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Gender differences in intentional social action: we-intention to engage in social network-facilitated team collaboration

  • Research Article
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Journal of Information Technology

Abstract

The growth and popularity of Web 2.0 applications help people to build and maintain their social networks online and further encourage social network-facilitated team collaboration. In this study, we conceptualized the use of instant messaging in social network-facilitated team collaboration as an intentional social action and further investigated the effect of gender differences in the development of we-intention (i.e. collective intention) to engage in such collaboration. A research model was developed and empirically tested with 482 university students in Mainland China. The results demonstrated that the effects of attitude, positive anticipated emotions, and group norms on we-intention were more important for men, whereas the effects of social identity and negative anticipated emotions were more significant for women to collectively participate in social network-facilitated team collaboration. We believe the implications of this study would shed considerable light on both research and practice.

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Acknowledgements

The work described in this paper was partially supported by a grant from the Research Grant Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. CityU 145907). The authors acknowledge with gratitude the generous support of the Hong Kong Baptist University for the project (FRG/08-09/II-58) without which the timely production of the current report/publication would not have been feasible.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Systems, USTC-CityU Joint Research Center, China

    Aaron XL Shen

  2. Department of Information Systems, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Matthew KO Lee

  3. Department of Finance and Decision Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Christy MK Cheung

  4. Department of Information Systems, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, P.R. China

    Huaping Chen

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  1. Aaron XL Shen
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Appendices

Appendix A

Questionnaire items

Attitude

Using instant messaging to communicate with the group of your friends would be: (7-point semantic scale)

(1) Foolish-Wise, (2) Harmful-Beneficial, (3) Bad-Good

Positive anticipated emotions

If I am able to use instant messaging to communicate with the group of my friends, I will feel: (7-point ‘not at all-very much’ scale)

(1) Excited, (2) Delighted, (3) Happy, (4) Glad, (5) Satisfied

Negative anticipated emotions

If I am unable to use instant messaging to communicate with the group of my friends, I will feel: (7-point ‘not at all-very much’ scale)

(1) Angry, (2) Frustrated, (3) Sad, (4) Disappointed, (5) Depressed, (6) Worried, (7) Uncomfortable, (8) Anxious

Subjective norms

  • Most people who are important to me think that I should/should not use instant messaging to communicate with the group of my friends. (7-point ‘should-should not’ scale)

  • Most people who are important to me would approve/disapprove of me using instant messaging to communicate with the group of my friends. (7-point ‘approve-disapprove’ scale)

Group norms

Using instant messaging to communicate with the group of your friends that you identified above can be considered as a goal. For you and your friends, please estimate the strength to which each holds the goal. (7-point ‘weak-strong’ scales)

  • Strength of the shared goal by yourself

  • Average of the strength of the shared goal for other friends

Social identity

  • Please indicate to what degree your self-image overlaps with the identity of the group of your friends with whom you communicate using instant messaging. (7-point ‘not at all-very much’ scale)

  • How attached are you to the group of your friends with whom you communicate using instant messaging? (7-point ‘not at all-very much’ scale)

  • How strong would you say your feelings of belongingness are toward the group of your friends with whom you communicate using instant messaging? (7-point ‘not at all-very much’ scale)

  • I am a valuable member of the group. (7-point ‘does not describe me at all-describes me very well’ scale)

  • I am an important member of the group. (7-point ‘does not describe me at all-describes me very well’ scale)

We-Intention (7-point ‘disagree-agree’ scale)

  • I intend that our group use instant messaging to communicate together.

  • We intend to use instant messaging to communicate together.

Appendix B

Procedure for the comparison of path coefficients

where S pooled is the pooled estimator for the variance; t the t-statistic with N 1+N 2−2 degrees of freedom; N i the sample size of data set for sample i; SE i is the standard error of path in structural model of sample i; PC i is the path coefficient in structural model of sample i.

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Shen, A., Lee, M., Cheung, C. et al. Gender differences in intentional social action: we-intention to engage in social network-facilitated team collaboration. J Inf Technol 25, 152–169 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/jit.2010.12

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