- The paper uses a quasi-experimental DiD design to show that ESMP adoption increases overall communication ties by 7.8% weekly, driven by the creation of new, weak connections.
- The Microsoft case study demonstrates that Engage fosters one-to-many interactions and bridges hierarchical gaps, with ties among employees 6+ levels apart occurring roughly 30 times more frequently than on Teams.
- By fostering novel, bridging ties that bypass communication silos, ESMPs democratize influence and enhance cross-departmental information flow within organizations.
This paper investigates the impact of Enterprise Social Media Platforms (ESMPs) on corporate communication networks, addressing whether these platforms create new connections and information flows beyond existing tools like email and instant messaging. The research is motivated by the increasing prevalence of ESMPs, especially with the rise of remote work, and the need to understand their effects on organizational communication, social capital, and potential mitigation of remote work challenges like communication siloing.
The study employs a two-pronged approach:
- Study #1: Difference-in-Differences (DiD) Analysis:
- Methodology: A quasi-experimental DiD design was used to measure the causal impact of adopting Engage (Microsoft's ESMP, formerly Yammer). This involved comparing communication network metrics of 99 companies that suddenly adopted Engage ("treated" group) with those that hadn't yet adopted it ("control" group) over a 69-week period (2022-2023). The DiD approach, specifically using the Sun and Abraham estimator, helps isolate the effect of ESMP adoption while controlling for pre-existing trends and time effects.
- Data: Weekly aggregated, de-identified communication data (email via Outlook, instant messaging via Teams, ESMP via Engage) from the 99 companies. Communication networks were constructed weekly, with nodes representing employees and edges representing information flow (e.g., sending an email, viewing a post, reacting).
- Key Findings:
- Increased Network Density: ESMP adoption caused a significant increase in the total number of communication ties (+7.8% avg. weekly increase post-adoption).
- New, Novel Ties: This increase was driven primarily by the creation of new connections between employees (+12.4% distinct ties) rather than strengthening pre-existing ones (+1.7%, not significant).
- Broadcast Nature: The growth stemmed largely from one-to-many interactions (+14.3%) characteristic of social media, although reciprocal (bi-directional) ties also increased (+6.2%).
- Addition of Weak Ties: The adoption led to a decrease in average tie embeddedness (-3.5 pp) and an increase in dispersion (+12.5 pp), indicating that the new ties tend to be "weak ties" bridging previously disconnected parts of the network.
- Increased Centrality Concentration: Network centrality became more concentrated, with Gini coefficients for PageRank (+2.6 pp) and degree centrality (+1.3 pp) increasing, suggesting a few employees become disproportionately more central after ESMP adoption.
- Study #2: Microsoft Case Study:
- Methodology: A cross-sectional analysis of Microsoft's internal communication network combined with its corporate hierarchy structure.
- Data: Aggregated communication data (Engage, Outlook, Teams) for Microsoft employees (2022-2023) linked with the company's organizational hierarchy (reporting structure, levels, number of subordinates).
- Key Findings:
- Bridging Hierarchy: Compared to email and Teams, Engage ties were significantly more likely to connect employees distant in the corporate hierarchy, both vertically (e.g., large differences in level or number of subordinates) and horizontally (e.g., employees at similar levels but in different organizational branches, measured by tree distance). For instance, ties between employees 6+ levels apart were ~30 times more frequent on Engage than on Teams.
- Democratized Influence: Influence within the Engage network (measured by PageRank) showed weak correlation with formal hierarchical position (level, subordinates). In contrast, influence in email and Teams networks was more strongly correlated with hierarchy. The most central users on Engage were more distributed across hierarchical levels compared to email or Teams, where top influencers were more concentrated higher up.
Overall Implications:
The findings suggest that ESMPs like Engage genuinely enhance corporate communication networks by adding new, weak, and bridging ties. They facilitate information flow across hierarchical and departmental boundaries more effectively than traditional email or instant messaging. This indicates ESMPs can increase employees' awareness of activities outside their immediate teams and potentially counteract the siloing effects associated with remote work. They appear to "democratize" influence to some extent, allowing individuals lower in the formal hierarchy to become central communicators.
Limitations:
The authors acknowledge limitations, including potential sample bias (companies choosing to adopt ESMPs might differ systematically), the possibility of unobserved confounding events (though deemed unlikely due to setup time), the need for future work on how ESMP-derived social capital translates to tangible benefits, the lack of analysis on the specific nature or content of ties, and the fact that results might vary based on how different companies implement and use ESMPs.
