Workers united: Digitally enhancing social connectedness on the shop floor

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102101Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Value oriented designs require IT designs that support social connectedness.

  • We use a scenario-based design on data gathered with a representative case study.

  • Our framework targets social appraisal and sense of sharing and involvement.

  • We contribute by showing how social connectedness can be used to design IT designs.

Abstract

Organizations increasingly implement processes-oriented setups like value stream production. Whereas this transition may bring many advantages on an organizational level, related studies show that shop floor workers feel less able to maintain close contact with others and exchange awareness cues. Their diminished social connectedness has consequences on the personal (e.g., reduced satisfaction) and organizational (reduced efficiency) level. The current wave of digitization brings ample opportunities for companies to bring their employees closer together again. In order to identify such opportunities, we have studied the shop floor production practices of an automotive OEM (original equipment manufacturer) for nearly two years. Following a scenario-based action design science approach, we have developed problem and activity scenarios as well as a prototype that helps the workers to improve their social connectedness in three different scenarios. Eight weeks of use demonstrated the prototype’s positive impact on the employees’ social connectedness by allowing for social appraisal and by improving their sense of sharing and involvement. Our results show which information technology (IT) design elements can contribute to social connectedness on the shop floor.

Introduction

In recent years, many companies have changed their production from function-oriented to more processes-oriented setups (Hellman, Kastberg, & Siverbo, 2015; Tang, Pee, & Iijima, 2013), of which value stream production is a prominent example. Value stream production is the creation of a flow of activities oriented towards the seamless contribution of all these tasks to deliver the selected products and services without any waste. At the same time, function-orientation focusses on organizing functions efficiently without considering their connection to other functions in delivering products and services. Whereas value stream orientation has proven to be beneficial from an economic point of view (Kohlbacher & Reijers, 2013), first studies show that shop floor workers feel left out when such a transition takes place (Leyer, Stumpf-Wollersheim, & Kronsbein, 2017). Value stream orientation can help overcome formal organisational boundaries (Wanberg, Javernick-Will, Taylor, & Chinowsky, 2015), i.e., employees are generally in contact with more of their colleagues. However, they are less able to maintain close contact with others and exchange fewer awareness cues, which reduces their social connectedness. Social connectedness can be understood as a sense of sharing, involvement (including relationship salience, shared understandings and knowing each other’s experiences) and social appraisals (defined by the connections’ quantity and quality; Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Ijsselsteijn, van Baren, & van Lanen, 2003; Lam, 2013; Rettie, 2003; Smith & Mackie, 2007).

While its benefits are not in question, there are no detailed studies on how social connectedness on the shop floor can be improved to support employees (Yoon & Lee, 2010; Yoon, Hacker, Hewitt, Abrams, & Cleary, 2012). Overall, organisations need to increase social connectedness on the shop floor to support their employees and increase their efficiency (Poleacovschi, Javernick-Will, & Tong, 2017). Doing so requires adequate support to enable connectedness - which IT solutions have been enabling for many years (Rettie, 2003), but is not systematically applied in shop-floor environments.

Thus, our study poses the research question: How can employees' social connectedness on the shop floor be enhanced with information technology (IT) solutions?

We studied an automotive OEM (original equipment manufacturer) that had recently changed its employees’ organisational grouping from shopfloor to value stream production. As a part of a larger project to revisit and improve the role of shop floor workers, we identified the manufacturing workers’ need to connect with colleagues between their shifts to ensure communication, coordination, and knowledge retention. Based on empirical insights from interviews and observational data, and adopting an action design science research approach, we defined problem and activity scenarios and implemented a framework that helps employees be and remain connected. Our evaluation results show how the framework allowed the employees to connect cross-functionally and create a close social environment.

Our study contributions are threefold: firstly, we show the value of the concept of social connectedness as a theoretical basis to ensure efficient production in value-oriented designs with IT solutions. Secondly, we illustrate how to design IT solutions to support employees in connecting with each other in value stream-oriented designs. Thirdly, we highlight the importance of understanding how to support employees on the level of work routines in gaining positive outcomes in socially responsible work environments as highlighted by prior work on a company level (Chen, Feldmann, & Tang, 2015; Giannoccaro & Carbone, 2017).

From a practical perspective, decision making when striving for value orientation should consider implementing designs that make use of IT solutions that address social connectedness to ensure production efficiency. The identified IT design elements can guide manufacturing companies on how to design similar solutions for shop floor problems.

As Fig. 1 shows, we firstly present the social connectedness concept from a theoretical viewpoint and its application on the shop floor (in Section 2). Next, we describe our methodology, a scenario-based action design science research approach based on qualitative data collection and analysis in Section 3. Then, by describing the problem scenarios as a basis for the problem identification and analysing them in terms of social connectedness, we explore the as-is situation in the case company (Sections 4 and 5). The subsequent activity scenarios serve as a basis for the solution objective and demonstrate how the IT artefact connects employees (Section 6). We present our evidence with data gathered from the evaluation (Section 7) and discuss their implications (Section 8) before the paper concludes with a summary, the limitations, and an outlook on future research (Section 9).

Section snippets

The academic roots of social connectedness

Research on social connectedness originates from the field of psychology, where the construct of belongingness was established as a major self-need that provides the structure and motivation for self-expression (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Smith & Mackie, 2007). This self-need is described by self-psychology theory (Kohut, 1984), stating that the definition of oneself is also dependent on the reflection of the relationship with others and the inherent comparison with the others in these

A scenario-based design action science research approach

Since it is our goal is to improve the situation of shop floor worker by supplying them with a new IT artefact that to supports their ability to socially connect, our study follows the design science research (DSR) paradigm (Hevner, March, Park, & Ram, 2004). Our approach is

conceptually based on the foundations of action design research (ADR), as we share the view that “IT artifacts are ensembles shaped by the organizational context during development and use” (Sein, Henfridsson, & Purao, 2011,

As-is situation (problem scenarios)

In the following, we present the problem scenarios that we developed as part of the scenario-based design procedure. The problem scenarios serve us as the basis of the theory-building phase. As part of the problem scenarios, we use personas (Rosson & Carroll, 2002) in order to create a better understanding and empathy for the workers’ situation.

As-is assessment - social connectedness in the as-is situation

As shown in the problem scenarios, the large number of documents and their decentralised storage are a major challenge - especially across multiple shifts or over more extended time periods. In addition, the documentation processes have not been digitised and are partially inefficient. The exchange of information between employees mostly occurs orally and is not well structured, which means the sharing and traceability of critical information over longer periods cannot be guaranteed. It is not

To-be situation (Activity scenarios)

Building on the problem scenarios as described above and on the theoretical considerations of social connectedness, we created activity scenarios to demonstrate a digital solution’s potential to support the employees in their daily work. In all three Figs. (), each activity scenario is contrasted with the associated problem scenario to not only highlight the differences between the as-is situation and the post-intervention situation but also to illustrate our approach. As we intend to

To-be assessment - social connectedness after the intervention

After deploying the framework in November 2016, it was in use for more than eight weeks before we interviewed and observed the shop floor workers who used the implemented prototype according to the framework in their daily work. To cover the different perspectives, we also talked to managers (who perceived the use situation from a bird’s eye view). Similar to the analysis of the as-is situation, we structure the following evaluation results according to the dimensions of social connectedness

Discussion

The above-presented to-be assessment of social connectedness after the intervention (through SAC-me) showed that social connectedness is a valuable concept to understand changes towards a value stream organisation on manufacturing companies’ shop floor – and to reconfigure if needed.

The implemented IT solution helped to re-establish the connections between employees that had dwindled after the company’s reorganisation. Related studies showed that in such process-oriented environments, direct

Conclusion and outlook

The so-called ‘digital age’ is usually associated with significantly improved computing power, artificial intelligence and robotics (David, 2015), all of which result in higher productivity and replacing human labour with technology (e.g. Brettel, Friederrichsen, Keller, & Rosenberg, 2014). Whereas advances in technology lead to significant changes in traditional shop floor workplaces (Appelbaum, 2013), including a loss of social connections, our study demonstrates that using a digital solution

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