Altruistic and egoistic behaviors on enterprise social network platforms: Analysis using PLS-SEM and fsQCA

Abstract

Enterprise social network platforms (ESNPs) are thriving in workplaces. Past studies have provided two competitive explanations − employees engage in egoistic behaviors to facilitate knowledge hiding and personal enjoyment or altruistic behaviors to facilitate knowledge sharing and offering assistance. However, these perspectives have generally not been synthesized into a unified model. We adopt an integrated perspective to reconcile the two paradoxical behaviors, using PLS-SEM and fsQCA from 174 employees. The results of PLS-SEM show that social and utilitarian motivation facilitate altruistic use, while social motivation reduces egoistic use, and utilitarian motivation and egoistic use have an inverted U-shaped relationship. Institutional deterrence positively moderates the relationship between egoistic use and work performance. Altruistic use mediates the relationship between three motivations and work performance. The fsQCA reveals causal configurations that portray the recipes of how different modes promote altruistic use, egoistic use, and work performance, which are complementary to the findings of PLS-SEM.