Employee acceptability of wearable mental workload monitoring in industry 4.0 : a pilot study on motivational and contextual framing

As Industry 4.0 will greatly challenge employee mental workload (MWL), research on objective wearable MWL-monitoring is in high demand. However, numerous research lines validating such technology might become redundant when employees eventually object to its implementation. In a pilot study, we manipulated two ways in which employees might perceive MWL-monitoring initiatives. We found that framing the technology in terms of serving intrinsic goals (e.g., improving health) together with an autonomy-supportive context (e.g., allowing discussion) yields higher user acceptability when compared to framing in terms of extrinsic goals (e.g., increasing productivity) together with a controlling context (e.g., mandating use). User acceptability still panned out neutral in case of the former, however - feeding into our own and suggested future work

Message and Medium: The Role of Social and Individual Factors in Using Computer Mediated Communications

The proliferation of computers and technology has resulted in increased use of computer mediated communications. However, the effective use of technology like bulletin boards and e-mail based communications can only be obtained if we understand how to enhance employee usage. Although human-computer interface has been a topic of considerable studies, most research has been done with students and under controlled conditions. In addition, field research has been limited in its inclusion of both social and individual factors that affect usage. In order to expand this research we report the results of a longitudinal study conducted within an entrepreneurial software company that used an innovative bulletin-board communication system. Our study uses employee survey data to measure social and individual factors that encompass attitudes toward the computer system. In addition, we obtained actual employee usage (copies of all postings to the bulletin board system) for the 12-month period of time following our survey. In addition to reporting the results of our study, we discuss implications of this work for other forms of computer mediated communications

Motivation for employees to participate in workplace health promotion: literature review

According to the Luxembourg Declaration, workplace health promotion (WHP) is the combined efforts of employers, workers and society to improve the health and wellbeing of people at work. This can be achieved by: improving work organisation and the work environment; promoting the active participation of all stakeholders in the process; and encouraging personal development. It is important to note that WHP aims to be a complementary support for, but not a replacement of, workplace risk management. Proper risk management is an essential foundation for a successful WHP programme. Regarding actual participation in WHP activities, the literature suggests that the number of participants often tends to be rather low once the WHP project is actually in progress. Therefore, it is pertinent to investigate how organisations are able to motivate their employees to participate in WHP activities in both the short- and long term. At the same time it should be kept in mind that employee participation in health promotion activities is totally voluntary. The aim of this report was to conduct a review of the available literature to identify the motivating factors for employees to participate in WHP. This knowledge can be used to improve WHP programmes and, consequently, the participation rates. The findings section of the report is divided into two key areas. The first section outlines and describes some of the key findings from the literature concerning workers’ motivation to participate in WHP; and the second examines the contributory role diversity may play in worker participation and recruitment

Using Ubicomp systems for exchanging health information : considering trust and privacy issues

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) and ubiquitous computing allow us to consider a future where computation is embedded into our daily social lives. This vision raises its own important questions and augments the need to understand how people will trust such systems and at the same time achieve and maintain privacy. As a result, we have recently conducted a wide reaching study of people’s attitudes to potential AmI scenarios. This research project investigates the concepts of trust and privacy issues specifically related to the exchange of health, financial, shopping and e-voting information when using AmI system. The method used in the study and findings related to the health scenario will be discussed in this paper and discussed in terms of motivation and social implications

Understanding the Impact of Cyberloafing-Related Internet Monitoring on Employee Job Performance: A Field Experiment

Internet monitoring has been widely adopted in organizations to regulate employees’ cyberloafing behaviour, which refers to employees’ usage of the Internet for non-work-related purposes during work time. However, there is no study in prior literature to investigate how cyberloafing-related Internet monitoring affects employee job performance. To address this research gap, this study conducted a field experiment to examine the impact of Internet monitoring on employee job performance. I found that Internet monitoring decreased employees’ cyberloafing behaviour, it also decreased employees’ intrinsic work motivation. I further found that cyberloafing was negatively related to the job performance of employees with high extrinsic work motivation, and intrinsic work motivation was positively related to employee job performance. In other words, the results suggest that Internet monitoring may improve employee job performance by reducing employees’ cyberloafing behaviour, but it can also harm employee job performance by decreasing employees’ intrinsic work motivation

USER ACCEPTANCE OF CELL PHONE SUPPORT FOR SMOKING CESSATION: A UK - CANADA COMPARATIVE EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

This paper presents a theoretical model of user reasons to adopt or resist the use of cell phones as a support tool in smoking cessation interventions and its empirical testing in two country settings with significantly different mobile phone penetration rate: the UK and Canada. A model comprising both factors favourable to adoption and resistance factors was constructed and tested simultaneously with 170 participants recruited across the UK and 252 participants recruited across Canada. Results show the model having motivation as favourable factor and perceived risk of using cell phones as a resistance factor was appropriate in explaining smokers’ intentions to use these devices as a support for smoking cessation if they decided to quit smoking. Although differences in perceptions between participants in UK and Canada were noticed, these were not statistically significant

Gender differences in the relative influence of job rewards on job satisfaction and organizational commitment for agricultural technicians in Kenya

This study sought to apply exchange-based models of job satisfaction and organizational commitment developed for industrialized economies to a developing country by testing for differential effects of job rewards on satisfaction and commitment for male and female agricultural technicians in Kenya. Four categories of rewards, namely, intrinsic, organizational extrinsic, convenience extrinsic, and social extrinsic rewards, were analyzed. The analysis commenced with an assessment of gender differences in workplace experiences and in the levels of satisfaction and commitment. This was necessary because the basis for the differential effects of rewards is the existence of equal or higher levels of satisfaction and commitment for women, relative to men, in the presence of dissimilar workplace experiences (with women having inferior experiences);Using t-tests, gender mean differences in job rewards and in satisfaction and commitment were examined. Women were found to have inferior workplace experiences and to be significantly lower in satisfaction than men. No differences were found for commitment. It was speculated that women\u27s lower level in satisfaction was due to women comparing themselves to men, the absence of legal legislation to protect women, and women\u27s inflated expectations due to the gains they have made in education. The lack of differences in commitment was viewed in terms of the limited chances for cross-sectoral mobility and the increasing numbers of women who are breadwinners;Regression analysis was used to assess the differential effects of rewards and to construct separate models for males and females utilizing only rewards that were significant in the subsequent step. The results demonstrated that the exchange-based models of satisfaction and commitment can be applied successfully to a developing economy. Variables from the four categories of rewards had significant effects for both men and women. Overall, the rewards operated similarly to influence satisfaction for men and women. Their effects on commitment, however, appeared to vary by gender. The separate models explained about 60.5% and 53.4% of the variance in satisfaction for males and females, respectively. For commitment, the explained variances were 59.7% for males and 65.7% for females