Liberal and anti-establishment: An exploration of the political ideologies of American tech workers

Selling, Niels; Strimling, Pontus

doi:10.1177/00380261231182522

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…However, relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to how those that design, develop and deploy the majority of digital technologies (claim to) see the world and their role in it. Complementing recent work on the cultural and political attitudes of tech workers (Dorschel, 2022;Selling and Strimling, 2023), we look at the beliefs of digital elites themselves as well as at the ideas prevalent in the wider tech milieu and capitalist discourse at large. Specifically, we add a novel theoretical and empirical perspective to existing survey-based (Broockman et al, 2019), text-based (Brockmann et al, 2021;Little and Winch, 2021), historical (Barbrook and Cameron, 1996;Turner, 2006), and discursive (Daub, 2020;Fisher, 2010;Haupt, 2021;Pfotenhauer et al, 2022) research on the ideas and ideology of digital capitalism in general and Silicon Valley in particular.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Solutionist Ethic and the Spirit of Digital Capitalism

Nachtwey,

Seidl

2023

Theory, Culture & Society

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Digital technologies are rapidly transforming economies and societies. Scholars have approached this rise of digital capitalism from various angles. However, relatively little attention has been paid to digital capitalism’s cultural underpinnings and the beliefs of those who develop most digital technologies. In this paper, we argue that a solutionist order of worth – in which value derives from solving social problems through technology – has become central to an emerging spirit of digital capitalism. We use supervised learning to trace the relative importance of different orders of worth in three novel text corpora. We find that solutionism is indeed central to the normative beliefs of digital elites and the broader digital milieu, but not to capitalist discourse at large. We illustrate the importance of these findings by discussing how the spirit of digital capitalism motivates, legitimates, and orients the actions of digital capitalists.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Solutionist Ethic and the Spirit of Digital Capitalism

Nachtwey,

Seidl

2023

Theory, Culture & Society

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Multidimensional preference for technology risk regulation: The role of political beliefs, technology attitudes, and national innovation cultures

Hemesath,

Tepe

2024

Regulation & Governance

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Building on the concept of participatory regulation, this study emphasizes recognizing the multidimensional character of citizens' risk regulation preferences. Using the case of autonomous vehicles, we specify six technology‐related risks: product safety, regulatory oversight, legal liability, ethical prioritization, data protection, and human supervision. We argue that differences in these multidimensional risk regulation preferences are shaped by citizens' political beliefs, technology attitudes, and national innovation cultures. To test these hypotheses, a conjoint experiment was conducted in the United States (1188 participants), Japan (1135 participants), and Germany (1174 participants) in which respondents compared hypothetical regulation regimes for self‐driving cars, varying alongside the six regulatory risk dimensions. The findings show a universal preference for increased legal responsibility of manufacturers and more stringent safety regulations for autonomous vehicles. Political beliefs and technological attitudes had minimal impact on these preferences. Although there were some cultural differences in privacy and ethical prioritization, no systematic differences were noted across countries, suggesting the possibility of finding common ground in standardizing risk regulations for self‐driving cars.

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A Job Satisfaction Scale for Tech Workers: Development and Validation in the Global Context

Ehigbochie,

Ekuobase

2024

Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies

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Humanity now lives and works in two worlds—the physical world and the cyber world. Tech workers are employees, not necessarily information technology (IT) professionals, who work in both worlds and seamlessly harness accessible resources in the worlds to meet organizational goals. This category of employees has unique job experiences and is more complicated to manage than the traditional workforce. Job satisfaction—a measurable outcome of employee wellbeing—remains a crucial indicator of an employee’s job experience. This psychological health of employees is usually measured using a job satisfaction scale. However, existing job satisfaction scales for tech workers lack specificity of measurement or cultural inclusivity. This study is, therefore, aimed at developing and validating a job satisfaction scale for tech workers in the global context. The systematic and scoping literature review methods were adopted for initial factors and item extraction. Two separate online surveys were conducted across the globe to randomly solicit tech workers’ acceptance rating of extracted factors and, after the factor selection, the rating of extracted associated items. The accepted numbers of respondents’ responses were 261 and 223, respectively. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 22 was used for data adequacy analysis, factor analysis, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient test. A seven‐factor model with 25 items was realized. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using the Analysis of Moment Structure software has been performed on the seven‐factor model. The model was further analyzed for organizational effectiveness. A notable finding was that successful validation is not enough to ship psychometric scales to the market—a sound social effectiveness analysis outcome is required. A practical seven‐factor job satisfaction scale for tech workers has been developed and validated for the tech industry.

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Liberal and anti-establishment: An exploration of the political ideologies of American tech workers

Cited by 3 publications

References 101 publications

The Solutionist Ethic and the Spirit of Digital Capitalism

The Solutionist Ethic and the Spirit of Digital Capitalism

Multidimensional preference for technology risk regulation: The role of political beliefs, technology attitudes, and national innovation cultures

A Job Satisfaction Scale for Tech Workers: Development and Validation in the Global Context

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