Understanding the Effect of Digital Literacy on Employees' Digital Workplace Continuance Intentions and Individual Performance

Introduction

Digital technologies (such as productivity suites, mobile devices, and collaboration platforms) are now an integral part of most workplaces (Cascio & Montealegre, 2016). Implementing such technologies, however, does not guarantee their success (Schallenmueller, 2016), it is essential that individuals adopt and use them as intended for benefits to be realised (Venkatesh et al., 2003). The digital literacy of the workforce can contribute to this outcome (Mohammadyari and Singh, 2015). While a growing body of literature suggests that employees’ digital skills are important to enable both individuals and organisations to make the most of the digital workplace, empirical understanding of their effect on technology adoption and performance is currently limited.

The present study investigates the effect of digital literacy on behavioural intention to continue using the digital workplace and, ultimately, on individual performance. Data was gathered from the workforce of a major UK charitable organisation. A new conceptual model was developed (see Figure 1) and the pathways within it assessed. It takes as its base model the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT; Venkatesh et al., 2003), adapting it using measures of information systems (IS) continuance intention and individual performance (Bhattacherjee, 2001), as well as including digital literacy (Van Deursen, Helsper and Eynon, 2016) as a new antecedent.

Figure 1.

Conceptual Model

Findings have the potential to advance current understanding of technology acceptance in the workplace. Greater understanding of the relationship between digital literacy and digital workplace acceptance may also have important implications for organisations and the design of interventions to help employees make optimal use of digital tools at work.