Effects of employee identity salience on content sharing in social networks

Purpose This research explores whether, when and why employee identity salience influences content sharing of employee's friends in social networks and further investigates two moderating conditions of network overlap and deal content. Design/methodology/approach In Study 1, the authors analyzed a field data related to 20,715 users on the largest social network platform in China. In Studies 2 and 3, the authors verified the findings of Study 1 and tested the underlying mechanism with two experiments. Findings The results showed that employee identity salience could increase sharing likelihood of content receiver, especially when the employee had higher network overlap with receiver. However, when the content contained deal-related information, the receiver was less likely to share this content from employee with salient identity. The authors also found that perceived information credibility acted as a mediator in above relationships. Originality/value This research is the first to test the effects of employee identity salience on content sharing by considering both content type and network characteristics. The authors also provide insights into the mediating role of information credibility, which enriches the content sharing and social network literature.