How and when digital transformation intensity influences employees' safety-related helping behaviors

Hongxu Lu, Ting Wu, Xin-Miao Yao and Chen-Ming Huangfu

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2025, vol. 215, issue C

Abstract: In the context of safety management in safety-critical organizations, this study leveraged the job demands–resources model to scrutinize the divergent effects of digitalization on safety-related helping behavior. A two-stage survey of 367 employees from 41 teams in a safety-critical organization revealed that the employees' self-efficacy mediated the positive relationship between the intensity of digital transformation and safety-related helping behavior, whereas ego depletion mediated the negative relationship between the intensity of digital transformation and safety-related helping behavior. In addition, employees' positive perception of the organization's motivation for adopting digitalization amplified the indirect effect of the intensity of digital transformation on safety-related helping behavior via self-efficacy, while diminishing this indirect effect via ego depletion. These findings help to deepen the current understanding of the relationship between digitalization and employees' safety-related helping behaviors, and provide suggestions for managers in safety-critical organizations on how to use digital technologies to encourage employees to help each other in safety management. We emphasize that it is important for organizations to ensure that employees understand that digital transformation are motivated by a desire to help them avoid safety hazards, rather than to supervise them in safety management.

Keywords: Intensity of digital transformation; Self-efficacy; Ego depletion; Safety-related helping behaviors; Perceived motive for digitalization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162525001234
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:215:y:2025:i:c:s0040162525001234

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2025.124092

Access Statistics for this article

Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips

More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().