ABSTRACT
In today's data-intensive work environments, information systems are crucial for supporting workers. However, workers often do not rely on these systems but resort to workarounds. We argue that trust is essential for workers' reliance on information systems, positively affecting workers' cognitive resources, performance, and well-being. Moreover, we argue that the organisational context (accountability, distractions) and user-related factors qualify trust-outcome associations by affecting workers' trust calibration. In a preregistered study, we asked N = 291 employed users of information systems to re-experience prior everyday usage events (event reconstruction method) and assess event-specific trust in the system, work outcomes, and context conditions. Results confirmed the assumed association between trust in the information system and workers' ratings of both performance and well-being. Moreover, workers' technology competence and need for cognition - but not contextual conditions - qualified trust-outcome associations. Our results offer specific suggestions for achieving successful use of information systems at work.
This preregistered study with 291 employees demonstrates the importance of trust in information systems for workers' performance and well-being in everyday work events. User-related factors, namely, users' technology competence and need for cognition, further qualified these effects. Practical implications for active trust management are drawn.
ABSTRACT
As a sudden, external event, the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly disrupted the workplace and required organizations to digitalize their working approaches. To understand how such external events affect organizations in the short- and long-term, we investigated the case of a higher education institution's administration, which combines features of public and private organizations. We applied a longitudinal case study and conducted interviews with 39 German higher education institution (HEI) employees at two time points during the first (2020) and second (2021) lockdown. Content analyses revealed that a general openness toward change and distinct technical infrastructure enabled efficient coping with the pandemic despite struggles with digitalization and rigidity. Advantages in work outcomes were contrasted with losses in social interactions. Flexible models (e.g., working from home or the office) were desirable long-term work concepts. We integrated our findings in a framework on factors that contribute to supporting organizational adaptations and derived practical recommendations.
