Successful Digitalization of Workplaces: How Social Support Increases Change-Process and Technology-Related Employee Outcomes

The progressing digitalization brings about many economic chances for organizations (e.g., interconnected business-processes, real-time monitoring of production lines; Matt et al., 2023). Yet, the changes these technological introductions bring to the workplaces can also be demanding to employees (Bakker et al., 2023). During recent technological change projects, the demands for employees to adapt for example to process redesign and new work designs, new skill requirements, and to customize the technology to own needs have been observed (Cascio & Montealegre, 2016; Demerouti, 2022; Momoh et al., 2010; Parker & Grote, 2022). Social support describes the provision of psychological or material resources from one individual (e.g., organizational actors designing the change) to another (e.g., the employee) in a social relationship during times of need (Jolly et al., 2021). To help employees cope with technological change, make the transition as little demanding as possible and increase the chance of technology implementation success, organizational actors provide support in the form of training, management support, participation options, helpdesk support, information and vision, and many more (Iden & Eikebrokk, 2013; Reitsma & Hilletofth, 2018). These interventions can be theoretically explained with social support theory (House, 1981; Jolly et al., 2021), whereby interventions represent manifestations of different kinds of social support during technological change (e.g., training represents instrumental support, management support represents emotional support). Social support is provided to employees to achieve positive attitude and self-efficacy towards the technology, increase the intention to use the technology, performance, and satisfaction with the change process and the new technology, reduce strain during the implementation process, and initiate usage. The scope of this dissertation is to research how effective social support and its translation into interventions is to support employees during technological change, theoretically explain how this effect develops and test whether its effectiveness can be increased by taking theoretical assumptions of social support theory into account. These research purposes were examined in three studies. In Study 1, my co-author and I conducted a review of theories and meta-analysis on studies researching the implementation of new technologies into the workplace and analyzed how effective different kinds of support were in increasing positive attitudinal, affective, and behavioral change reactions of employees. First, we reviewed theories on support (e.g., House, 1981), resource and demand interactions with Job-Demands Resources Theory (JD-R, Bakker et al., 2023), and technology implementation (Davis et al. 1989), and deduced the Social Support model of Technology Implementation. Second, we conducted a meta-analysis to test the model assumptions. Results showed that while affirmative (e.g., management support, participation) and instrumental support (e.g., training, helpdesk support) were effective with a moderate effect size, informational support (e.g., providing information about and a vision for the change) was effective with a large effect size. Furthermore, each kind of support affected a different outcome of technology implementation most strongly. In Study 2, my co-authors and I questioned why different kinds of support were effective by hypothesizing based on specificity hypothesis of social support theory (Cohen & Wills, 1985; House, 1981) that support must match the need content, and therefore each act of support should predominantly address a different psychological need in employees as described by Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci et al., 2017; Deci & Ryan, 2000). We assumed that training would address mainly the satisfaction of the need for competence, participation the need for relatedness, and management support the need for autonomy. By applying structural equation modeling to survey data, results showed that while demands of a technology implementation decreased the satisfaction of all three psychological needs, support interventions applied in organizations only increased the satisfaction of the need for autonomy, but not the need for competence and relatedness. In Study 3, we applied an experimental vignette study design to answer the research question whether support interventions could be designed to buffer the effects of change demands as described in the specificity hypothesis of social support theory (Cohen & Wills, 1985; House, 1981). The specificity hypothesis assumes that support is not ubiquitously effective, but support must match the demand in content to either buffer the demand’s detrimental effect or develop a direct positive effect on outcomes. Results confirmed a buffering effect of instrumental support on the relationship of instrumental change demands on attitude to change, satisfaction and behavioral intention to use the technology, but not for emotional support on the relationship of affective change demands on outcomes, or mixed kinds of support and demands. The results indicate that for a match to occur the support receiver also needs to direct personal relevance to the match. This dissertation makes contributions to social support theory by delineating the kinds of support by translating it into interventions, proving its effects and mechanisms, and advancing predictions of the specificity hypothesis. It contributes to JD-R and SDT by directing attention to demands, which has so far been missing from research, and elaborating on the ranked importance of the three psychological needs. Furthermore, it is advancing organizational change research by showing that focusing on the specifics of subtypes of change enriches the research scope. For practitioners, this dissertation provides an evidence-based recommendation for the design of technological change, starting by an organizational diagnosis to identify the specific demand, chose matching support based on these demands, outcome to be achieved and psychological needs to be addressed.

Level thesis:degree_level

thesis.doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher

Universität Bielefeld

Year

2024

Author dc:creator

• Schlicher, Katharina

Repository record source_url

https://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/record/3002674

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:pub.uni-bielefeld.de:3002674