Enterprise Social Network Applications: Enhancing and Driving Innovation Culture and Productivity Through Digital Technologies

Abstract

Enterprise Social Network (ESN) applications offer new opportunities for organizations to mobilize employees, promoting innovation beyond traditional R&D functions. Despite the popularity and success of these applications, current research has yet to fully explore the potential of ESN applications as both drivers of productive innovation and innovation culture, specifically. This paper proposes a theoretical framework that explains the role of ESN applications in facilitating organizational-wide ideation, collaboration, and socialization, thereby promoting innovation culture and innovation productivity. This study reveals that the dimensions of innovation culture, namely knowledge sharing, transparency, and risk tolerance, mediate the effects of ESN applications on the measures of firm innovation productivity— product/service innovation, process innovation, and social innovation. The findings presented here have implications for theory and practice, namely concerning building an organizational culture that promotes open innovative behavior using social technologies.