What’s in IT for employees? Understanding the relationship between use and performance in enterprise social software

•We study how enterprise social software platform (ESSP) use affects employee performance.•ESSP use is positively associated with employees’ individual performance impacts.•Task equivocality moderates the relationship between ESSP use and performance.•Intra-team ESSP use has a greater impact on task performance than inter-team use.•Inter-team ESSP use has a greater impact on innovativeness than intra-team use.

Despite enterprise social software platforms’ (ESSPs) widespread diffusion in recent years, the impact of such systems on employee performance is not clear. This study explores the link between ESSP use and its potential performance impacts. Our findings show that ESSP use influences employee performance in two ways: through improved task performance and employee innovation. We also show that task equivocality moderates the relationship between ESSP use and employee performance outcomes, with ESSP use having a stronger impact on the performance of non-routine tasks. Finally, we show that using ESSPs for connecting within teams has a stronger effect on task performance, while using ESSP for connecting across teams has a stronger effect on employee innovation. These results can help researchers and practitioners better understand how ESSP use affects employee performance and the conditions best suited to achieve these performance outcomes in an enterprise setting.