Does digitizing involve desensitizing? Strategic insights into the side effects of workplace digitization

ABSTRACT

Digital technologies profoundly reshape working arrangements in the public sector. Digitization may trigger a depersonalization of workplaces, desensitizing the social organizational climate. However, it facilitates people-centred human resource management practices. The article sheds light into the manifold implications of work digitization on organizational climate. The findings of a serial mediation analysis suggested that digitization had side effects on social organizational climate. However, its indirect effects mediated by employee–manager relationships and employee involvement were positive. Tailored interventions are needed to address the drawbacks of digitization on social organizational climate and to exploit its positive implications in terms of employees’ centredness.

KEYWORDS:

• Digitization
• interpersonal relationships
• involvement
• social organizational climate
• working conditions

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rocco Palumbo

Rocco Palumbo, PhD is a Senior Researcher of Organization Theory and Behavior at the Department of Management & Law, University ‘Tor Vergata’ of Rome, Italy. Rocco has published more than 100 scientific contributions, including articles in peer reviewed journals, books, and book chapters. His main research interests include, but are not limited to: human resource management, team performance management and workplace discrimination.