Coping with New Digital Networks: Understanding Employee Job Performance Using Social Network and Support Perpsectives

Information systems (IS) implementations can create technology-enabled disruptive changes in work and information flows, thus creating a new digital network. We examine the role of employees’ peer support network, the social network, in helping employees cope with a new digital network. We draw on research on social networks to conceptualize give-help and get-help ties based on employees’ interpersonal interactions related to the new system and general work practices. An employee’s access to these ties is proposed to have a direct effect on job performance, and the relationships are expected to be moderated by extent of work unit boundary-spanning such that the greater the boundary spanning, the stronger the effect. Job performance is also expected to be positively influenced by ties to the IT function and extraorganizational ties. A social network study of 87 employees at a business unit of a large organization, with data collection before and after an IS implementation, was conducted to test the research model. The results largely support our model, but we also found some unexpected and interesting negative effects of social networks on job performance (e.g., getting systemrelated help outside the work unit had an adverse effect on supervisor-rated job performance). INTRODUCTION New information systems (IS) are one of the most common triggers for organizational change in today’s business world. IS implementations can cause disruptive changes in business processes, jobs, and patterns of flow of information and work (Edmondson et al. 2001). Prior IS research on disruptive innovations (e.g., Lyytinen and Rose 2003) has explained the conditions for and consequences of disruptive technology innovations with a focus on system development activities. Focusing on social networks and social support will further our understanding related to disruptive IT by identifying what it would take to create a favorable impact on employee job performance even within just months of an implementation. Even IS implemented in specific business units can create new and integrated business processes that frequently cut across the boundaries of business units and even organizational boundaries (Robey et al. 2002). The creation of new technology-mediated work and information flows creates a new digital network. Such digital networks connect employees and create greater interdependence via tasks and processes, thus creating challenges for employees. Also, IS can introduce uncertainty and