Innovative Work Practices, ICT Use and Employees' Motivations

Abstract

I investigate the impact of innovative work practices and of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on employees' motivations. While the existing literature assumes that their positive effects on performance are due to employees' motivation but only assess related concepts, this paper directly analyses employees' motivations. The data come from a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2013. The paper provides new and interesting results on how firms can build a motivational environment shaped by work practices and ICT. I resort to an original empirical framework that permits one to take into account the potential reverse causation between, on the one hand, the voluntary participation in innovative work practices and the use of ICT and motivations on the other. Within this framework, I modify what previous analyses reveal about quality circle and training participation. The results confirm the positive role of work practices such as teamwork, quality norms, formal appraisals, management recognition and family-friendly policies on employee's positive attitudes. Moreover, I introduce a large range of ICT compared to existing research and find that the ICT that most contributed to the development of a motivational environment are those that facilitate access to information and knowledge such as workflow, Internet and e-mail.