The effects of changing information technology: An investigation of the motivational impact of information technology on jobs.

摘要

The results of both the popular and academic literature point to continued debate over the effects of information technology on work and the worker. First, there are those who believe that information technology deskills or degrades the work and the employee by creating a job that is too routinized and boring. Secondly, there are those who believe that information technology upgrades or informates the work and worker by enriching the job.;This research tests the distinction made by Zuboff (1985a; 1988) which distinguishes the way in which information technology is employed by decision makers inside organizations. She suggests that automated information technologies are those technologies that are designed and implemented to reduce the skill necessary to perform the job. In so doing, human effort can be replaced with a technology that enables the same processes of the job to be performed at less cost and with increased control and continuity. Informated information technologies are designed and implemented to upgrade the work and worker. This type of technology is introduced to remove the most boring, repetitious tasks from individuals, thereby leaving them to perform the more creative and challenging work.;This study used a laboratory experiment to compare the two different types of information technologies and their associated static and change impacts on the motivational levels of a task. The study was conducted in a behavioral research laboratory and utilized a true experimental design.;The results of this research strongly support the notion that there are at least two distinct types of information technology that affect the perceived motivational level of a task. At a minimum, the results suggest that Zuboff's (1985a; 1988) qualitative case analyses of different types of information technology holds true in a controlled laboratory experiment using empirical analyses.;Results also support the hypothesis that task discretion moderates the relationship between information technology and task motivation. This interaction suggests that when task discretion is high there is no significant impact of information technology on motivation. However, when discretion is low there is a significant negative impact of information technology on task motivation.