Information technology and the autonomy–control duality: toward a theory

Abstract

We examine the relationship between firms' human resources (HR) practices and their information technology (IT) practices, focusing on the dichotomy between autonomy and control. We define facilitating HR practices as those that exhibit the following characteristics: worker autonomy, connectedness, learning, valuing individuals, trust, and flexibility in business processes. We then characterize facilitating IT practices, which are practices that facilitate employee collaboration, autonomy, and wider access to information. We contrast these categories of practice to traditional HR and monitoring IT, respectively. Drawing from theories of complementarities and configuration, we propose that alignment between HR and IT strategies originates at the level of individual practices. We consider the effects of this alignment on worker performance. We then ground our discussion in exploratory empirical and qualitative results.

Disciplined Autonomy and Innovation Effectiveness: The Role of Team Efficacy and Task Volatility

“…Our study shows how disciplined autonomy approaches lead to an increase in the collective confidence of IT and knowledge workers. Even though IT professionals and knowledge workers represent a small fraction of the overall workforce, how they are managed can have significant influence on firm performance and our work provides useful insights on managing IT human capital in software firms (Tafti, Mithas & Krishnan, 2007;Tafti, Mithas & Krishnan, 2015).…”

“…Prior research attributes a number of advantages related to innovation to increased autonomy, such as reduced coordination effort, improved team learning, or increased motivation (e.g, Tafti, Mithas & Krishnan, 2007). However, autonomy also entails risks.…”

Examining the Interrelation Between Job Autonomy and Job Performance: A Critical Literature Review

“…Emergence of new technologies created an imperative situation for organizations of all kind to grant further autonomy to their employees (Tafti et al, 2007;Alavi et al, 2016). This, in return created serious challenges within different contexts, geographic locations and organizational cultures.…”

Is the World Flat or Spiky? Information Intensity, Skills, and Global Service Disaggregation

“…There is also a need for empirical studies to understand the patterns of alignment between human resources practices and IT practices that are most appropriate for managing knowledge workers in the emerging economy. Recent work by Tafti et al (2007) provides a foundation for undertaking such studies.…”