Pim Baas
Current position:
IT Strategy Consultant at Deloitte Consulting B.V.
Thesis title:
Task-Technology Fit in the Workplace - affecting employee satisfaction and productivity.
Description:
In workplaces nowadays people work with multiple ICT tools to conduct their work. Technological development aims at increasing the capability and functionality of these tools. Organizations heavily invest in their IT environment, but the effect of these investments is not consistently positive. The adoption rate of ICT tools, quality of ICT tools, and information quality provided by ICT tools was mainly used to address the success of ICT in organizations. This Master Thesis applied the task-technology fit model which states that the ICT tools people have at their disposal for conducting their work should fit with their daily task portfolio. The results are based on two independent studies.
It was found that people with non-routine tasks, and especially people with a high variety of tasks, do not have the proper ICT tools they would need in their workplace. A higher degree of fit was reported if the ICT tools exhibit characteristics which enable people to personalize their tools, and if the tools enable teamwork. For the characteristic of mobility (work anywhere, anytime), this relation was only found in one of the two studies. If the ICT tools fit with someone’s task portfolio, higher levels of productivity were found. Higher levels of employee satisfaction were found, but again only in one of the two studies.
The practical implication of these findings is to invest in ICT tools which fit with the task portfolio of employees, instead of focusing specifically on tool quality or adoption rates. If this model is applied in a longitudinal study, the effect of technological workplace interventions can be measured. This would for example indicate the improvement in fit between the ICT tools and work if improvements are put forward in the digital workplace environment.
For the complete pdf version of this thesis click
here.
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2009 - Pim baas
