Making digitalization work: unveiling digitalization's implications on psycho-social risks at work

Abstract

Work digitalization may nurture psycho-social strain at work, undermining employees’ health and safety and challenging the ability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to achieve organizational excellence. This prevents SMEs from implementing sustainable human resource management practices and from attaining a Total Quality Management approach which is consistent with the Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance criteria. Such considerations are especially true in the post-Covid-19 era where digitalization serves the purpose of ensuring business continuity, avoiding disruptions triggered by social distancing. The article provides empirical evidence of digitalization's implications on psycho-social risks at work perceived by people employed in SMEs, examining the moderating role of, organizational safety and health measures. Two sub-samples of companies operating in the manufacturing sector and in the service industries were involved in the study, which relied on secondary data. The research findings highlighted that digitalization has side effects on psycho-social risks at work. Organizational safety and health measures have a moderating role on psycho-social risks at work;however, it is weak in highly digitalized contexts and it is not significant across manufacturing companies. Tailored organizational safety and health measures should be developed to curb the drawback of digitalization on psycho-social risks at work.