Impact of social media usage on job performance and employee retention: Role of knowledge sharing and organizational commitment

The business world is changing at an accelerated rate, and the key driver of this change is technology. Technologies largely dominate social networking and knowledge sharing activities in organizations through social media (SM). As SM is used in organizations for both work-related and social-related purposes, understanding its impact on job performance and employee retention is important. Hence, through the lens of organizational commitment theory and by analyzing a sample of 426 IT employees, this study attempted to explore the influence of SM usage on job performance and employee retention through knowledge sharing and organizational commitment. The significant outcomes of this study are as follows: (1) both work-related and social-related SM usage positively influence organizational commitment through knowledge sharing; (2) social media usage positively impacts job performance and employee retention by enhancing employee knowledge sharing capability and organizational commitment. Implications of this study provide meaningful insights for both academics and practitioners.