Publications
Publications
- 2020
- HBS Working Paper Series
From Online Content to Offline Results: Effects of a Best Practices Initiative on an Enterprise Social Network
By: Shelley Xin Li and Tatiana Sandino
Abstract
We examine the effects of a best practices initiative on an enterprise social network (ESN) with a natural field experiment in a large grocery store chain. Our results do not show an immediate improvement in sales, but do show 3.67-percent higher sales for the treatment stores implementing the initiative relative to the control stores by the end of the four-month initiative. The effects of the initiative were more positive in stores serving markets that were more similar to the markets of the best-practices units, in stores with fewer nearby same-company stores (with lower prior exposure to best practices), in stores that had had lower performance prior to the intervention, and when employees had perceived their regional managers to be less rather than more trustworthy and supportive before the intervention. Overall, these results suggest that a best practices initiative on an ESN could, especially in the aforementioned conditions, improve sales. Our findings have important implications for the use of digital information-sharing systems (such as ESNs) to improve financial performance.
Keywords
Retail; Best Practices; Enterprise Social Media; Management Accounting And Control Systems; Knowledge Sharing; Networks; Management Systems; Management Practices And Processes; Europe
Citation
Li, Shelley Xin, and Tatiana Sandino. "From Online Content to Offline Results: Effects of a Best Practices Initiative on an Enterprise Social Network." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 21-085, February 2021.
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