The impact of social media use for communication and social exchange relationship on employee performance

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the underlying mechanisms through which social media use for vertical and horizontal communication enhance employee performance. Design/methodology/approach To test the research model, the authors conducted a questionnaire survey in China. The authors used a customer panel database provided by a marketing research firm in China to identify appropriate respondents. Finally, the authors received 243 valid responses. Findings The authors find that social media use for vertical communication (SMUVC) is positively related to leader-member exchange (LMX) and social media use for horizontal communication (SMUHC) is positively related to team-member exchange (TMX). LMX and TMX are positively related to employee performance. LMX is positively associated with TMX. Besides, task complexity positively moderates the relationship between LMX and employee performance, while it negatively moderates the relationship between TMX and employee performance. Originality/value First, it adds to the literature by investigating the underlying mechanisms of how social media use for communication influences job performance. By identifying LMX and TMX as the underlying mechanisms, the authors make comprehensive considerations of how the vertical and horizontal relationships link the effect of social media use for communication on employee performance. Second, despite the growing evidence demonstrates that high-quality LMX and TMX can individually contribute to employee job performance, little research has considered both LMX and TMX relationships simultaneously and their effects on job performance. Finally, by establishing task complexity as a key moderator on the relationships between LMX and TMX and job performance, the study could explain the inconsistent findings in the literature that the effects of LMX and TMX are significant in some studies yet not significant in other studies.