Title: Future workplace organisation: how digitisation affects employees' job satisfaction in agile workplaces

Authors: Sonali Bhatnagar; Matti Grosse

Addresses: Chair of Innovation Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Technical University Berlin, Marchstrasse 23, 10587, Berlin, Germany ' Chair of Innovation Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management, Technical University Berlin, Marchstrasse 23, 10587, Berlin, Germany; Humboldt-Institute for Internet and Society, Research Group: Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Berlin, Germany

Abstract: Agile project management uses more digital online tools and methods to replace traditional and offline forms of project management. Agile methodologies have also claimed to make employees more productive and satisfied than those under traditional methodologies. Despite its increasing popularity, discussions about the effects of digitisation on employees' job satisfaction in agile workplaces are scarce. Following a case study design, this study fills this gap in the literature by analysing the IT department of a marketing consultancy firm. By verifying the presence of five core job characteristics, namely, skill variety, task identity, autonomy, task significance, and feedback, which are based on the job characteristics model by Hackman and Oldham, we draw conclusions about the satisfaction of employees in a digitised agile workplace. In doing so, we introduce two new elements to the model, location independent access and workplace communication, which help to understand the effect of digitisation on future workplaces accurately.

Keywords: digitisation; digital transformation; agile project management; job satisfaction; JCM; job characteristics model; scrum methodology; SPS; structured pragmatic situational approach.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPD.2019.105492

International Journal of Product Development, 2019 Vol.23 No.4, pp.264 - 291

Received: 30 Nov 2018
Accepted: 08 Dec 2019
Published online: 02 Mar 2020 *

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