Smart working as an organisational process or as a social change? An Italian pandemic experience
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-03-2022-0152 |
| Published date | 26 January 2023 |
| Date | 26 January 2023 |
| Pages | 677-703 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Donato Morea,Gianpaolo Basile,Isabella Bonacci,Andrea Mazzitelli |
Smart working as an organisational
process or as a social change?
An Italian pandemic experience
Donato Morea
University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy, and
Gianpaolo Basile, Isabella Bonacci and Andrea Mazzitelli
Universitas Mercatorum, Rome, Italy
Abstract
Purpose –Along the coronavirus pandemic, huge business challenges are facing as a result of collapsing
customer demand and organisational significant changes supported by digital development, while the
increasing social and environmental needs involve business and individuals. The authors argue that this trend
is modifying organisational and market logic, replacing them with values and practices linked to community-
based models. The present work aims to study the impact that smart working (SW) has on the worker, seen
both as a member of the organisation and the social community.
Design/methodology/approach –The study data were collected from a computer-assisted web interview
administered in 2020 to public employees working for health agencies across the Campania region, in South
Italy. To test the conceptual model, partial least squares-structural equation modelling is used. Considering the
abductive soul of the research, the study represents a pilot survey that will deliver stochastic results to be
subsequently replicated in all Italian health agencies.
Findings –The results of the research highlighted how the evolutionary dynamics of SW employees tend
towards a reconceptualisation of workspaces, a redefinition of time and emotions and a better balance between
work and personal life, thus creating a greater space for social and community aspects and determining a
greater involvement in their working life.
Originality/value –This research introduces a new win-win logic in the labour market, one capable of
generating advantages for people, organisations and the entire social system by allowing workers to better
reconcile working times with their personal needs and with flexibility demands coming from companies.
Keywords Social change, Digital development, Dynamic capabilities, Smart working, Work–life balance,
Partial least squares-structural equation modelling
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Along with the severe health and social crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and by
welfare cuts, managers around the world are facing huge business challenges as a result of
collapsing customer demand, significant regulatory changes employing digital development
and supply chain disruptions, all of them leading to the economic downturn and greater
uncertainty. Thus, the health and social side of the crisis, on the one hand, and its economic
side, on the other, form the scenario where the actors’conditions and survival needs meet
(Fenner and Renn, 2010;Pedersen et al., 2020;Lee and Trimi, 2021).
Crises or events negatively affecting communities and business organisations inevitably
become sources of profound change if not properly managed (Ritter and Pedersen, 2020).
However, despite the importance of crises concerning change in business organisations, the
academic literature has largely neglected their role in fuelling innovation and/or changing
organisational and business models (Saebi and Foss, 2015). This kind of profound change
represents a major challenge for managers who are wondering how to adapt the corporate
culture at the increasing social and environmental commitments, how to implement and
manage organisational changes and how to adequate corporate behaviour towards relevant
stakeholders when everyone works from home (Howard-Grenville, 2020;Spicer, 2020).
Smart working
677
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 29 March 2022
Revised 18 October 2022
23 December 2022
Accepted 10 January 2023
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 45 No. 3, 2023
pp. 677-703
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-03-2022-0152
It must be said that the pandemic, while strengthening and accelerating some trends that
were already underway, such as those regarding flexible working methods, e-commerce and
digitisation, is also boosting change in relatively new fields, like that of the physical
movement of people (Ancona et al., 2021;Foss, 2021). The pandemic has intensified the need
for a quick and agile response to a situation where many companies have simply closed or
curtailed their operations , while others have managed to rein vent themselves and
redistribute their resources, in some cases overnight (Ahlstrom and Wang, 2021;Hitt et al.,
2021). These changes bring with them at the global level the disruption of supply chains and
management mobility models while expressing at the corporate level the rapid conversion
from face-to-face to online business models and the constant redefinition of health and safety
regulatory policies (Kano and Oh, 2020).
One can say we are moving, thanks to the development of digital technologies and
information and communication technologies (ICTs), from interconnected forms of work-to-
work carried out in a distributed context, where the observability of work itself is no longer
based on a seeing-the-face approach but rather followed a seeing-the-work-from-remote-at-
all-times approach (Puranam, 2018;Thornton et al., 2012;Rajan, 2019;Woodside, 2020;
George et al., 2020).
So, this historical moment is delivering a society characterised by a cooperative frame that
could be represented by different levels, interconnected between them. The first is where the
firms, adapting their values, organisational processes and business models, create relations
with other firms, non-profit organisations and public institutions to produce, beyond the
economic results, answers for social and environmental needs. Regarding the second level, in
the pandemic era, we witnessed community members, including remote workers, supporting
other individuals in difficulties.
In general, the normality of work–life appeared suspended between an “end-of-work”
scenario and one of work made “agile”by necessity. And it is precisely the “agile”aspect that
represented the most consistent shift from the pre-pandemic work normality.
Organisations will face changes in productivity, social involvement, performance and
health dimensions. Regarding that, productivity is considered a dimension based on personal
responsibility for one’s tasks managing the time and space between work and private life;
the performance dimension will rely on the development of agile forms of work that focus on
the work–life balance (WLB) of their employees. The health aspect focusses on providing
better support for themselves and community members. Finally, the social dimension shows
the much more available agile worker involvement in social causes because of the
performance and health dimension optimisation.
Agile work changes everything, and it is the case that without organisations devoted to
transparency, trust-oriented leaders and fully accountable employees, this change cannot
even begin. This is why working in an agile way presupposes a sustainable and mature
approach to work.
Considering this evolutionary perspective, with the present study, the authors, conducting
research on Italian workers, intend to provide an answer to the following research questions.
RQ1. Can smart working (SW) be considered an organisational adaptation to the
pandemic era?
RQ2. Can SW represent a new condition of the worker in terms of the dimensions of work,
performance, sociality and health?
Therefore, the present work aims to show that SW is capable of generating –in a holistic
way –key influences on the dimensions of performance, productivity, health and social, with
effects on both one’s private and working life. The emerging balance, the one between work
and private life, might represent an implicit social value in itself, linked to issues such as
ER
45,3
678
To continue reading
Request your trial