Working everywhere and every time? – Chances and risks in crowdworking and crowdsourcing work design

Schulte J, Schlicher K, Maier GW. Working everywhere and every time? – Chances and risks in crowdworking and crowdsourcing work design. Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organisationspsychologie (GIO). 2020;51(1):59-69.This article of the journal Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation (GIO) deals with the question how work and organizational psychology can contribute to a better understanding of work design in crowdwork. Over the last decade, crowdsourcing (CS) has gained much momentum and attention, yet people who use CS as an additional or exclusive source of income are experiencing less consideration overall. Therefore, we define the term crowdwork (CW), and delimit it from related concepts, e.g., CS and gig economy. We then address how work and organizational psychology theory can contribute to the research of CW, with a focus on work design, and where new approaches are necessary. We give an overview of current research in this field, and derive suggestions and recommendations for both further research approaches and also practical application of work design in CW

Technical Report. Interdisziplinäre Befragung von Crowdworkern

Giard N, Hemsen P, Hesse M, et al. Technical Report. Interdisziplinäre Befragung von Crowdworkern. Bielefeld: Forschungsschwerpunkt Digitale Zukunft (Universität Bielefeld / Universität Paderborn); 2019

Wie werden wir digital? – Ein Instrumentarium für Unternehmen

Heppner H, Schlicher K. Wie werden wir digital? – Ein Instrumentarium für Unternehmen. Presented at the 51. DGPs-Kongress, Frankfurt a.M

Need-Satisfaction is the key: how organizational support influences positive change attitude during information technology implementation

Schlicher K, Maier GW. Need-Satisfaction is the key: how organizational support influences positive change attitude during information technology implementation . Presented at the 19th EAWOP Congress, Turin, Italy.Purpose: A lack of employee readiness for change is often named responsible when technology implementation projects fail. Organizational support strategies (e.g. top management support, training, or participation) have been identified as ways to support employees during the implementation phase with the goal to rise acceptance levels. Though there already is a body of literature on organizational support strategies, there is a lack of research by which mechanisms these strategies develop their influence on the employee’s attitude to the change process and system. Design: Via online survey 111 new system users whose workplaces have recently implemented new information technology were questioned about their experiences concerning the design of the implementation process, accessibility of organizational support (top management support, training, participation), self-determination needs fulfillment during the change process, and attitude toward the change and system. Results: Need for autonomy proved to be the strongest mediator in mediation and structural equation analysis between organizational support strategies and attitude to change and system. Limitations: The evaluation of further possible mediators is needed to fully understand how information technology implementation projects should be designed to create a smooth transition to the new system. Implications: For practitioners, the results deliver important insights into the design of a implementation project as the need for autonomy can be addressed in a multitude of organizational actions, e.g. free exploration time with the system, employee participation in the design of the system‘s interface or implementation timeline

Crowdsourcing platforms for paid work: A literature review from a personnel economics and psychology perspective

Hemsen P, Schulte J, Schlicher K. Crowdsourcing platforms for paid work: A literature review from a personnel economics and psychology perspective. Presented at the ILERA European Congress 2019 - Perspectives of Employment Relations in Europe, Düsseldorf.Abstract Crowdsourcing describes a type of participative online activity in which an organization proposes a task to a group of individuals via a flexible open call (Estellés-Arolas & González-Ladrón-de-Guevara, 2012). This study focuses on a literature review of crowdsourcing platforms especially for paid work on so-called “crowdworking platforms”. The main contributions are the overview of empirical studies on the subject from a personnel econom-ics and psychological perspective and the devel-opment of a comprehensive Input-Process-Output Model (IPO-Model) from the workers’ perspective. In the remainder of this abstract, we will discuss the focus, theoretical background and design of our systematic review. Research on crowd work is heterogeneous in na-ture and driven by multiple disciplines. Not sur-prisingly, researchers have already conducted literature reviews (e.g. Chittilappilly, Chen, & Amer-Yahia, 2016; Ghezzi, Gabelloni, Martini, & Natalicchio, 2017; Kittur et al., 2013; Zhao & Zhu, 2014). However, these focus broadly of the crowdsourcing concept, thereby not differentiat-ing whether it is a digital gainful work or an un-paid voluntary participation. Such reviews usual-ly study what crowdsourcing is, how it is differ-ent from similar or related concepts, and how crowdsourcing works (conceptualization focus) (Zhao & Zhu, 2014). They also discuss how crowdsourcing is applied in different situations and for different purposes. This review contributes to the previous literature by evaluating existing research systematically and describing empirical connections between con-structs by grouping similar research into clusters. In contrast to past research which approaches crowdsourcing holistically, we focus specifically on crowd work, i.e. crowd sourcing in which contributors are paid and enter a particular em-ployment relationship with the platform. We are particularly interested in outcomes of this rela-tionship for the individual crowd worker. Since crowdworking has important similarities to other types of work both typical (e.g. permanent and temporary employments) and atypical (e.g. teleworking, freelancing, self-employment), ex-tant research in personnel economics and person-nel psychology can be used to shed light on the factors that might influence crowdworking initia-tives. We reviewed 91 empirical articles, systematically codified these studies and developed an IPO-Model from a personnel economics and psycho-logical perspective. IPO-Models are widely used in sciences for describing processes in system analysis and mechanisms of action in research. Studies were identified by applying a number of search terms: crowd work*, crowdwork*, crowd sourc*, crowdsource*, platform economy, gig economy or crowd employment. The most im-portant databases for both psychology and eco-nomics were searched, namely PsycINFO, Econ-Lit and Business Source Complete. Due to a high number of hits, the search was narrowed down to empirical studies. Additionally, we applied a backward and forward search strategy on the references of key articles. This search resulted in 1173 primary studies overall. We selected rele-vant primary studies by applying three selection criteria. The studies had to (1) report research on the construct of crowdworking, (2) show an em-phasis on personnel economic and psychological research questions, (3) and collect empirical data. As a result, 91 studies remained and were sys-tematically codified by publication data; infor-mation about sample, crowdworking platform, research design, methodology and findings. An iterative bottom-up approach then aggregated these codified variables into clusters based on similarity and content-related proximity. The clusters are divided into the three stages of the IPO-model, namely input, process and output. The input variables were grouped into seven clus-ters: monetary incentives; nonmonetary incen-tives; task design; market-related variables; workers’ qualification/profile; workers’ traits/characteristics; individual working history on the platform. The input variables were mod-eled in primary studies to explain the variations of specific process- or output variables. The output variables were grouped into six clus-ters: job satisfaction, worker commitment to-wards the platform, participation in crowd work, qualitative performance, quantitative perfor-mance and employability of the crowd worker. Involved process variables which potentially moderate or mediate the relationship between input and output variables were grouped into six clusters: workers’ intrinsic and extrinsic motiva-tion; worker’s affect; worker’s perceived compe-tence; invested effort for task completion; work-ers’ trust towards the platform and workers’ per-ceived fairness of the processes on crowdwork-ing platforms. Further analyses of the literature expand the IPO-Model by information about statistically signifi-cant and non-significant relations. Hence, our review shows how often a research question has been addressed and which statistical effects evolved in the studies. Overall, our review provides a roadmap for fu-ture research on the topic of crowd work as digi-tal gainful work. We identify and quantify the state of the art in current research of personal economics and psychology on the topic of crowd work. Our review has important implications on how to enhance factors that are critical to worker and platforms alike, such as attraction, motiva-tion and commitment of self-employed workers on crowdworking platforms. References Chittilappilly, A. I., Chen, L., & Amer-Yahia, S. 2016. A Survey of General-Purpose Crowdsourcing Techniques. IEEE Transac-tions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 28(9): 2246–2266. Estellés-Arolas, E., & González-Ladrón-de-Guevara, F. 2012. Towards an integrated crowdsourcing definition. Journal of Infor-mation Science, 38(2): 189–200. Ghezzi, A., et al. 2017. Crowdsourcing: A review and suggestions for future research. Interna-tional Journal of Management Reviews. Kittur, A., et al. 2013. The future of crowd work, Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work: 1301–1318. Zhao, Y., & Zhu, Q. 2014. Evaluation on crowdsourcing research: Current status and future direction. Information Systems Fron-tiers, 16(3): 417–434

Change Management für die Einführung neuer Technologien – eine Meta-Analyse über die Effekte organisationaler Unterstützungsmaßnahmen auf die Beschäftigten

Schlicher K, Maier GW. Change Management für die Einführung neuer Technologien – eine Meta-Analyse über die Effekte organisationaler Unterstützungsmaßnahmen auf die Beschäftigten. Presented at the 11. Tagung der DGPs-Fachgruppe Arbeits-, Organisations- und Wirtschaftspsychologie, Braunschweig.Fragestellung: Im Zuge der Digitalisierung werden zunehmend neuartige Systeme in Unternehmen eingeführt. Während die technologischen Entwicklungen bereits fortgeschritten sind, bleiben bei der Gestaltung einer mitarbeitergerechten Einführung der neuen Systeme offene Fragen, die die Unternehmen verunsichern. Die vorliegende Studie beschäftigt sich daher mit der Frage, welche Unterstützungsmaßnahmen den Unternehmen bei der Gestaltung von Veränderungsprozessen zur Verfügung stehen und welche Effekte für diese auf die Beschäftigten nachgewiesen werden können. Untersuchungsplan: In einer Meta-Analyse wurden die Effekte verschiedener organisationaler Unterstützungsmaßnahmen (z.B. Unterstützung durch das Management, Partizipation, Information, Training) auf relevante Outcomes des Technologieeinführungsprozesses (z.B. Technologieakzeptanz, Nutzerzufriedenheit, Performance) untersucht. Es wurde eine systematische Literaturrecherche durchgeführt (PsychINFO, EconLIT, IEEE) und 52 Primärstudien identifiziert. Die Ergebnisse wurden nach meta-analytischen Strukturgleichungsansätzen ausgewertet. Ergebnisse: Organisationale Unterstützungsmaßnahmen zeigten einen positiven mittleren Effekt (r=0,26) auf Outcomes des Technologieeinführungsprozesses. Training der Beschäftigten (r=0,30) und Unterstützung des Management mit Ressourcen für den Einführungsprozess (r=0,24) haben sich als besonders effektive Unterstützungsmaßnahmen erwiesen. Limitationen: Derzeit wird über eine Rückwärtssuche der Primärstudien nach bisher unentdeckten, einzuschließenden Studien gesucht. Theoretische/praktische Implikationen: Die meta-analytische Integration der Forschungsdaten dient zum einen richtungsweisend in der Darstellung offener Fragen und Gestaltung zukünftiger Forschung als auch der Ableitung von Handlungsempfehlungen für die Gestaltung von unternehmerischen Technologieeinführungsprozessen. Relevanz/Beitrag: Da bisherige Forschung interdisziplinär erfolgte, erlaubt die vorliegende Meta-Analyse zudem die Diskussion der Ergebnisse auf Basis psychologischer Modelle

Kompetenzentwicklung durch Digitalisierung von Produktionsarbeitsplätzen in KMUs. Ergebnisse des Projekts INLUMIA

Schlicher K, Heppner H, Maier GW. Kompetenzentwicklung durch Digitalisierung von Produktionsarbeitsplätzen in KMUs. Ergebnisse des Projekts INLUMIA. Presented at the 11. Tagung der DGPs-Fachgruppe Arbeits-, Organsations- und Wirtschaftspsychologie, Braunschweig

Kompetenzverlust oder Qualifizierungsbedarf – Welche Anforderungen stellt die digitale Arbeitswelt an Beschäftigte aus Produktion und Logistik?

Mlekus L, Schlicher K, Maier GW. Kompetenzverlust oder Qualifizierungsbedarf – Welche Anforderungen stellt die digitale Arbeitswelt an Beschäftigte aus Produktion und Logistik? Presented at the 10. Tagung der DGPs-Fachgruppe Arbeits-, Organisations- und Wirtschaftspsychologie, Dresden

Is a match better than no match? On the interaction of demands and support during technological change

Schlicher K, Reddehase J, Maier GW. Is a match better than no match? On the interaction of demands and support during technological change. Frontiers in Psychology. 2022;13: 824010.Progressing digitalization and technological changes triggered by COVID-19 lockdowns means for organizations that new technologies need to be implemented in shorter time periods. The implementation of new technologies in the workplace poses various change demands on employees. Organizations try to counteract these effects by providing change support in the form of for example training or participation options. However, to date, it is unclear how change demands develop a detrimental effect and whether change support can buffer this relation due to which working mechanisms, and whether the effectiveness of support measures can be increased by matching them to specific change demands. Based on the integrative framework of social support theory, which draws on the job demands-resources model and self-determination theory, we hypothesize that change demands can be most effectively addressed through matching change support. In three consecutive experimental vignette studies (N1= 89,N2= 134,N3= 138) of dependently employed samples, we analyzed the interaction of change demands and change support on attitude to change, satisfaction with the change process, and behavioral intention to use by manipulating the degree of demand (high vs. low) and provided support (high vs. low) and by conducting moderated mediation analyses, and integrated the results meta-analytically. The results show that change demands have a detrimental effect on technology implementation outcomes. In one of the three studies we confirmed a moderating effect of change support. The relation was mediated by perceived frustration, but the mediating effect of psychological need satisfaction was inconclusive. Based on our results, we discuss that the research on matching support requires the evaluation of the personal relevance of the support receiver to increase the chance of achieving a match

Help me change! Importance of organizational support in times of technological change with high uncertainty: A field and experimental study

Schlicher K, Reddehase J, Maier GW. Help me change! Importance of organizational support in times of technological change with high uncertainty: A field and experimental study. Presented at the EAWOP Smal Group Meeting - IFPOC , Online