Who is agile? An investigation of the psychological antecedents of workforce agility

摘要

Understanding the precursors of workforce agility is crucial for organizations that wish to detect and foster agility in their employees. This research investigates the psychological antecedents of workforce agility, and develops a scale to measure them. First, in a qualitative study, we interviewed 11 professionals to identify the core processes of workforce agility, and the psychological resources needed to support them. Second, through a quantitative study of 808 members of the US-based Microworkers online labor market, we developed and tested our agility index, a psychometric measure of the potential for agility, which was based on the resources identified in the first study. We believe our research offers managers valuable insights into the psychological antecedents of workforce agility, which will help them assess, train, and guide employees.