Technological Choice and Workplace Innovation: Towards Efficient and Humanised Work

Abstract

Technology implementation choices in organisations require trade-offs between economic efficiency and decent work. Technology choices are often started top-down, technocratic, and from an efficiency perspective. Social and organisational aspects are seldomly sufficiently considered in this process. Negative consequences both for the people and for the chance of success of the technology implementation are the result. For overseeing and considering both social and organisational aspects in technology implementation choices, an impact choice model of (new) technologies is helpful. This article discusses such a model: TIM (Technology Impact choices Model). TIM is a method that helps organisations and policy makers assess the impact of technological choice for the production of products and services, the design of the organisation of work, and the content of separate functions and jobs.

Is Job Involvement Enough for Achieving Job Satisfaction? The Role of Skills Use and Group Identification

“…Nowadays, amid COVID-19, we are witnessing workplace innovations that can lead to new challenges. Recent research has shown that it is very important to develop a trade-off between economic efficiency and decent work [4]. Thus, we should be aware of building new innovative organizations with sustainable principles.…”

“…At this moment, some enterprises are trying to overcome the COVID-19 crisis by implementing innovations such as teleworking. As recent scholars have stated [4], there are negative consequences for enterprises that do not take social and organizational aspects into account when innovating. These harmful consequences are related to both individual and organizational success.…”

Assessing the artificially intelligent workplace: an ethical framework for evaluating experimental technologies in workplace settings

“…In addition, enabling employees to improve their skills, having well-distributed tasks, and shared rewards for good results will not only help them to have a sense of control, but also 'enhances innovation-adoption, and reduces resistance to change and risk-avoiding defensive behaviours, which is not something one can use in the process of innovation' [ 40 , p.16]. In fact, to develop critical technological citizenship (i.e., critically questioning the role and consequences of technology, participating critically in this process and taking responsibility), the views of all involved need to be considered.…”

“…In fact, to develop critical technological citizenship (i.e., critically questioning the role and consequences of technology, participating critically in this process and taking responsibility), the views of all involved need to be considered. As we see things, technology development should not happen top-down only, but in collaboration with employees [ 40 , 43 ]. The ethical principles formulated above inspired by Van de Poel's ground-breaking work on technology implementation conceived of as a form of social experimentation can guide such collaborations in fruitful and responsible ways.…”

“…Organisations need to be better equipped with respect to how to introduce and implement new technologies, and treating this as a social experiment helps to set ethical guidelines. This is a key challenge for a quickly evolving work context wherein dominant business models involve constantly seeking new levels of efficiency, productivity, and accuracy in things such as package handling and warehouse applications, and in which achieving humanised, decent work for human employees might come later in the list of priorities [ 40 , 43 ]. 4 This potential trade-off between economic benefits and humanised work, combined with the experimental aspect of new technology and its uncertainties, makes it even more important to formulate an ethical framework to evaluate under which conditions new technologies can be deployed as morally acceptable as possible in warehouses and other technology-driven work contexts.…”