Influencing Factors to Enhance the Adoption of Digital Workplace - The Value of Workplace Innovations for Space Provision

Global crises, economic changes, development in technology, and growing dynamics in organizations change the way of working and the place of work execution. The initially forced change of work location from office to home at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic has long since transitioned into an increasing demand for location-flexible work. It is of great relevance for companies to ensure that, despite distributed work outside the office, they do not suffer any loss of productivity, team dynamics or corporate loyalty among their employees. However, in response to vacant offices, because of a higher share of employees working from home or at third places, some companies reduce office space. While companies have found ways to execute promising office space provision by extending the physical office workplace by a digital component, success is largely driven by the employee’s ability and intention to adopt such solutions. Innovative technology-supported working system, or so-called ‘digital workplace’, is characterized by a virtual work environment that enables employees to access company resources and work temporally and spatially flexible. Digital technologies are used to improve collaboration, communication, cooperation and foster knowledge work when employees work from anywhere and at any time. The success factors of distributed work and the design of digital workplace environments have been discussed in different strands of literature. Research examines factors that are relevant to the design and transformation process of digital workplaces. To the best of the authors' knowledge, however, the question of the factors influencing positively the intention to adopt digital workplaces has so far remained without empirical evidence. This research project contributes to uncovering the key factors influencing intention to adopt the digital workplace through novel empirical evidence. Innovation and acceptance research is connected with workplace research in order to identify how a digital workplace can serve as an alternative to physical office space. A model of aspects based on a corporate and an individual level is applied. For an empirical analysis, 610 knowledge workers in Germany are surveyed. Explorative factor analysis and regression analyses are used to analyze the data. The findings enable companies’ corporate real estate management to better incorporate digital technologies to compensate for the reduction of the physical workplace and maintain a successful workforce. Not only do the results show which individual and company factors, such as employee technology readiness or company communication, have a significant impact on intention to adopt, but also that the significant aspects differ between workers with experience and newcomers. In addition to the contribution the findings make to management practice, they expand the literature on the digital workplace by testing the identified aspects and measures for the design and transformation of digital workplaces for their effectiveness for the first time in a cross-company study.