Enterprise Social Media Usage and Employee Creativity Model Questionnaire

Abstract

The Enterprise Social Media Usage and Employee Creativity-Model Questionnaire (Si et al., 2023) is a 19-item instrument developed to investigate the complex relationship between the excessive use of enterprise social media (ESM) and subsequent employee creativity. The scale is theoretically grounded in the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), providing a foundational framework for understanding how excessive technology demands may lead to stress and reduced creative output.

The initial pool of 21 items was adapted from established measures concerning technology use and stress, including studies by Caplan & High (2006), Turel et al. (2011), and Tierney & Farmer (2011). To ensure cross-cultural equivalence, the developers employed the back-translation method (Brislin, 1980) to generate a standardized Chinese version. The final 19-item instrument was validated using structural equation modeling (SEM) on a sample of employees within the Chinese information technology sector, demonstrating strong psychometric properties regarding factor structure, reliability, and validity.

Keywords

Employee Creativity, Enterprise Social Media Fatigue, Enterprise Social Media Usage, Excessive Enterprise Social Media Usage, Techno-Overload, Technology Overload, Technology-Family Conflict, Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping

Authors

Wen Si, Naseer Abbas Khan, Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Waqas Amin, Qianyun Pan

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Purpose

The primary purpose of this scale is to serve as a comprehensive measurement model for assessing the dynamics between high levels of enterprise social media (ESM) utilization and the resulting impact on creative performance among employees. Specifically, it focuses on quantifying the negative effects associated with overuse, such as fatigue and conflict, and linking these stressors to reduced employee creativity.

The instrument provides researchers and organizational psychologists with a tool to diagnose potential issues arising from the integration of ESM in the workplace, particularly where usage becomes excessive or mandatory, thereby influencing employee well-being and innovative capability within the organization.

Construct

The questionnaire measures five distinct but related constructs within the context of workplace technology usage and performance. These constructs form the core of the proposed model linking technological stress to creative outcomes:

• Excessive Enterprise Social Media Usage: The perceived overuse of ESM platforms during work hours.
• Techno-Overload: The feeling of being overwhelmed by the demands, complexity, and sheer volume of work imposed by technology.
• Technology-Family Conflict: The interference between work-related technology use (ESM) and personal or family life.
• Excessive Enterprise Social Media Fatigue: The emotional drain, stress, and lack of interest resulting from prolonged or mandatory ESM engagement.
• Employee Creativity: The generation of novel and useful ideas, methods, or solutions in the workplace.

Validity

The validity of the measurement model was rigorously established through assessments of both convergent and discriminant validity, adhering to established psychometric standards derived from Nunally & Bernstein (1994) and Fornell & Larcker (1981).

Convergent validity was strongly supported, as evidenced by two key metrics: the composite reliability values for all dimensions exceeded the recommended threshold of 0.70, and the average variance extracted (AVE) values surpassed the 0.50 benchmark. Furthermore, discriminant validity was confirmed, satisfying the criterion set by Fornell & Larcker (1981), which requires that the correlation between any two constructs must be lower than the square root of the corresponding AVE.

Reliability

The reliability of the scale, specifically its internal consistency, was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. The analysis revealed high internal consistency across the various dimensions of the instrument, with alpha values ranging from 0.76 to 0.85.

These reliability scores demonstrate that the items within each subscale are highly correlated and consistently measure the intended construct, confirming the instrument’s stability and trustworthiness for application in organizational research settings.

Factor Analysis

The factor structure was investigated using a multi-step process. Initially, a principal component factor analysis was conducted as part of Harman’s single-factor test (Podsakoff et al., 1990) to check for common method bias. This analysis identified four factors with eigenvalues greater than one, suggesting that a single overarching factor was not responsible for the majority of the variance.

Following the refinement and removal of certain items, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed to test the fit of the proposed measurement model. The CFA results indicated an excellent fit to the data, as shown by the following fit indices: 𝜒² = 173.93, df = 142, RMSEA = 0.03, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.98, and NFI = 0.93. These indices confirm the statistical robustness of the hypothesized five-factor structure.

Instrument

Test Type: This is the original instrument, categorized as a self-report inventory or questionnaire designed for organizational psychology research.

Format: The questionnaire is structured into two main sections: one capturing demographic data and the other containing the core model constructs. Responses are recorded on a seven-point Likert scale, where 1 signifies “strongly disagree” and 7 signifies “strongly agree.”

Language Available: English; Chinese

Population Group: Human respondents, including both Male and Female employees.

Age Group: Adulthood (18 years and older), specifically covering Young Adulthood (18–29 years), Thirties (30–39 years), and Middle Age (40–64 years).

Population Details: The scale was initially validated using a sample of professional employees working within the Information Technology Industry in China.

Test Methodology: The development and validation of the instrument involved extensive psychometric testing, including assessments of Test Validity (Convergent and Discriminant Validity), Test Reliability (Internal Consistency), and Factor Analysis (Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Principal Component Analysis).

Keywords

Creativity Assessment, Employee Attitudes, Employee Characteristics, Occupational Stress, Work Load, Internet Usage, Social Media, Family Work Conflict, Digital Fatigue, Employee Creativity, Technology Overload

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Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: No data is Available

Affiliation Email addresses: The primary affiliations of the authors include Chongqing College Of Mobile Communication School Of Art And Communication; South Ural State University Department of Industrial Economics and Project Management; Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology; and Yanshan University School of Management. Email addresses for correspondence include: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].

Correspondence Address: Muhammad Ali: [email protected]

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: The instrument may be utilized for academic research and teaching purposes. The scale is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Commercial Use: No

Fee: No

Test Year: 2023

Reference’s

Si, W., Khan, N. A., Ali, M., Amin, M. W., & Pan, Q. (2023). Excessive enterprise social media usage and employee creativity: An application of the transactional theory of stress and coping. Acta Psychologica, 232, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103811

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Items of the Enterprise Social Media Usage and Employee Creativity-Model Questionnaire

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

The 19 items of the measure are available and cover five construct subscales: Excessive enterprise social media usage; Techno-overload; Technology-family conflict; Enterprise social media fatigue; and Employee creativity. Respondents are asked to report their responses on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 7 (“strongly agree”).