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Employee Involvement, Attitudes and Reactions to Technology Changes

January 25, 2007

"The use of technology has grown at a phenomenal rate within organizations (Jick & Peiperl, 2003). Gaining insight into employee perspectives related to technology changes might strengthen the technology adoption-performance link. Findings related to the implementation of technological changes suggest that the adoption of technology changes by individuals is largely based on their perceptions of how the technology will impact their jobs.

Job satisfaction is one of the most extensively researched work-related attitudes (Loscocco & Roschelle, 1991). Organizational commitment is also a frequently studied job attitude (Lines, 2004; Loscocco & Roschelle, 1991). Employee turnover is costly for organizations. Consequently, organizations and researchers alike are interested in understanding the potential antecedents of turnover in order to avert the costly loss of valued employees. Organizational change can be stressful to employees (Bartunek, 1984; Buchanan, 2003).

Employee reactions to change, in art, impact the success of change initiatives(Jick & Peiperl, 2003; Jick, 1993; Kanter, Stein, & Jick, 1992). Recent research provides evidence that allowing employees to participate in making decisions related to a change initiative has a positive impact on the overall success of the change (Lines, 2004).

Hypothesis 1: Individuals with high levels of involvement in planning the technology changes will react more positively to the changes than individuals with low levels of involvement.

Hypothesis 2: Individual reactions to technological changes will be positively related to pre-change levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment (i.e., individuals who have higher levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment will tend to react positively to the changes).

Hypothesis 3: Individual reactions to technological changes will be negatively related to pre-change levels of intent to turnover and role-related stress (i.e., individuals who have lower levels of intent to turnover and role-related stress will tend to react positively to the changes).

Pseudonyms are used in this study to protect the identity of the organizations discussed in this research (Mirvis et al., 1991). The organization serving as the data source is Southern Health Care (SHC). The number of individuals employed by SHC during the data collection period ranged from 169-190. Technological changes were implemented to improve the efficiency of SHC's nursing staff. These changes included a transition from laptop computers used by nurses for their documentation to smaller palm-sized clinical assistant (CE) devices. The other technological changes implemented were automated nursing care plans (i.e., clinical pathways).

All data were collected via two self-report surveys administered to SHC employees. Surveys were accompanied by a cover letter stating the purpose of the survey, intended use of the data, and the assurance that participant responses were completely anonymous. Surveys were administered to SHC employees at two distinct times with approximately 12 months between the pre-change and post-change administrations. All of SHC's employees were given the opportunity to participate in the initial, pre-change survey (T1). Ninety-eight individuals completed T1 surveys for a response rate of 58 percent. All of SHC's employees were given the opportunity to complete the post-change survey (T2). One hundred thirty five individuals completed the T2 surveys for a response rate of 71 percent. Survey respondents were classified into four job categories. These job categories included administrative support (21.1%), HCA's (22.5%), nurses (45.1%), and management (11.3%). Racial composition of the participants was 30.4% African American and 68.1% white. The majority of participants were female (94%), over age 40 (71.4%), and worked with SHC for over five years (74.6%).

Reactions to technology change were assessed using a two-item measure. The first item asked participants to indicate how they felt the 'changes in the clinical documentation system from laptops to CE devices' impacted them by circling the corresponding item on the response scale. The second item asked participants to indicate how they felt 'automating clinical pathways from hard copies' impacted them. Participants were divided into two distinct groups based on their level of involvement in planning the technology changes. Job satisfaction was assed using the three-item measure from the Michigan Organizational Assessment Questionnaire (MOAQ) (Cammann, Fichman, Jenkins & Klesh, 1983; Seashore, Lawler, Mirvis, & Camman, 1982). Organizational commitment was assessed using Mowday, Steers, & Porter (1979) Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ). Intent to turnover was assessed using Camman et al.'s (1983) three-item propensity to quit measure from the MOAQ. In this study, role conflict was measured using seven items from Rizzo et al.'s (1970) scale. Role ambiguity was measured using Rizzo et al.'s (1970) six-item scale. Participants were asked to provide demographic information including their job category, age, organizational tenure, gender, and race.

The report results support hypothesis 1. The results did not support hypothesis 2. The results partially supported hypothesis 3.

Individuals with a high level of involvement in the technology changes included employees predominantly in the management job category, nurse job category, and administrative support job category. Nurses were most directly impacted by the technological changes since individuals in this job category were required to make the transition from using laptop computers to using smaller palm-sized CE devices. Nurses were also required to switch from hard copy versions of clinical pathways that are used to plan the services provided to patients to an automated version of these pathways.

A primary objective of this research was to determine if employee attitudes prior to making technology changes were related to individuals' reactions to the changes. Participants who reported that their roles were ambiguous prior to the technology changes reacted more negatively to the technology changes. It is possible that individuals who reported higher role ambiguity also suffered lower self-confidence and, therefore, reacted more negatively because they did not see themselves as capable of implementing the technology changes (Schraeder, M.; Swamidass, P.M., & Morrison, R., 2006, p. 85-100)."

Reference: Schraeder, M.; Swamidass, P.M., & Morrison, R. (2006). Employee Involvement, Attitudes and Reactions to Technology Changes. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, Vol. 121, No. 3.

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Created: 2007-04-18, Updated: 2008-12-29