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



Publication type
Research article (book contribution)

Peer reviewed
No

Publication status
Published

Year
2020

Book title
HCI in Mobility, Transport, and Automotive Systems. Driving Behavior, Urban and Smart Mobility

Editor
Krömker, Heidi

Start page
297

End page
307

Volume
12213

Title of series
Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Publisher
Springer Nature

Place
Cham

Language
English

ISSN
1611-3349

ISBN
978-3-030-50537-0

DOI