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Robot Colleagues in Swedish Municipalities: How RPA Affects the Work Situation of Employees

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Electronic Government (EGOV 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14130))

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Abstract

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a popular software used for process automation in order to automate administrative tasks, traditionally performed by knowledge workers. The existing research on RPA is lacking in terms of what is known about how this type of technology affects the work situations of employees and their experiences with it. In this study, we seek to contribute to this knowledge gap by conducting an inductive analysis of employee experiences in three Swedish municipalities to explore the effects of RPA on their work situation. We find that RPA creates different effects during implementation compared to post-implementation, and that these effects can be positive or negative in both cases. Furthermore, we show that RPA may alleviate stress in one area of the organization, but that new stress emerges in another. We also conclude that the experiences on the individual level are interconnected with the organizational and managerial aspects of RPA, showing the need to further interconnect knowledge in these areas. Finally, we present some recommendations for future research, with an emphasis on studying employees’ work situations from a work environment perspective.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by AFA Försäkring, as part of the research project “From Form to Robot?” (190200).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Linköping University, 581 83, Linköping, Sweden

    Daniel Toll, Maria Booth & Ida Lindgren

Authors
  1. Daniel Toll
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  2. Maria Booth
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  3. Ida Lindgren
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniel Toll .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Ida Lindgren

  2. Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary

    Csaba Csáki

  3. University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Evangelos Kalampokis

  4. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Marijn Janssen

  5. University for Continuing Education Krems, Krems an der Donau, Austria

    Gabriela Viale Pereira

  6. Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria

    Shefali Virkar

  7. University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Efthimios Tambouris

  8. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Anneke Zuiderwijk

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Toll, D., Booth, M., Lindgren, I. (2023). Robot Colleagues in Swedish Municipalities: How RPA Affects the Work Situation of Employees. In: Lindgren, I., et al. Electronic Government. EGOV 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14130. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41138-0_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41138-0_11

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-41137-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-41138-0

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