Humanizing the Digital Work: A Journey Through Diverse Work Design Configurations

In the era of digital transformation, organizations face the challenge of humanizing the digital work to foster positive work and non-work-related outcomes. Traditional models based on linear relationships and unidirectional causality fail to address the complex interplay of job characteristics in this technological age. This chapter looks at the configurational approach as explored in work design studies to illuminate the complex relationships between individual job design characteristics in the context of the digital work. Through an asynchronous expert panel with 13 distinguished experts in the fields of human resource management and organizational behavior contributed their invaluable insights. Qualitative analysis of the experts’ feedback, combined with an extensive literature review, provides a comprehensive understanding of the multi-faceted nature of work design configurations. The wide-ranging research expertise of the panelists, encompassing work design, innovative work behavior, workplace learning, and strategic HRM, ensures a thorough exploration of the topic. This chapter argues for a holistic and flexible approach to work design, contributing to the discourse on humanizing the digital work. It extends the existing literature and proposes different work design configurations, specifically enriched work design, orderly work design, knotty work design, complicated work design, fragmented work design, autonomous work design, and collaborative work design. Each of these work design configurations brings its own benefits and challenges, highlighting the importance for managers to carefully consider which configurations best fit their organizational goals and the specific needs of their workforce. Findings enhance our understanding of work design configurations in the digital work and provide valuable insights for scholars and practitioners seeking to optimize human potential amid technological advances.