsibility from which people will draw benefit.

This improved social capital acquired by the use of ESM would lead the employee to feel more linked and integrated with the work environment, largely due to stronger social relations (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1997) and social reinforcement (Moqbel, 2012). Isolation in the workplace consists of two dimensions: business and colleagues that also refer to inclusion in the workplace. From the viewpoint of social capital, ESM was used by organizations to establish social cohesion in the workplace by promoting socialization, managerial support, a sense of belonging to the organization and access to services embedded in an individual’s network of social relations (Ali-Hassan et al., 2015). Consequently, social capital rises with the use of ESM, the feeling of organizational unity between workers may improve.

Team Performance: Team performance in this paper refers to the quality and efficacy of which projects are carried out (Zhong et al., 2012; Shahzad et al., 2018) while in depth, effectiveness is the degree to which team members can fulfil the expectations of job quality and project goals; while efficiency is the degree to which team members can achieve activities according to schedules and budgets. As teams are commonly used in contemporary organizations, team success is generating more interest from organizational scholars as well as clinicians (Zhang et al., 2007).  As per the theory of transactive memory, TMS is a distributed information-processing system consisting of memory resources shared by team members. Theory was generalized to incorporate both corporate and team-level information structures (Anand, Manz, & Glick, 1998; Shahzad, Bhatti & Khalid, 2007). Previous research has endorsed TMS's positive impact on team success for example, Ren and Argote (2011). Teams with TMS have a greater range of expertise and skills than teams without TMS (Reagans, Miron-Spektor, & Argote, 2016). In other words, teams with high quality TMS help their participants to reach and exploit essential expertise directly from right person in the same team without losing time in looking for information, thus increasing team success (Imran et al., 2015).

Hypothesis Development and Theoretical Framework

The above argument shows a positive & negative correlation between variables but to examine their relations clearly, following hypothesis will be tested:

H1: ESM has a significant positive relation with workplace Isolation.

H2: Workplace Integration strongly moderate the effect between ESM and Workplace Isolation.

H3: Workplace Isolation has a significant negative relation with Employee Agility.

H4: Workplace Isolation has a significant negative relation Team Performance.

H5: ESM has a significant positive relation with Employee Agility.

H6: ESM has a significant positive relation with Team Performance.

H7: Workplace Integration has significant positive relation with Employee Agility.

H8: Workplace Integration has significant positive relation with Team Performance.

H9: Workplace Isolation mediates the effect between ESM and Employee Agility.

H10: Workplace Isolation mediates the effect between ESM and Team Performance.

 

 

Figure 1. Research framework

Methdology

This research relies on the explanatory approach that will investigate the interaction between dependent and independent variables as to cause and effect. This research deals with the primary method. The source of this research contains workers from South Punjab, Pakistan's telecommunication industry. The middle-level workers were the focus persons to research. This research linked predetermined questions that made for less difficult data collection to measure as all respondents were asked the same questions. The gathering of information for this analysis included the use of an online study platform to document participant responses to the survey. The key reason this field is based is that the telecommunications industry is rising increasingly, innovatively and is the primary source of income. The worldwide telecom sector has continuously grown well since the early 21st century largely due to technical advances, globalization, and powerful rivalry and increasing mobile consumption trends. As well, Pakistan's telecom market has largely improved due to liberalization of trade, beneficial agreements and rivalry. Date was obtained using the online process. To collect the answers, questionnaires were sent to the workers via email. Then the workers were asked to forward the questionnaire to the workers for data collection.

This research is made up of 348 Telecom sector workers. Techniques for the nonprobability sampling are used. Two processes, purposive sampling, and snowball sampling were applied in this research. Purpose sampling is used since it focuses mainly on middle-level workers and trainees (Ali Yaseen et al., 2015). Workers have been asked to forward the questionnaire to other workers using the process of snowball sampling. Data have been obtained by the use of the cross-sectional approach. Six items to measure the ESM were taken from the earlier work done by Ou & Davison (2011). Employee’s agility involves three constructs Proactively, Adaptability, and Resilience. Proactively includes four items, other construct includes Adaptability includes four items, and Resilience includes four items. Team performances consist of four items taken from the work of Liu et al., (2011) and earlier used by Shahzad, Farrukh, Yasmin, (2020). Workplace Isolation consists of two constructs or sub-variables like physical isolation and informational isolation. Physical isolation consists of four items (Marshall et al., 2007) and information isolation consist of six items adapted from Mulki & Jaramilo, (2011). We used Amos to conduct confirmatory factor analysis to assess the measurement model. We assessed three validities, namely, content, convergent and discriminant, for the measurement model. After demonstrating the validity of the measurement model, we use SPSS and Amos to test the hypothesized relationships.

Results

In current research survey we have use 36 items of six variables having response rate of all the items which vary from 1 to 5. The demographic results of analysis are show below in tables.

Table 1. Demographical characteristics of respondents

Demographics

n

%

Gender

Male

211

60.6

Female

137

39.4

Age

18-25

20

5.7

26-35

116

33.3

36-45

163

46.8

46-55

49

14.1

Qualification

Matric

1

0.3

Inter

16

4.6

Bachelors’

165

47.4

Masters

130

37.4

MPhil

35

10.1

 

Table 1 results show that male responses (60.6%) are relatively smaller than females (39.4%). Then according to education group are following: Matric (0.3%), Intermediate (4.6%), bachelors (47.4%), Masters (37.4%), MPhil (10.1%). In our research largest age group was 36-45 (46.8%) and remaining are 18-25 (5.7%), 26-35 (33.3%), 46-55(14.1%), the research sample shows that gender is approximate same ratio but diverse according to age and educations.

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics & Correlation Analysis

 

Mean

Std. Dev

1

2

3

4

Employee Agility

3.3101

.75913

1

 

 

 

Enterprise social media

3.3190

.80978

0.477**

1

 

 

Workplace Isolation

2.6307

.50588

-0.440**

-0.369**

1

 

Team Performance

2.8420

.34450

0.481**

0.451**

-0.519**

1

Workplace Integration

3.2384

.65784

0.342**

0.342**

-0.439**

0.371**

 

The table 2 results show that different items have mean value from 2.631 to 3.319 and the value of standard deviation is between 0.345-0.809. Correlation results shows that employee agility significantly associated with enterprise social media. Workplace isolation is the mediating variable that is negatively associated with social media enterprise and employee agility, whereas workplace integration is a moderating variable that is positively correlated with social media enterprise and workplace isolation. Perfectly negatively compare an independent variable (ESM) with contingent variable (Employee Agility and Team Performance).    

Table 3. Results of confirmatory factor analysis; convergent validity, construct reliability & Discriminant Validity

Variables

Items

Cronbach alpha

AVE

CCR

MSV

Enterprise social media

9

0.894

0.64

0.929

0.445

Workplace Isolation

4

0.748

0.746

0.946

0.188

Workplace Integration

7

0.845

0.741

0.895

0.175

Employee Agility

11

0.895

0.587

0.849

0.445

Team Performance

4

0.766

0.512

0.786

0.167

 

Five variable reliability was found to be acceptable, as Cronbach's alphas coefficients offer values above 0.60 (Tang, 2008) and 0.70 respectively. Reliability has been studied by SPSS and evaluated by standard which means that Cronbach's α must be greater than 0.70 according to (Jermsittiparsert, 2013). AMOS evaluated validity yet separate standards used to test convergent validity and discriminant validity evaluation. Three parameters for the evaluation have been tested for convergent validity. One is loading objects that have to be higher than 0,70 as their values were good at 0,75 or higher, the second is the reliability of the composite build that has to be higher than the particular limit 0,80 and the third is the average variance derived and its threshold range is higher than 0,50 The researcher verified convergent for validating the constructs. Standardized loadings slightly above the 0.5 at p < 0.05 threshold provide proof of convergent validity. Coming to discriminating validity evaluation, criteria were investigated which states that AVE's square root must be greater than all other correlated constructs. The findings of convergent and discriminating validity suggest that the aggregate model is a good match since each variable's composite reliability is more than 70%, and the total variance derived is more than 50 percent, whereas the discriminating validity reveals that each variable's load discriminates towards the others variable has optimum loading of itself when opposed to other variable, so these indicate validity of data obtained.

Table 4. Model Fitness

GFI

0.926

AGFI

0.906

NFI

0.941

TLI

0.961

CFI

0.966

RMSEA

0.55

 

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) has been used in the creation of estimation models for the above-mentioned constructs. For variables demonstrating good validity, according to Byrne (2001), with root mean square error approximation (RMSEA) < .08, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) > .90, Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) > .90, Tucker – Lewis Index (TLI) > .90, Adjusted Goodness of Fit (AGFI) > .90, and good reliability, according to Hair et al. (1998), with Cronbach's alpha above.70, average description measures have been generated allowing for the t. Table shows that the final results disclose strong and appropriate compatibility of the respective calculation and structural models.

 

Figure 2. CFA

 

Regression Analysis: First, this study used the regression analysis to test hypothesis. In order to test the hypothesis, direct effect model and the interaction effect model, two models have been developed. The key influence illustrate was intended to test the H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6, H6, H7 hypothesis and the relationship impact was illustrated to test the H8, H9, H10 hypothesis. The study of regression measures a dependent's relationship with independent variables. In order to evaluate the relationship one by one with one independent variable with one dependent variable, a linear regression technique was used. Hair et al., (2006) notes that the interaction between variables varies if the model contains the influence of moderation and mediation effect but mediation also plays an important role between variables.

Table 5. Regression Analysis Results (Direct effects)

Hypothesis Tested

Direct Relations

Dependent variable (EA and TM)

β Coefficients

R2

p-Value

Remarks

H1

ESM→WIS

-0.231

0.134

0.00

Significant

H2

WIS→EA

-0.659

0.194

0.00

Significant

H3

WIS→TP

-0.299

0.191

0.00

Significant

H4

ESM→EA

0.446

0.277

0.00

Significant

H5

ESM→TP

0.146

0.177

0.00

Significant

H6

WI→EA

0.554

0.231

0.00

Significant

H7

WI→TP

0.194

0.138

0.00

Significant

 

The result is shown in Table that there is a significant negative relationship between ESM and workplace isolation as P-value of ESM are below then 0.05 which shows that they have significantly negative impact on Workplace Isolation, Unstandardized β Coefficient value is -0.231 which indicates that which indicates that ESM negatively effect on Workplace isolation. Coefficient of determination (R2) shows the percentage of        variance in dependent variable that the independent variable explains collectively. So, result did not support H1. There is a significant negative relationship between workplace isolation and employee agility as P-value of Workplace Isolation are below then 0.05 which shows that they have significantly negative impact on Employee Agility, Unstandardized β Coefficient value is -0.659 which indicates that which indicates that Workplace Isolation negatively effect on Workplace Isolation and Employee Agility. There is a significant negative relationship between workplace isolation and Team Performance as P-value of Workplace Isolation are below then 0.05 which shows that they have significantly negative impact on Team Performance, Unstandardized β Coefficient value is -0.299 which indicates that which indicates that Workplace Isolation negatively effect on Team Performance. So, the result authenticates the H3. The result is shown in Table that Unstandardized β Coefficient value is 0.446 which indicates that which indicates that ESM positively effect on Employee Agility. There’s a significant positive relationship between was P-value of ESM are below then 0.05 which shows that they have significantly positive impact on Employee Agility. So, result authenticates H4. The result is shown in Table that Unstandardized β Coefficient value is 0.146 which indicates that which indicates that ESM positively effect on Team Performance. There’s a significant positive relationship between was P-value of ESM are below then 0.05 which shows that they have significantly positive impact on Team Performance. So, result authenticates H5. The result is shown in Table that Unstandardized β Coefficient value is 0.554 which indicates that which indicates that Workplace Integration positively effect on Employee Agility. There’s a significant positive relationship between was P-value of Workplace integration are below then 0.05 which shows that they have significantly positive impact on employee Agility. So, the result authenticates the H6. The result is shown in Table that Unstandardized β Coefficient value is 0.194 which indicates that which indicates that Workplace Integration positively effect on Team Performance. There’s a significant positive relationship between was P-value of Workplace integration are below then 0.05 which shows that they have significantly positive impact on Team Performance. So, the result authenticates the H6.

Mediation & Moderation Analysis: Here in table, we use multiple regression tests to check the indirect effect of independent variable on dependent variable through mediator. The indirect effect of ESM on Employee Agility through Workplace Isolation is -0.458 and their P-value is 0.000 which indicates that Workplace Isolation mediates the effect between ESM and Employee Agility because the P-value is less than 0.05. This is partial mediation case because ESM has directly and indirectly impact on Employee Agility significantly.

Table 6. Regression Analysis Results (Indirect effects)

Hypothesis Tested

Independent variables

Dependent variable (EA and TP)

β Coefficients

R2

p-Value

Remarks

H8

ESM→WIS→EA

-0.458

0.308

0.00

Significant

H9

ESM→WIS→TP

-0.247

0.230

0.00

Significant

Note: All values were significant at 0.05 significance level (two-tailed).

Thus, findings support hypothesis (H8). Similarly, the indirect effect of ESM on Team Performance through Workplace Isolation is -0.247 and their P-value is 0.000 which indicates that Workplace Isolation mediates the effect between ESM and Team Performance because the P-value is less than 0.05. This is partial mediation case because ESM has directly and indirectly impact on Team Performance significantly. Thus, findings support our hypothesis (H9).

Table 7. Hierarchical Regression for Moderation (H 10)

Variables

Model 1 β

Model 2 β

Step 1

 

 

ESM

-0.106**

 

WI

-0.341**

 

R2

0.292

 

Step 2

 

 

ESM×WI

 

0.277**

R2

 

0.928

Delta R2 (ɤR2)

 

0.636

Hypothesis is accepted as p-value is significantly less than 0.05. This mean that increase in one unit of interaction term effects increases the dependent variable organizational innovation by 0.100 units. The beta coefficient of independent variable ESM is 0.277 significant at 0.00 level meaning that increase in one unit of independent variable ESM leads to increase in 0.277 in dependent variable Workplace Integration. We can confidently state that moderator Workplace Integration is strengthen the positive relationship between ESM and Workplace Isolation. Thus, conclude that workplace integration strongly moderates the effect between ESM and Workplace Isolation.

Conclusion

The main goal of this quantitative study was to embellish the role of ESM on the Agility of the employees and team performance, and further to investigate that to what extent Workplace Integration influence the relation between Enterprise social media and Workplace Isolation as a moderator. This study moreover examined the intervening part of Workplace isolation between ESM, and Employee Agility and Team Performance. This research has functional and managerial aspects about it. The findings produced by this research can also direct managers through the leveraging of Workplace Isolation and ESM in the growth of employee agility. Next, when improving workforce agility, managers are advised to provide an open attitude about isolation in the workplace. Particularly when integrated in the same room as other team members, typical team members will still perform activities that involve simulated communication or teamwork (e.g., call center agents) that can induce higher degrees of isolation at work. Often managers neglect the virtual world’s ramifications and difficulties because workers are not operating in hybrid teams. This perspective is supported by the findings of this study and suggests that managers could devise effective strategies to preserve a certain degree of isolation in order to attain optimum agility of employees. Researchers demonstrated the vital role played by face-to - face meetings in order to successfully address virtuality. They also observed that the creation of mutual satisfaction benefits from direct, face-to - face experiences (Zandi, Aslam, Selamat & Umar, 2018). However, it is important to remember that a large number of workers actually execute activities for individuals they never know. If there is stronger interdependence between these two organizations, then the complexity of conducting simulated activities increases. As a consequence, greater alienation, and intensified feelings of being robbed of data and access to key entities affect the happiness earned and the results displayed. Digital workers need specially tailored preparation for successful operation that helps them to solve behavioral difficulties when they are unable to have physical experiences. Especially for virtual environments, there is an intense need for successful training programs, because as skills needed to work like this in an atmosphere can vary enormously. Those skills must also be learned by those who face the demands of remote employment, regardless matter how their teams are built (i.e., interactive, or traditional). Results reveal that those who have the most regular face-to - face contact with others (respondents classified in Low Team Low Mission) feel the least social and physical isolation, whereas those with high team virtuality feel the highest social and physical isolation, high mission. Proactively, administrators should identify ways to improve organizational and job integration and reduce perceived organizational isolation, since these aspects affect employee agility and team performance. Our study showed that the use of ESM improved the workplace integration and thus enhanced the agility of workers and team performance. ESM could also be a favored platform for executives to consider implementing. Network links are improved by social capital due to higher ESM use. Employees are therefore able to just use ESM on a number of subjects to communicate with co-workers.

This research adds to the hypothesis by enhancing our interpretation of the role of ESM in increasing employee agility and team performance through the prism of theories of social exchange and information processing. Therefore, from a theoretical point of view, this research attempted to incorporate apparently fractured theoretical parts to illustrate the role of ESM in the workplace.  The study adopts the concept of social exchange since it postulates that people prefer social circumstances that enhance their values and mitigate private disadvantages. People can evaluate the interaction gains and disadvantages, and choose connections that benefit them (Miller, 2019). May incorporate this principle inside the workplace. When an employee may not profit from their job-related experiences then the employee can become unhappy with their work situation. It is also important to ensure that staff employed from distant areas are happy with their condition at work. In the meantime, this research offers a new insight from which to explore the consequences of workplace isolation. These results expand current team success and ESM research by illustrating possible collaborative processes involving use of ESM and agility of workers and team performance.

Limitation and Future Research: The major limitation is that this study is limited to geographical location of telecommunications sectors, so future studies can look into this phenomenon and update this report on other cities' telecommunications segments. It should also be introduced in Pakistan's banking division because it can control the execution of employees and can aid promote the actions of advanced personnel (Hanif et al., 2018).  Established countries should be included in future studies. Third, this study used a cross-sectional time analysis, and hence the abnormal ties can modify or potentially loss its value within a long period. To resolve this constraint and solidify effects, an empirical consideration will aid. Finally, to decide the optimal period of time that will be necessary for ESM to have a beneficial effect on workers, more study is required.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no potential conflict of interest regarding the publication of this work. In addition, the ethical issues including plagiarism, informed consent, misconduct, data fabrication and, or falsification, double publication and, or submission, and redundancy have been completely witnessed by the authors.

Funding

 The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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