Research On The Impact Of Using Instant Messaging On Organizational Performance

With the rapid development of Internet communication technology,Instant Messaging(IM)have become a convenient,easy-to-use and time-sensitive social medium,which has been widely used in various places,especially in professional places to complete collaborative work.The use of IM can lead to changes in strong & weak ties between people.Within the organization,communication between employees may have different effects due to the different content and channels of the information transmitted by strong & weak ties.Good organizational communication effects can not only achieve effective communication among employees,but also have important significance for the healthy development and efficient operation of the organization.Based on social network theory and organizational communication theory,this paper used “Using IM at Work” as independent variable,“Strong & Weak Ties Changes” and“Organizational Communication Effects” as mediating variable,“Organizational Performance” as dependent variable.It proposed the impact of using IM on organizational performance,as well as assumed that the mediating effect of strong & weak ties changes and organizational communication effects.It also constructed conceptual models.According to the conceptual model,a questionnaire containing 36 items was designed.Within the scope of22 provinces and 4 municipalities,1000 questionnaires were sent to the on-the-job employees who used IM,and we retrieved 925 questionnaires.After eliminating the invalid questionnaire,852 valid questionnaires were obtained.After testing the reliability and validity of data,the structural equation model was analyzed by PLS-SEM method.The results show that:(1)The use of IM has a positive impact on both strong and weak ties changes.(2)Strong ties strengthening can affect organizational performance through the mediating role of formal and informal communication effects.(3)Weak ties strengthening can directly affect organizational performance to a large extent,and they can also have an impact on organizational performance through the mediating role of formal and informal communication effects.(4)The weak ties increasing can directly affect organizational performance,which has an impact on organizational performance through the mediating role of informal communication effects.(5)The use of IM can positively influence organizational performance through strong ties strengthening and informal communication effects.It can also positively impact organizational performance through the process of strong ties strengthening,weak ties strengthening and weak ties increasing affect informal communication effects.