How technology shapes work: ICT use, generative AI, and employee-centered technology implementation as drivers of work design and well-being

This doctoral dissertation by compendium examines how different forms of workplace technology reshape job characteristics and employee well-being. The central question is whether technology acts as an antecedent of work design, and under what conditions its effects are beneficial or detrimental for workers. The dissertation comprises three empirical studies that complement each other theoretically and methodologically. Study 1 examines the effect of ICT use on job autonomy and workload, and how these work characteristics mediate the relationship between ICT use and employee well-being, operationalized as work engagement and job exhaustion. It draws on data from the European Working Conditions Survey 2021 (EWCS), covering approximately 7,900 employees across 37 European countries, using multilevel structural equation modeling. Age is included as a moderator. Results show that ICT use has simultaneously positive and negative effects on work, depending on how it redistributes control and demands across the job. Study 2 focuses on Generative AI (GenAI) and examines how employee attitudes toward this technology predict its use, and how GenAI use in turn affects five core job characteristics: skill variety, autonomy, feedback, social support, and role overload. The study employs a three-wave longitudinal design with a Spanish sample of approximately 554 workers, with intervals of approximately 1.5 months between waves. Occupational skill level serves as a moderator, revealing that the benefits and costs of GenAI use are distributed asymmetrically depending on workers' skill profiles. Study 3 introduces the construct of Employee-Centered Technology Implementation (ECTI), defined as a human-centered organizational approach to technology implementation that involves informing, consulting, and training employees throughout the process. Using the longitudinal panel as Study 2, it examines whether ECTI predicts changes in the same five job characteristics and, through them, in job satisfaction. Results indicate that ECTI has a significant indirect effect on job satisfaction through job autonomy. Taken together, the dissertation makes three interconnected contributions. Theoretically, it extends work design research by identifying ICT use, GenAI use, and ECTI as technological and organizational antecedents of core job characteristics, advancing models that have focused predominantly on the consequences of work characteristics rather than their origins. Methodologically, it combines a large-scale cross-sectional multilevel design with three-wave longitudinal designs that allow for the assessment of temporal precedence in the examined relationships. Practically, it provides evidence-based guidance for organizations navigating technological change, showing that the effects of technology on work design and employee well-being depend not only on the technology itself, but on how it is used and implemented.