Individual Reactions to New Technologies in the Workplace: The Role of Gender as a Psychological Construct

Using the theory of planned behavior (TPB), individual reactions to a new technology and technology usage behavior were studied over a 12‐month period among 552 employees being introduced to a new computer‐based system in the workplace. When considering gender as a psychological construct by employing Bern's Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), important distinctions were revealed. Specifically, masculine gender‐typed individuals exhibited the same pattern as did men in previous research; feminine gender‐typed individuals were different from women in that they were influenced only by subjective norm and PBC. The balanced decision‐making process was observed only in the case of individuals categorized as androgynous. The high percentage of women who tested to be androgynous explains the divergence in results from the previous work, and provides evidence of changing gender roles for women in today's organizations and society.