2020/06/09 by A. Fronzetti Colladon, Andrea Fronzetti Colladon, Johanne Saint-Charles +3 · 1 voice
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #Digital Marketing and Social Media #Knowledge Management and Sharing #cs.CL #cs.SI #physics.soc-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1177/0165551520929931
published as Journal of Information Science 47(6), 699-711 (2021)
openalex publication_date 2020/06/09 · openalex created_date 2020/06/19 · arxiv created 2021/11/11 · arxiv updated 2021/11/12 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Bringing together considerations from three research trends (honest signals of collaboration, socio-semantic networks and homophily theory), we hypothesise that word use similarity and having similar social network positions are linked with the level of employees' digital interaction. To verify our hypothesis, we analyse the communication of close to 1600 employees, interacting on the intranet communication forum of a large company. We study their social dynamics and the 'honest signals' that, in past research, proved to be conducive to employees' engagement and collaboration. We find that word use similarity is the main driver of interaction, much more than other language characteristics or similarity in network position. Our results suggest carefully choosing the language according to the target audience and have practical implications for both company managers and online community administrators. Understanding how to better use language could, for example, support the development of knowledge sharing practices or internal communication campaigns.