Abstract:

Since the beginning of time, humans have been fascinated and intrigued by new technology, but also frightened of its implications. In the 1980s, Chao and Kozlowski [1] studied the introduction of fully automated lines in mass-production industry, and identified different fear factors influencing the workers willingness to change their work process. This study is more than 30 years old, however their insights are still relevant and tends to become even more important with the introduction of complex technology like ubiquitous and embedded systems, AI, big-data, and collaborative technology [2]. This rapid and ongoing digital transformation will have fundamental implications for the way we organize work and for how we design work processes and production system, not only in the manufacturing industry but in all parts of the working life, including the healthcare sector, schools, service, logistics and society in general. It is also likely to influence and challenge roles and relationships and require new constellations of expertise and professional domains [3, 4]. In this paper, we compare experiences from practice in the manufacturing industry and healthcare domains and try to identify how fear of technology-induced change can be turned into trust, through knowledge exchange, competence development, and inclusive project management.

In line with [1] we have identified four main fear factors related to digital transformation, in both the industrial context and the healthcare organization:
- Fear of losing one's job
- Fear of new, unfamiliar tasks and expectations
- Fear of change in general but in group relations and roles in specific
- Fear of the actual technology

The number of manual jobs is decreasing; contrasting feelings of responsibility and loss of control are common when adapting to new conditions in a new work environment; new workplace technology may change traditional practice and thereby lower the autonomy and power of the professions; and new machines could cause physical injury or, with a digital system, lead to security threats, loss of data, or the sense of intrusiveness [2, 3]. Our studies found, somewhat contra intuitive, that workers with no or limited knowledge about the technology in use experience less fear. While workers with experience of the technology they interact with, tend to have more fear, and require a larger sense of control to be able to trust the system. We suggest that each of these fears can be addressed and linked to work-integrated learning strategies to turn the fear of technology into digital trust by giving the worker tools for better control. Through collaborative competence development and inclusive workplace learning, different solutions can be explored to create conditions for trust.

References:
[1] G. T. Chao, and S. W. Kozlowski, “Employee perceptions on the implementation of robotic manufacturing technology,” Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 70, 1986.
[2] S. Zuboff, The age of surveillance capitalism : the fight for the future at the new frontier of power, London: Profile Books, 2019.
[3] R. E. Susskind, and D. Susskind, The future of the professions : how technology will transform the work of human experts, USA.: Oxford University Press, 2015.
[4] H. Vallo Hult, Digital Work : Coping with Contradictions in Changing Healthcare, Trollhättan: University West, 2021.

Keywords:

Digital transformation, Fear, Trust.