In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

The Social Psychology of Organizations.

The Internet can extend market reach and operational efficiency of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and enhance their contributions to the U.S. economy. This paper reports an empirical study conducted to identify the factors that impact SMEs' involvement with the Internet. Internal and external variables such as firm size, self-efficacy, prior technology use, etc. are used to predict the level of Internet involvement. This involvement is examined in terms of ownership of a web site (adoption) and use of the Internet for selling purposes (routinization). Logistic regression is used to examine the relationships between internal and external factors and SMEs' involvement with the Internet. The results suggest that specific factors contribute to the SMEs' involvement with the Internet — prior technology use and the customer service subscale of perceived competitive pressure influence both stages of Internet adoption. Moreover, the relative importance of some of these predictor variables decreases as the level of Internet involvement increases. Past media use does not explain SME behavior — in terms of adoption or routinization. These findings can be used to develop strategies to build SME involvement with the Internet.

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Factors Impacting the Adoption of the Internet among SMEs

The opportunity to profit from dishonesty evokes a motivational conflict between the temptation to cheat for selfish gain and the desire to act in a socially appropriate manner. Honesty may depend on self-control given that self-control is the capacity that enables people to override antisocial selfish responses in favor of socially desirable responses. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that dishonesty would increase when people’s self-control resources were depleted by an initial act of self-control. Depleted participants misrepresented their performance for monetary gain to a greater extent than did non-depleted participants (Experiment 1). Perhaps more troubling, depleted participants were more likely than non-depleted participants to expose themselves to the temptation to cheat, thereby aggravating the effects of depletion on cheating (Experiment 2). Results indicate that dishonesty increases when people’s capacity to exert self-control is impaired, and that people may be particularly vulnerable to this effect because they do not predict it.

Too tired to tell the truth: Self-control resource depletion and dishonesty

Ease of use and usefulness are believed to be fundamental in determining the acceptance and use of various, corporate ITs. These beliefs, however, may not explain the user’s behavior toward newly emerging ITs, such as the World-Wide-Web (WWW). In this study, we introduce playfulness as a new factor that reflects the user’s intrinsic belief in WWW acceptance. Using it as an intrinsic motivation factor, we extend and empirically validate the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) for the WWW context. # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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Beyond the Usefulness and Ease of Use : Extending the TAM for a World - Wide - Web Context

Several studies of innovative work practices show a positive link with firm performance and employees’ task involvement, organizational commitment and citizenship behaviours. One of the recent changes faced by firms is the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Although several empirical studies analyse the links between ICT use, innovative work practices and firm performance, employee-level analyses are scarce. Using data from the European Working Condition Survey (EWCS), this article investigates the relationships between use of the Internet and computers and positive attitudes among employees (social support, job satisfaction, extra effort) in the European context. Our empirical results are based on data for more than 9500 employees from 16 European countries in 2005, and more than 14 000 in 2010. Among the different effects of ICT use, based on the results for the 2005, 2010 and the pooled 2005–2010 sample, and in a within-cohorts change analysis, we find that Internet use ...

An assessment of trends in technology use, innovative work practices and employees’ attitudes in Europe

I investigate the impact of innovative work practices and information and communication technologies (ICT) use on employees’ motivations. The paper provides new and interesting results on how firms can build a motivational environment. Within an original instrumenting framework, I modify what previous analyses reveal about quality circle and training participation. The results confirm the positive role of work practices such as teamwork, quality norms, formal appraisals, management recognition, and family-friendly policies. The ICT that most contributed to the development of a motivational environment are those that facilitate access to information and knowledge such as workflow, Internet, and e-mail.

Do Innovative Work Practices and Use of Information and Communication Technologies Motivate Employees

Les complementarites entre l’usage des technologies de l’information, les nouvelles pratiques organisationnelles et la performance contextuelle des employes : Analyses europeennes en 2005 et 2010 Cet article analyse les relations entre les Technologies de l’Information (TI), les nouvelles pratiques organisationnelles et la performance contextuelle des employes dans le contexte europeen. Nos resultats empiriques sont bases sur des bases de donnees concernant plus de 11 000 employes de 16 pays europeens en 2005 et plus de 16 000 en 2010. Premierement, nos resultats soulignent des effets asymetriques de l’usage des TI. L’usage d’Internet est, en effet, positivement lie a tous les aspects de la performance contextuelle en 2010, tandis que l’usage de l’informatique est associe positivement seulement a la performance contextuelle interpersonnelle en 2005. Deuxiemement, nous constatons que la plupart des nouvelles pratiques organisationnelles considerees ont une relation positive avec la performance contextuelle des employes.

https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01068238/document

The Complementarities between Information Technologies Use, New Organizational Practices and Employees' Contextual Performance: Evidence from Europe in 2005 and 2010

This paper assesses whether Research and Development (R&D) investments and Information and Communication Technologies (ict) use play a role in determining the firm’s innovativeness and labour productivity. The estimation method is based on the three-step cdm model. Unlike most previous studies, this paper distinguishes between external and internal R&D expenditures. We also introduce different specifications of ict to capture their degree of variety, rather than aggregated measure of ict capital, as frequently applied in previous analyses. Results highlight the complexity of managing ict and R&D investments with regards to improving firm innovation. While confirming the acknowledged “innovation enabler” role of these innovation inputs, not all increases in ict investments and R&D translate into equivalent increases in a firm’s capacity to innovate. Estimation results also confirm the positive relationship between innovation and labour productivity.

The Relationship Between Innovation and Productivity Based on R&D and ict Use: An Empirical Analysis of Firms in Luxembourg

The diffusion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) associated with the diffusion of new work practices since fifteen years has raised concerns about the impact of these changes on productivity. Some recent studies underline a positive impact of ICT and of new work practices on firms' productivity. But as well known in the principal-agent literature agents are predisposed to shirking, so, in order to obtain productivity gains firms need to provide workers with sufficient incentives and to encourage motivations. Our main results, obtained with data collected in Luxembourg in 2004-2005, indicate that ICT permit to create a team spirit and an enriching work environment that influences positively pure intrinsic motivations of workers. These motivations, associated with positive incentives, can be substitutes for the direct monitoring introduced usually to obtain the effort of employees, but hard to be used in a context of increasing autonomy.

Ludivine Martin

Papers

An assessment of trends in technology use, innovative work practices and employees’ attitudes in Europe

Do Innovative Work Practices and Use of Information and Communication Technologies Motivate Employees

The Complementarities between Information Technologies Use, New Organizational Practices and Employees' Contextual Performance: Evidence from Europe in 2005 and 2010

The Relationship Between Innovation and Productivity Based on R&D and ict Use: An Empirical Analysis of Firms in Luxembourg

The impact of technological changes on incentives and motivations to work hard