Insecurities and Anxiety around New Technology: Substantiation from a European Financial Services SME

Olivier Fuchs, Mehran Najmaei

Abstract


In the wake of Covid-19, a wave of changes has taken place in a number of industries. While the company is embracing a digital solution to address these changes, the greatest concern is how to adapt the psychological wellbeing of employees. In this study, nine online interviews were conducted to identify the elements of insecurity, anxiety or even fear that employees experienced during the digital transformation. These interviews were conducted to identify how these elements affected the success of the process. As part of the transcription process, the transcript is coded and analysed using NVivo 12 Pro software. Research findings indicate that participants acknowledged that the upcoming solution, although unidentified, might greatly improve the process. However, fear of failure, threshold fear, and social fear were addressed most frequently, whereas existential fears, including status anxiety regarding institutionalized status, were not significant. The study also suggested the importance of an additional, collective fear of having chosen the wrong solution. Managers should profit from being aware of the different types of employee anxieties: as long as people affected are informed about the change in a transparent manner and have extensive information about what to expect, a lot of anxieties else to be expected will not arise.

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