Employees’ Vulnerability – The Challenge When Introducing New Technologies in Local Authorities

Nienaber, Ann-Marie; Spundflasch, Sebastian; Soares, Andre; Woodcock, Andree

Abstract

While it is well-known that the implementation of new technologies requires appropriate technical capabilities, research has for a long time almost neglected the behavioural capabilities of organisation’s employees to adopt innovative technologies. Employees have to trust new technologies and thus, to
be willing to become vulnerable when they adopting it as they have to cope with something they are not familiar with. This paper highlights the challenge for local authorities to cope with employees’ unwillingness to become vulnerable when it comes to implementing new technologies in local authorities. Based on semistructured interviews that have been conducted under the umbrella of the European project SUITS, we were able to identify two indicators for the unwillingness of employees to adopt new technologies -  attribution of negative motives and incongruence of values. Furthermore, we show best practise examples how to overcome the negative consequences of the unwillingness to become vulnerable and to be able to implement new technologies successfully in the long-run. Our practical implications in the end are derived by the experiences when introducing new technologies in the partner cities of the SUITS project.

Keywords
Distrust; Local authorities; New technology adoption; Trust; Vulnerability; Mobility planning