When silence hurts: a conservation of resources perspective on enterprise social media ostracism and digital creativity

Purpose As reliance on enterprise social media (ESM) grows, understanding the antecedents and mechanisms of its effectiveness is crucial. While ostracism’s distressing effects have been noted, its influence on employees' digital creativity remains underexplored. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study examines how ESM ostracism affects digital creativity. Design/methodology/approach The study employed a time-lagged, multi-source survey design and data were collected from 328 employees and their supervisors in a Chinese information technology organization. Specifically, data were collected across four waves, where each wave was spaced one week apart. Moreover, a moderated serial mediation model was tested by using Hayes’s Process macro in SPSS Statistics. Findings This study found that ESM ostracism is negatively related to employee digital creativity via serially mediated relationships, including psychological distress and creativity goal striving. Furthermore, results demonstrate that performance tension strengthens the negative relationship between ESM ostracism and digital creativity via psychological distress and creativity goal striving. Originality/value The literature explains how and why ESM influences employee behavior and performance. This study contributes to the existing body of information systems and creativity literature by exploring when and why ESM ostracism dampens the digital creativity of employees. Peer review The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-12-2024-0789.