BACKGROUND: The participative design of work processes is hampered by as-yet unresolved challenges. A root cause is seen in high information-pass-on-barriers. Virtual Reality (VR) may have a significant potential to overcome these challenges. Yet, there is no systematic understanding of which advantages provided by VR can support the participative design of work processes. OBJECTIVE: The present study aims to assess the potential of VR to support the participative design of work processes by conducting an integrative literature review identifying the advantages of VR in general work contexts and mapping them to known challenges of participative design of work processes. METHODS: The integrative literature review was conducted based on 268 sources of which 52 were considered for an in-depth analysis of the advantages offered by VR. RESULTS: The resulting conceptual framework consisted of 13 characteristic-related advantages (e.g., immersion, interactivity, flexibility) and 10 effect-related advantages (e.g., attractivity, involvement, cost efficiency) which readily address known challenges of the participative design of work processes. CONCLUSION: Mapping the advantages of VR to the challenges of participative design of work processes revealed a substantial potential of VR to overcome high information-pass-on-barriers. As such, employing VR in work process design initiatives represents a fruitful avenue for the promotion of prevention and employee health.

In times of digitalization, it is important to derive competence requirements in relation to future digitalized business processes. Enabling to present these processes in an illustrative and experienceable way, Virtual Reality (VR) may offer special advantages for prospective and process-related competence modeling (PCM) and to include employees as competence modelers. In order to investigate these potential advantages, a VR-based PCM approach is piloted and compared with a conventional PCM approach. In order to identify concrete VR-attributes that may be specifically supportive for VR-based PCM, user acceptance of the applied VR-tool has been evaluated.Results show that the realistic visualization and interaction possibilities provided by VR support a prospective and process-related analysis focus during competence modeling. This way, employees are enabled to identify future competence requirements with regard to single process steps. Comparisons with the conventional PCM approach demonstrate that the prospective and process-related competence models developed in VR provide a higher level of detail concerning the number of identified competence requirements. In the course of user acceptance evaluation, concrete VR-attributes are derived that are most supportive for participatory PCM (e.g. 3D visualization, perceived immersion).Practical Relevance: VR offers a space for experiencing new business processes, thus enabling employees to conduct PCM. By integrating employees’ expertise, required future competences can be derived validly. On this basis, appropriate measures for effective competence modeling can be implemented in the organization.

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BACKGROUND: Challenged by digital transformation, organizations increasingly integrate information and communication technologies into work designs. Often focal points of such digital reengineering initiatives are technical and economic aspects. Yet, as integration of new technologies affects how employee work and interact, there is a need to evaluate human-centered criteria (human-factor evaluation), optimally by involving employees as situational experts. OBJECTIVE: The present study develops an integrative and persona-based evaluation approach of human-centered criteria for application in participative digital (re-)design of work to support the joint optimization of the technical and social system. METHODS: Drawing on methods from usability evaluation, a persona-based approach is developed to facilitate comprehension and application of human-centered evaluation by employees. To that end, human-centered criteria from existing evaluation models are systemized with specific reference to digital transformation of work processes. The developed approach is tested in pilot runs of three German small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). RESULTS: The initial overview shows a divergence of specific human-centered criteria at the detailed level. Simultaneously, a high convergence is found for overarching dimensions and categories. The Integrative Socio-Digital Evaluation Model (ISDEM) is developed to balance complexity and abstraction of criteria. The derived persona-based approach (persISDEM) shows a good applicability in the pilot runs. CONCLUSIONS: The present study provides an amendment to existing work design approaches with an emphasis on employee participation, enabling organizations to foster employees’ comprehension and motivation to engage in evaluations of digital (re-)design of work and to create motivating and healthy jobs for successful digital transformation.