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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Name: Gina Bufton
Dissertation Proposal Defense Meeting
Date: Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Time: 10:00 am
Location: J.S. Coon Bldg. Room 217
Advisor:
Howard M. Weiss, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)
Dissertation Committee Members:
Ruth Kanfer, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)
Kimberly A. French, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)
Christopher W. Wiese, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)
Robert Rosenberger, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)
Title: The experience of technology at work: An experiential model of automation and agency in the workplace
Abstract: Automated technology is becoming more pervasive across white- and blue-collar jobs, and it is estimated that about half of the global work activities could be automated by adapting current technology (Manyika et al., 2017). Automation is currently best suited for repetitive, data-based tasks, which means that rather than being entirely displaced by technology, it is more likely that, at least in the near term, most workers will incorporate more automation into their existing work roles. 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. The purpose of the proposed investigation is to outline and test a theoretical framework that examines the relationship between automation and the experience of agency, operationalized as momentary feelings of control. Rather than examining technical features of automation, the proposed investigation seeks to map a set of generalizable experiential features of automated technologies that are expected to influence the experience of agency and well-being related outcomes at work. It is broadly expected that working with automation can both enhance or diminish the experience of agency, depending on the levels of the proposed features and the levels of the boundary conditions included in the proposed model. I plan to test the proposed model on a sample of 75 full-time workers who use automated business software in their daily work roles.
