What Supports Serendipity on Twitter? Online Survey on the Role of Technology Characteristics and Their Use

Abstract

<p>Serendipity experiences are highly desirable in work life, considering both individuals' learning and organizational innovation capacity. This study looks into information and social serendipity in the context of Twitter. While Twitter can be viewed as a fruitful platform for serendipity to emerge, there is little understanding of what technology characteristics and use practices contribute to such experiences in work-related use. Drawing from the functional affordances theory, the paper investigates the role of presenteeism, self-disclosure, recommendation quality and pace of change, and different types of Twitter use as possible antecedents of serendipity. A cross-sectional international online survey was conducted with 473 respondents who actively use Twitter in their work. An exploratory factor analysis was performed, followed by linear regression analysis to identify relevant statistical associations. The findings indicate that presenteeism (i.e., the fundamental element of reachability) seems to have an effect on serendipity while the more designable characteristics, like the quality of recommendations, do not. Overall, the findings imply that serendipity experiences are primarily explained by individual characteristics like personality and specific ways of using Twitter. This is amongst the first studies on the role of Twitter characteristics as functional affordances in the formation of serendipity. The extensive empirical study contributes a detailed analysis of the antecedents of serendipity and opens avenues for research and design to identify new serendipity-inducing mechanisms.</p>