Key concepts for managing organizations and employees turning towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Abstract

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) brings radical changes for employees, organizations and societies. These changes are accompanied by unforeseeable challenges on cognitive, affective and behavioural levels, as well as fundamental questions that require a response. Work and meaning of work are changing. Organizations have to address employees’ perceptions, and deal with rapid technological innovation, new work and employment concepts, as well as global and local power shifts. This conceptual article proposes selected key concepts for managing organizations and employees, namely creativity, positive emotions and solution-focus as keys to meaning-making in the 4IR. The aim of this article is to explore selected key concepts in managing 4IR organizations on a conceptual level and to stimulate future theoretical reflections and discourses of positive psychology (PP) and positive organizational psychology (POP) impacts within the 4IR transformations. Conclusions are drawn and provides recommendations for theory and practice.

Keywords:

• Positive organizational psychology
• interventions
• meaning-making
• creativity
• solution-focus
• positive emotions
• transformation
• 4IR

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 The author is aware that scholars in the field of PP within and across organizations use different terms and concepts, such as Positive Organizational Scholarship, Positive Organizational Behavior, Positive Organizational Psychology. In this article, they are included under the umbrella term of Positive Organizational Psychology (POP).