Mitigating perceived overload of communication visibility: the role of ESM policies

Purpose This study aims to explore how communication visibility affects employees’ work engagement from the negative perspective of employees’ perceived overload in the context of enterprise social media (ESM) and the role of ESM policies in the relationship between communication visibility and perceived overload. Design/methodology/approach This study examines how communication visibility (i.e. message transparency and network translucence) affects employees’ perceived overload (i.e. information overload and social overload), which in turn affects employees’ work engagement, and how ESM policies moderate the relationship between communication visibility and perceived overload. Partial least squares (PLS) analysis was conducted on data gathered from 224 ESM users in workplaces. Findings Communication visibility has significant positive impacts on perceived overload, perceived overload has significant negative impacts on work engagement and ESM policies negatively moderate the relationships between communication visibility and perceived overload, except for the relationship between message transparency and social overload. Practical implications The findings provide new insights for organizational managers to formulate ESM policies to mitigate perceived overload and guidance for ESM developers to improve ESM functions to alleviate perceived overload. Originality/value This study provides empirical evidence to explain the role of communication visibility and perceived overload in employees’ work engagement, which contributes to the existing literature on the negative impacts of communication visibility.