Title:
The experience of technology at work: An experiential model of automation and agency in the workplace

dc.contributor.advisor Weiss, Howard M.
dc.contributor.author Bufton, Gina Marie
dc.contributor.committeeMember Kanfer, Ruth
dc.contributor.committeeMember Rosenberger, Robert
dc.contributor.committeeMember Wiese, Christopher W.
dc.contributor.committeeMember French, Kimberly A.
dc.contributor.department Psychology
dc.date.accessioned 2020-05-20T16:58:00Z
dc.date.available 2020-05-20T16:58:00Z
dc.date.created 2019-05
dc.date.issued 2019-05-21
dc.date.submitted May 2019
dc.date.updated 2020-05-20T16:58:00Z
dc.description.abstract There has been much attention paid to the macroeconomic implications of increased automation in the workforce, yet the psychological impact to affected workers has been largely ignored. To address this research gap, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between automation, operationalized as a set of generalizable experiential features, and the experience of agency at work, operationalized as momentary feelings of control within performance episodes. The study also examined trait-level predictors of experiential features of automation and proximal well-being outcomes in relation to experiences of agency. The study sample consisted of 81 full-time workers who used a variety of automated business software (e.g., Salesforce, PeopleSoft, QuickBooks) in their daily work tasks. In line with expectations, I found that experiential features of automation, including perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived reliability, and experience/skill, were positively related to experiences of agency, although I did not find support for the expected negative relationship between perceived level of automation and agency. However, there was a significant interaction effect between perceived level of automation and task difficulty on agency, such that the relationship between perceived level of automation and agency was positive under high task difficulty and negative under low task difficulty. Although the hypotheses for the trait-level predictors of the experiential features of automation were largely unsupported, I found positive relationships between the experience of agency and feelings of authenticity and work engagement. Taken together, these findings suggest that there are shared experiential features of automated technologies that can impact workers’ experiences of control in their jobs, and that momentary experiences of control (i.e., agency) are related to meaningful well-being outcomes at work. The study’s limitations and suggested future research directions are discussed.
dc.description.degree Ph.D.
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/62708
dc.language.iso en_US
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology
dc.subject Automation
dc.subject Technology
dc.subject Agency
dc.subject Workplace
dc.subject Experience
dc.title The experience of technology at work: An experiential model of automation and agency in the workplace
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Dissertation
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.advisor Weiss, Howard M.
local.contributor.corporatename College of Sciences
local.contributor.corporatename School of Psychology
relation.isAdvisorOfPublication d3814712-c2c6-45ee-89c2-32e02f2a6152
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 85042be6-2d68-4e07-b384-e1f908fae48a
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 768a3cd1-8d73-4d47-b418-0fc859ce897d
thesis.degree.level Doctoral
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