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Today’s fast-moving business requires firms to implement new digital processes both internally and externally. Though the strategic decision to invest in digitisation is a starting point, the successes of these initiatives are largely dependent on employees’ willingness to help implement these strategies — both employees working in IT departments and on the “frontline”. This research aims to investigate the conditions under which digital business intensity, defined as the level of strategic organisational investments in emergent and innovative digital technologies, leads to felt obligations towards the employer and subsequently to constructive process deviance. In two workshops with IT professionals, we unraveled digitisation-related components that drive felt obligations. We then conducted a survey of 427 employees who recently experienced the introduction of new digital processes. The data was analysed with structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis. We find that digital business intensity has an effect on felt obligation, but not on constructive process deviance. In addition, we find that the path from felt obligations to constructive process deviance is different for IT professionals compared to non-IT professionals. The study concludes by delineating implications for theory and management in an age of digital transformation.
Schaarschmidt et al. (Thu,) studied this question.