Agile Coping in the Digital Workplace: Emerging Issues for Research and Practice [1st ed. 2021] 3030702278, 9783030702274

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Nadia Ferreira Ingrid L. Potgieter Melinde Coetzee  Editors

Agile Coping in the Digital Workplace Emerging Issues for Research and Practice

Agile Coping in the Digital Workplace

Nadia Ferreira  •  Ingrid L. Potgieter Melinde Coetzee Editors

Agile Coping in the Digital Workplace Emerging Issues for Research and Practice

Editors Nadia Ferreira Department of Human Resource Management University of South Africa Gauteng, South Africa

Ingrid L. Potgieter Department of Human Resource Management University of South Africa Gauteng, South Africa

Melinde Coetzee Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology University of South Africa Gauteng, South Africa

ISBN 978-3-030-70227-4    ISBN 978-3-030-70228-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70228-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

We dedicate this book volume to scholars and practitioners who are enthusiastically researching novel solutions and crafting coherent, innovative ideas on the phenomenon of agile coping in the fastemerging digital workplace.

Preface

This book, Agile Coping in the Digital Workplace: Emerging Issues for Research and Practice, is timely in its reflection on the notion of agile coping in Industry 4.0. Scholars and practitioners agree that the dynamic and exponential evolution of technological developments, smart digital innovations and automation will have a revolutionary impact on people’s career–life experiences. Industry 4.0 has both expanded the possibilities of digital transformation and increased its importance to the organisation and employees. Industry 4.0 combines and connects digital and physical technologies to drive more flexible, agile, responsive and interconnected organisations to ensure more informed decision making. True digital transformation has profound implications for both the organisation and the employee. Agile coping has become an important concept for both organisations and individuals in their efforts to balance and cope with the opportunities afforded by Industry 4.0 technologies for dynamic and unprecedented innovation. Scholars, researchers and practitioners interested in the dynamics and mechanisms of agile coping in the digital workplace are called toward bringing innovative solutions and emerging issues for research and practice to the debate on defining the capacity for agile coping in the new world of work. This book is about advancing knowledge and understanding of coping dynamics in the future workplace. The book aims to craft a coherent narrative around the following two streams of thought which we trust will help advance theory, research and practice regarding coping dynamics in the digital era: Contextual issues in understanding the dynamics of agile coping in the digital workplace  This book includes multi-disciplinary perspectives on the conceptualisation of agile coping and coping dynamics as well as innovative ideas around how the concept may manifest for individuals in the digital workplace. Theoretical frameworks and psychometric measures of coping as well as related useful constructs for scholars and practitioners are also included. Managing coping within the digital workplace, issues identified for individuals and organisational practice  The book includes contributions that advance theory and research on antecedents, mechanisms and consequences of coping dynamics vii

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and their relevance to and implication for the management coping of employees in the digital workplace. Chapters that critically evaluate contextual and personal enablers and impeding factors including potential processes and interventions that facilitate coping in the digital workplace are included. Perspectives on the potential future manifestation of constructs relating to coping such as adaptability, changes in leadership skills and styles, commitment, self-efficacy, agility, engagement, careers, and flourishing are also included. The primary audience for this book volume is advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in industrial and organisational psychology and human resource management, as well as scholars in both academic and applied work settings. Industrial and organisational psychologists and professionals will also have an interest in this book volume. This book will help craft a coherent, innovative narrative on the phenomenon of agile coping in the fast-emerging digital workplace. A review of this volume’s table of contents shows that the authors have approached the concept agile coping from a number of different angles. We have categorised them as the digital workplace: contextual issues and coping (Part I), managing coping within the digital workplace – issues for organisational practice (Part II), and managing coping in the digital workplace – issues for individuals (Part III). We end, in Part IV of the volume, with an integrated reflection and conclusion on emerging issues for research and practice. The chapters offer refreshing and differing perspectives on agile coping in the digital workplace. No single chapter can touch on every aspect of the construct agile coping, but the chapters strive to highlight important aspects of the construct in Industry 4.0. We highlight some of the overarching issues that are emerging in our introductory chapter (Chap. 1) and concluding chapter (Chap. 16). The themes highlighted in Chaps. 1 and 16 may suggest to the reader new avenues for thinking about agile coping in the digital workplace and its implications beyond the domains discussed in each chapter. Each chapter makes its own outstanding contribution by reporting on current research highlighting key constructs and processes underlying agile coping dynamics in multi-disciplinary domains and across the life-span. Right now, the concept of agile coping is on the forefront and is important for both organisations and individuals in their efforts to balance and cope with the opportunities afforded by Industry 4.0 technologies for dynamic and unprecedented innovation. The issues we have raised (in Chaps. 1 and 16) are intended to help the reader grasp the deliberation and deep structure of the construct as it appears in each front-line chapter in this volume. We trust that the reader finds the book volume and its collection of chapters on the construct inspiring, insightful and overflowing with possibilities for applicability in social science research and organisational practice in the digital workplace. Gauteng, South Africa Gauteng, South Africa Gauteng, South Africa November 2020

Nadia Ferreira Ingrid L. Potgieter Melinde Coetzee

Acknowledgements

As authors, we acknowledge that our understanding of the role of the psychological underpinnings of agile coping in the digital workplace has been shaped by many research scholars, practitioners, colleagues, clients and students, past and present, in the international and multicultural workplace and educational contexts. We are truly grateful for these brilliant individuals who have shared their practices, wisdom and insights with us in person and through the professional scholarly literature. Scholars and practitioners are seeking novel solutions for helping organisations and their employees find positive ways of coping in uncertain changing times. This book volume reflects a snapshot of the new, emerging thoughts and directions for research and practice that organisations, individuals and practitioners may benefit from. As editors, we would also like to offer our deep gratitude to the team of authors we worked with on this book for their quality contributions, hard work and forbearance. The book volume and its chapters have been independently peer reviewed by scholars before the publication of the volume. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions and recommendations made by the following reviewers: Michelle M. Mey Alda Deas Dieter Veldsman Sabine Raeder Xander van Lill Chris Beukes Yvonne Joubert Ronel Nienaber Illizanne Howard Marais S. Bester

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Contents

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Introductory Chapter: Conceptualising Agile Coping Within the Smart Technological World of Work����������������������������������    1 Nadia Ferreira, Ingrid L. Potgieter, and Melinde Coetzee

Part I The Digital Workplace: Contextual Issues and Coping 2

The Fourth Industrial Revolution: A Resilience-Based Coping Strategy for Disruptive Change������������������������������������������������   11 Rudolf M. Oosthuizen

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Career Wellbeing and Career Agility as Coping Attributes in the Modern Career Space ������������������������������������������������������������������   35 Melinde Coetzee

Part II Managing Coping Within the Digital Workplace: Issues for Organisational Practice 4

Surviving the Digital Era: The Link Between Positive Coping, Workplace Friendships and Career Adaptability ��������������������������������   57 Ingrid L. Potgieter

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Positive Coping Skills, Thriving and Social Connectedness: Are There Generational Differences in the Digital Workplace?����������   79 Nadia Ferreira

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Enhancing Psychological Wellbeing in Industry 4.0: The Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence, Social Connectedness, Work-Life Balance and Positive Coping Behaviour������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   99 Melissa du Plessis

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Agile Coping in a Digital World: An Expanding Need for Boundary Spanning ��������������������������������������������������������������������������  119 Ronald C. Beckett xi

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Digital Tools Applications to Occupational Health and Safety for People with Autism����������������������������������������������������������������������������  147 Elias Mpofu, Rebecca Cagle, Chung-Yi Chiu, Qiwei Li, and Linda Holloway

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Coping Strategies as Predictors of Flourishing Among Targets of Workplace Bullying����������������������������������������������������������������  167 Elzabé Nel

10 Agile  Leadership and Bootlegging Behavior: Does Leadership Coping Dynamics Matter?����������������������������������������  187 Hooi Lai Wan and Nguyen Nhat Tan Part III Managing Coping Within the Digital Workplace: Issues for Individuals 11 Coping  Strategies for a Collarless Workforce: An Employee Experience Guide ������������������������������������������������������������  205 Marais S. Bester and Lukas M. Bester 12 Digitalisation  in the Workplace: The Role of Technology on Employee Engagement and Creativity Teams����������������������������������  231 Lize Stofberg, Arien Strasheim, and Eileen Koekemoer 13 Psychological  Capital: The Antidote for the Consequences of Organisational Citizenship Behaviour in Industry 4.0 Workplace ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  259 John K. Aderibigbe 14 The  Difference Model of Disability: A Focus on Employment������������  275 Jonathon S. Breen and Susan Forwell 15 S  tudent Wellbeing and Access to Technology: Changing Landscapes in Student Support��������������������������������������������  299 Irma Eloff Part IV Integration and Conclusion 16 Reflection  on the Agile Coping Dynamics and Emerging Issues for Research Practice in a Smart Digital Technological World of Work������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  315 Ingrid L. Potgieter, Nadia Ferreira, and Melinde Coetzee Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  321

Contributors

John K. Aderibigbe  Department of Industrial Psychology, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, Cape Town, South Africa Ronald  C.  Beckett  Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Lucas  M.  Bester  Independent Consultant, Great Heart Inc, Cape Town, South Africa Marais  S.  Bester  Independent Consultant, Qatar Airways, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Jonathan  S.  Breen  Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada Rebecca Cagle  University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA California State University Northridge, Northridge, CA, USA Chung-Yi Chiu  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA Melinde  Coetzee  Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology, University of South Africa, Gauteng, South Africa Melissa du Plessis  Department of Human Resource Management, University of South Africa, Gauteng, South Africa Joe Dracolby  University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA Irma  Eloff  Department of Educational Psychology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa Nadia  Ferreira  Department of Human Resource Management, University of South Africa, Gauteng, South Africa

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Susan  Forwell  Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada Linda Holloway  University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA Eileen Koekemoer  Department of Human Resource Management, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa Hooi  Lai  Wan  Department of International Business, College of Management, Chang Jung, Christian University, Taiwan Qiwei Li  University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA Elias Mpofu  University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa Elsabe Nel  Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology, University of South Africa, Gauteng, South Africa Rudolf M. Oosthuizen  Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology, University of South Africa, Gauteng, South Africa Ingrid L. Potgieter  Department of Human Resource Management, University of South Africa, Gauteng, South Africa Lize  Stofberg  Department of Human Resource Management, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa Arien  Strasheim  Department of Human Resource Management, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa Nguyen Nhat Tan  Faculty of International Business Administration, Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Languages – Information Technology, Vietnam

About the Editors

Nadia  Ferreira (DCom)  is a professor of human resource management in the Department of Human Resource Management at UNISA. She is a registered human resource practitioner with the South African Board for People Practices (SABPP). Nadia Ferreira completed her MCom degree in human resource management and industrial psychology in 2008 at the University of Pretoria. She completed her DCom degree in industrial psychology at Unisa in 2012. She is also an author and co-author of several published articles in local and international journals. In addition, she presented several papers at national and international conferences. Nadia Ferreira is a section editor for the South African Journal of Industrial and Organisational Psychology Ingrid L. Potgieter (DCom)  is a professor of human resource management in the Department of Human Resource Management at UNISA. She is a registered industrial psychologist at the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) since 2009 and also a registered human resource practitioner with the South African Board for People Practices (SABPP). Ingrid Potgieter completed her MCom degree in human resource management and industrial psychology in 2009 at the University of Pretoria. She completed her DCom degree in industrial psychology at Unisa in 2012. She is also an author and co-author of several published articles in local and international journals. She presented several papers at national and international conferences. Ingrid Potgieter is a section editor for the South African Journal of Industrial Psychology and edited and co-edited a number of scholarly books published by an international publisher. Melinde Coetzee (DLitt et Phil)  is a professor in the Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology at the University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa. She has extensive experience in the corporate environment on psychological interventions pertaining to organisational development, human capacity and career development, and talent retention. Her research interests include issues of employability and career and retention psychology in multicultural work contexts. She is editor, author and co-author of numerous scientific and scholarly books and articles. xv

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About the Editors

She served in the role of chief editor of the South African Journal of Industrial Psychology (2014 to 2019). She is a professionally registered psychologist (cat. Industrial) with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) and a master human resource practitioner with the South African Board for People Practice (SABPP).

Chapter 1

Introductory Chapter: Conceptualising Agile Coping Within the Smart Technological World of Work Nadia Ferreira, Ingrid L. Potgieter, and Melinde Coetzee

Abstract  This chapter presents an introductory overview of the outline of the book volume. The chapter provides an overview of classical and modern-day conceptualisations of the agile coping. The chapter will propose a new digital era relevant conceptualisation of the construct. The chapter will provide an outline of the core themes and focus areas of the various subsections of the book and contributing chapters. Keywords  Coping · Agile coping · Digital · Workplace · Digital transformation · Behaviour · Culture

1.1 Introduction This book Agile Coping in the Digital Workplace: Emerging Issues for Research and Practice is appropriate in its reflection on the opinion and understanding of coping with agility. It is agreed upon by fellow scholars and practitioners that the issues and exponential development and use of technology in the workplace have a radical impact on individuals’ and organisations’ ability to cope and manage coping abilities. This book fills an important gap in current research by addressing the under-researched phenomenon of agile coping on individual and organisational level within the context of Industry 4.0. Various interesting outlooks of coping are N. Ferreira (*) · I. L. Potgieter Department of Human Resource Management, University of South Africa, Gauteng, South Africa e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] M. Coetzee Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology, University of South Africa, Gauteng, South Africa e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 N. Ferreira et al. (eds.), Agile Coping in the Digital Workplace, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70228-1_1

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offered in the chapters of this book, which have made it possible to deliver a unique outlook on the concept agile coping in the context of career wellbeing in the digital workplace. Agile coping is conceptualised as the adaptive coping behaviour, which includes self-reflective responses to change in order to optimise creativity, growth and happiness (The Authors).

1.2 Agile Coping in the Digital Workplace The natural evolution of the workplace has brought about the digital workplace. The digital workplace provides organisations as well as individuals with incredible opportunities to enable individuals to work in a more flexible, more connected manner. The digital workplace facilitates the role of permitting and facilitating the total experience that individuals have at work. Marsh (2019) defines digital workplace literacy as individuals’ awareness, mind-set and ability to positively use digital workplace tools in a responsible and effective manner to solve problems, be more proactive, support individual wellbeing and thrive at work. Individuals with high levels of digital workplace literacy are able to process and apply information and data, create new content, connect and collaborate with others as well as reflect on and adapt their digital practices over time. By developing these abilities, individuals as well as organisations will be able to cope better within the digital workplace. Organisations should invest in digital transformation by enabling their employees to become more adaptive and develop the necessary skills to cope with the rapid changes in the workplace. The development of agile coping behaviour should form part of organisations’ digital workplace strategy. This message also resonates through all the chapter contributions in this book volume. Digital transformation can be described as improved business processes through digital technology. It entails better collaborations between employees, stronger and more productive relationships with partners or colleagues and increased potential by changing work and coping styles (Hamburg, 2019). The digital workplace is defined by Bryant (2018) as the entirety of the essential access to infrastructure, applications and device platforms of information or knowledge employees need in order to perform their work tasks and engage in collaboration. The digital workplace may impact on individual and organisations in the following manner: • Supports changes in working styles allowing individuals to work more transparently and make better use of social networks • Ensures individual connectivity by means of their mobile devices to offer anywhere, anytime access to tools and information • Generates choice, flexibility, adaptability and personalisation • Supports virtual environments that allow individuals to remain connected • Creates progressive, creative and innovative environments for individual to work in • Increases the level of employee engagement

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• Enhances employability • Increases the productivity of individuals With the arrival of the digital workplace, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, scholars and researchers across the world have highlighted the importance of agile coping behaviour within the digital workplace we currently find ourselves in. Contextual thinking researchers believe in the importance of providing the tools that mimic organisation and workplace changes as well as reflect employee behaviour that includes agility, coping, flexibility and employability (Shivakumar, 2020). Interest for emerging agile coping issues was brought about by Industry 4.0 and the digital transformation of the workplace. This book volume highlights these emerging issues for research and practices by providing specific attention to the context when reflecting on the agile coping behaviour on organisational and individual level. This book volume clearly illustrates that agile coping cannot be described only from one perspective but needs to be interrogated on various levels (such as individual, organisational and employability levels). Although variations of the multilevel facets of agile coping in the digital workplace are illustrated in each chapter, specific indicators of agile coping are manifested in each chapter. Agile coping in the digital workplace specifically on these different levels emerges in the various narratives, research and case illustrations of the chapters in this book volume. These include resilience-based coping strategies, psychological coping mechanisms for survival in the digital workplace, the influence of generations on agile coping, the enhancement of wellbeing, expansion of boundary spanning competencies, how to use digital tools as coping mechanisms, explaining the different coping styles, exploring leadership agility and bootlegging behaviour, identifying the best practices for online psychological interventions, the role of technology on employee engagement, exploring the concept psychological capital and explaining how student support landscapes are changing in the digital workplace. For an overall impression, we refer the reader here to Chap. 16 for a rundown of the multilevel contextual research and practice themes that developed from the various chapter contributions. It is clear from the chapters that digital technologies are integrated in various aspects of life and work and present benefits and challenges for organisations, employers and employees. Hamburg (2019) stresses that organisations should be more creative in creating new working environments and take into consideration their culture around the digital developments in the workplace, in order to ensure productivity and the coping of employees or individuals. The scope of this book volume is on one hand to discuss agile coping in the digital workplace with individuals who find themselves in the field of digital transformation and with students and practitioners to find new scientific methods for problems such as behaviour change in order to cope; on the other hand, this book volume would like to assist organisations and individuals particularly to achieve the necessary skills and competencies for a successful digital transformation and coping within the digital workplace. In addition, we sincerely hope that the various chapter contributions in this book volume will stimulate the thinking about and implementing of agile coping strategies in the digital workplace and satisfy the expectations of both the individual and the organisation.

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The primary foundational theoretical lens in describing the dynamics of agile coping seems to be positive psychology. However, other theoretical lenses have been added to better explain the multilevel contextual nature of the agile coping in the digital workplace. These include theories such as career development and wellbeing theory (see Coetzee, Chap. 3), positive coping theory (see Potgieter, Chap. 4), social connectedness theory (see Ferreira, Chap. 6), work-life balance theory (see Du Plessis, Chap. 6), structuration theory (see Beckett, Chap. 7), flourishing theory (see Nel, Chap. 9), theory of structural strain (see Hooi and Tan, Chap. 10) and difference model theory (see Breen, Chap. 14). The multiple theoretical lenses explore agile coping from different viewpoints and the importance to approach it within the digital workplace.

1.3 Outline of the Book Volume To ease understanding of the shift to the multilevel contextual understanding of the agile coping in the digital workplace, we have categorised (as illustrated in Fig. 1.1) the chapters into four core themes. Each of these sections provides the reader with a snapshot overview of the core focus and contribution of the relevant chapters.

1.3.1 Part I: The Digital Workplace: Contextual Issues and Coping The chapters by Oosthuizen (Chap. 2) and Coetzee (Chap. 3) present features of the digital workplace context that affects agile coping attributes. The value of these chapter contributions lies within their critical reflection on core coping attributes that affect agile coping and career wellbeing of individuals. Part I: The Digital Workplace: Contextual Issues and Coping Chapters 2 to 3 Managing Coping within the Digital Workplace

Part II: Issues for Organisational Practice Chapters 4 to 10 Part III: Issues for Individuals Chapters 11 to 15

Part V: Integration & Conclusion Chapter 16

Fig. 1.1  Conceptual overview of the book volume

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1.3.2 Part II: Managing Coping Within the Digital Workplace: Issues for Organisational Practice The chapters by Potgieter (Chap. 4), Ferreira (Chap. 5), Du Plessis (Chap. 6), Beckett (Chap. 7), Mpofu et al. (Chap. 8), Nel (Chap. 9) and Hooi and Tan (Chap. 10) touch on important multilevel contextual issues that affect organisational coping practices. The value of these chapter contributions lies in their rich discussion of important organisational coping practices relevant to Industry 4.0 and the digital workplace.

1.3.3 Part III: Managing Coping Within the Digital Workplace: Issues for Individuals The chapters by Bester and Bester (Chap. 11), Koekemoer et  al. (Chap. 12), Aderibigbe (Chap. 13) and Breen (Chap. 14) highlight the challenges and complexities of managing the agile coping within the digital workplace as an individual. The value of these chapter contributions lies in the identification and elucidation of the various issues for individuals specifically in terms of agile coping in the digital workplace. The chapter by Eloff (Chap. 15) highlights the challenges and complexities of addressing agile coping within the employability and wellbeing context. The value of this chapter contribution lies in the in-depth discussion and understanding of the elliptical collaborations, technology and the manner in which it supports individuals’ subjective wellbeing.

1.3.4 Part V: Integration and Conclusion The chapter by Ferreira et  al. (Chap. 16) brings together overarching issues for future research and organisational practices at this particular stage in reflecting on agile coping dynamics and emerging issues for research practices in the digital workplace. The core themes that emerged in each chapter are presented as a synopsis for readers to consult when working through this book volume.

1.4 Conclusion We acknowledge that coping, and specifically agile coping, is an under-researched phenomenon and that the chapter contributions only provide a snapshot of the theory, research and dynamics of relevance and interest in the digital workplace. The audience for this book is advanced undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate

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students as well as scholars and practitioners in career wellbeing and career development settings. In addition, organisational decision-makers, human resource managers and professionals, wellness counsellors and public policy makers will have an interest in this book. We trust that the readers of this book will find the theory, reported research and practices that illuminate the dynamics of agile coping in the digital workplace helpful to enrich their own understanding of the multilevel issues underpinning managing agile coping. We hope that the thoughts and suggestions presented in the various chapters will stimulate further research endeavours that will contribute to much needed innovative evidence-based coping practices that benefit both individuals and their organisations in the rapidly changing digital workplace.

References Bryant, L. (2018). Capabilities, culture, digital transformation, enablement, ESN adoption, future of work, leadership, learning, org structures, technology. Hamburg, I. (2019). Implementation of a digital workplace strategy to drive behaviour change and improve competencies. https://www.intechopen.com/books/strategy-­and-­behaviors-­in-­the-­ digital-­economy/implementation-­of-­a-­digital-­workplace-­strategy-­to-­drive-­behavior-­change-­ and-­improve-­competencies. Accessed 19 Oct 2020. Marsh, W. (2019). Digital skills are key to wellbeing in the digital workplace. https://www.linkedin. com/pulse/digital-­skills-­key-­wellbeing-­workplace-­elizabeth-­marsh/. Accessed 12 Oct 2020. Shivakumar, S. K. (2020). Digital transformation to next-generation workplaces. In Build a next-generation digital workplace. Berkeley, CA: Apress. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­1-­4842-­5512-­4_8 Nadia Ferreira  is a professor in Human Resource Management at the Department of Human Resource Management at UNISA. She is a registered human resource practitioner with the South African Board for People Practices (SABPP). Nadia Ferreira completed her MCom degree in Human Resource Management and Industrial Psychology in 2008 at the University of Pretoria. She completed her DCom Industrial Psychology degree at UNISA in 2012. She is also an author and co-author of several published articles in  local and international journals. In addition, she presented several papers at national and international conferences. Nadia Ferreira is a section editor for the South African Journal of Industrial and Organisational Psychology. Ingrid L. Potgieter (DCom)  is a professor in Human Resource Management at the Department of Human Resource Management at UNISA.  She is a registered industrial psychologist at the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) since 2009 and also a registered human resource practitioner at the South African Board for People Practices (SABPP). Ingrid Potgieter completed her Mcom degree in Human Resource Management and Industrial Psychology in 2009 at the University of Pretoria. She completed her Dcom Industrial Psychology degree at UNISA in 2012. She is also an author and co-author of several published articles in local and international journals. She presented several papers at national and international conferences. Ingrid Potgieter is a section editor for the South African Journal of Industrial Psychology and edited and co-edited a number of scholarly books published by an international publisher.

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Melinde Coetzee (DLitt et Phil)  is a professor in the Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology at the University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa. She has extensive experience in the corporate environment on psychological interventions pertaining to organisational development, human capacity and career development and talent retention. Her research interests include issues of employability and career and retention psychology in multicultural work contexts. She is editor, author and co-author of numerous scientific and scholarly books and articles. She served in the role of chief editor of the South African Journal of Industrial Psychology (2014 to 2019). She is a professionally registered psychologist (cat. Industrial) with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) and a master human resource practitioner with the South African Board for People Practice (SABPP).

Part I

The Digital Workplace: Contextual Issues and Coping

1.1  Conceptual Overview of the Book Volume Part I: The Digital Workplace: Contextual Issues and Coping Chapters 2 to 3

Managing Coping within the Digital Workplace

Part II: Issues for Organisational Practice Chapters 4 to 10 Part III: Issues for Individuals Chapters 11 to 15

Part IV: Integration & Conclusion Chapter 16

1.2 Overview Oosthuizen’s contribution (Chap. 2: The Fourth Industrial Revolution: A Resilience-­ Based Coping Strategy for Disruptive Change) sets the initial scene and helps us to better understand the seismic shift that brings with it a set of radically new technologies, called the Fourth Industrial Technology (4IR). The chapter elucidates that smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, algorithms, the Internet of Things, 3D printing, bio-printing, gene editing and autonomous vehicles are transforming the world at an incredible speed (Kruger, 2020; Guoping, Yun, & Aizhi, 2017). This author conceptualises a resilience-based coping strategy for disruptive change in the 4IR and further suggests possible strategies for both organisations and governments to cope with the disruptive changes brought about by the digital workplace. The chapter by Coetzee (Chap. 3: Career Wellbeing and Career Agility as Coping Attributes in the Modern Career Space) addresses the current gap in research

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I  The Digital Workplace: Contextual Issues and Coping

on the two constructs of career wellbeing and career agility. The aim is to explore whether career wellbeing (as an intrinsic psychological state) positively predicts career agility (as an extrinsic psychological state). In this regard, the chapter firstly reviews modern theoretical stances underpinning the two constructs from the perspective of the coping circumplex model (CCM: Stanislawski, 2019). Secondly, the chapter reports and discusses an empirical study on the link between the two constructs. Thirdly, the chapter critically considers the implications for modern career theory and organisational support practices.

Chapter 2

The Fourth Industrial Revolution: A Resilience-Based Coping Strategy for Disruptive Change Rudolf M. Oosthuizen

Abstract  The first, second and third industrial revolutions gave humanity steam power, electricity, internet and connectivity, respectively. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is a seismic shift that brings with it a set of radically new technologies. Smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, algorithms, the internet of things, 3D printing, bioprinting, gene editing and autonomous vehicles are transforming the world at an incredible speed (Kruger, The Citizen (Gauteng), 2020; Guoping et al., Chin Geogr Sci 27(4):626–637, 2017). The world is marching into a new period characterised by unprecedented developments in digital technology, physical technology and biological technology and the convergence of their applications. As an agent of economic and social change, robotisation has elicited considerable concern about technological unemployment (Pol and Reveley, Psychosociolog Issues Hum Resour Manag 5(2):169–186, 2017). Coping behaviour is shown to be logically compatible with rationality and well suited to dealing with fear of joblessness. It is argued that coping strategies are needed to assist employees in dealing with the threats that robotisation poses to their future job security. The aim of this chapter is to conceptualise a resilience-based coping strategy for disruptive change in the 4IR (Tan, The fourth industrial revolution: coping with disruptive change. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 2016; Tan and Wu, Public policy implications of the fourth industrial revolution for Singapore. RSIS, Singapore, 2017). This chapter also suggests possible strategies for both organisations and governments to cope with the disruptive changes brought about by the 4IR. Keywords  Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) · Smart technology · Artificial intelligence · Robotics · Algorithms · Coping behaviour · Resilience-based coping strategy · Disruptive change

R. M. Oosthuizen (*) Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology, University of South Africa, Gauteng, South Africa e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 N. Ferreira et al. (eds.), Agile Coping in the Digital Workplace, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70228-1_2

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2.1 Introduction Historians conventionally divide the Industrial Revolution into two approximately consecutive parts. What is called the First Industrial Revolution (1IR) lasted from the mid-eighteenth century to about 1830 and was mostly confined to Britain. The 1IR was characterised by the exploitation of steam technology in manufacturing industries. Automation was introduced and reliance on manpower changed to reliance on the power of the engine. Consequently, manufacturing overheads decreased, and uniform and certified products were offered to a wider consumer market as an unavoidable result of mechanisation. As a result of the 1IR, many states were able to develop, increase and expand their markets. The 1IR was fundamentally the expansion of infrastructure. It is generally recognised that the 1IR raised living standards, led to the development of innovative skills and compounded urbanisation. The 1IR increased the overall amount of wealth and distributed it more widely than had been the case in earlier centuries, helping to enlarge the middle class. However, 1IR was also characterised by horrendous working conditions and standards which often led to the exploitation of the poor by manufacturing plants. The replacement of the domestic system of industrial production, in which independent craftspersons worked in or near their homes, with the factory system and mass production consigned large numbers of people, including women and children, to long hours of tedious and often dangerous work at subsistence wages. Their miserable conditions gave rise to the trade union movement in the mid-nineteenth century. The Second Industrial Revolution (2IR) lasted from the mid-nineteenth century until the early twentieth century and took place in Britain, continental Europe, North America and Japan. Later in the twentieth century, the 2IR spread to other parts of the world. The 2IR which was based on division of work began to emerge. It was made possible by the harnessing of electrical energy and the development of the telegraph and telephone (communication technologies). The significance of scientific information increased as a result of the 2IR (Daka, 2020; Kavrakoğlu & Devrimleri, 2019). The 2IR saw major advancements in the development and use of steel, chemicals and electricity (Agarwal & Agarwal, 2017; Daka, 2020). The use of electricity brought about significant improvements that allowed numerous businesses to increase their productivity. The mechanical progression made during the 2IR also made mineral investigation possible. The 2IR was characterised by the operation of machines, which were for the most part fuelled by electricity. Urbanisation increased rapidly. The population moved into hastily built housing in cities to be nearer to the factories. Families were separate as the place of work shifted from the home to factories. The Third Industrial Revolution (3IR) started in the mid-1900s. Roberts (2015) notes that the 3IR was driven by advancements and innovative developments in engineering, transport and energy variables. Some of the greatest developments during the 3IR were the improvement of atomic control and the increasing use of electronics. During the 3IR, numerous parts of the world started to catch up with Europe.

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The rapid decline in transaction costs brought on by the 3IR is leading to the ­democratisation of information, energy, manufacturing, marketing and logistics and the ushering in of a new era of distributed capitalism that is likely to change the very way people think of commercial life. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), which includes the internet of things and cyber-physical systems, is beginning to affect every aspect of societies in today’s world (Kurtulmus, 2018; Taş, 2018). The 4IR is characterised by the use of service of robots in manufacturing and production, construction with three-dimensional printers, the expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data studies. Four things distinguish the 4IR from the previous industrial revolutions, namely, cyber-­ physical systems (CPS), big data and digital information exchange, smart robots and digital industrialisation. As a result of the 4IR, smart plants can automatically modify production specifications to meet the requirements of modern environments and structure manufacturing plans according to order demands. Robot technologies are proving to intensify the effect of the 4IR (Yüksekbilgili & Çevik, 2018). AI, which plays a crucial role in the 4IR, is the power of a computer or a computer-­ controlled system to perform various functions by analysing human thinking methods and techniques (Banger, 2018; Kurt, 2019).

2.2 Problem Statement AI and robotics are two connected disciplines. AI is an encompassing field that consists of a number of different subfields, such as machine learning. In AI, people focus on how to replicate functionality of the human brain in the technological domain. AI is thus the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans because they require human intelligence and discernment. Machine learning is all about how a machine can learn, without human intervention, to replicate a task that a human would ordinarily do (Subroyen, 2020). Robotics focuses on the ability to create something that acts in a world, which could be the real world or an alternative world (e.g. a simulation). Robotics entails the performance of some activity or action that fulfils a purpose in the real world. The bewildering speed of innovation in robotics and AI brings about consistent employment instability. As a result, we should ask two important questions: Will robotisation cause technological unemployment? And to what degree will robotisation cause technological unemployment? The idea that technological unemployment is inescapable is at least conceivable. This obviously raises the spectre of joblessness, which has the potential to cause individuals to lose hope and drives the question of how to address the issue to the very forefront of employment research. The presence of intense uncertainty rules out any endeavour to optimise the situation. Moreover, this instability rules out probabilistic thinking and inductive argumentation. How can researchers be rational when considering future innovations when inductive thinking cannot be used? In such circumstances we accept

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that a rational reaction to the robotisation challenge includes the idea of resiliencebased coping behaviour. Pol and Reveley (2017) postulate that coping behaviour is logically compatible with rationality and well-suited to dealing with fear of joblessness. Also, in the extent that robotisation threatens future jobs, coping strategies are needed to assist individuals. Resilience-based coping behaviour under conditions of intense uncertainty is based on two pillars: a narrative and a set of heuristics. A particular depiction of these two pillars could lead to a resiliencebased coping strategy.

2.3 Objective of the Chapter The objective of the chapter is to conceptualise a resilience-based coping strategy for disruptive change in the 4IR.

2.4 Literature Review 2.4.1 Key Theoretical Concepts The conceptualisation of key theoretical concepts in the context of the study and the 4IR are described in the following section. The 4IR is characterised by disruptive change and strong uncertainty. Coping and resilience are mechanisms to deal with these challenges. 2.4.1.1 Disruptive Change The 4IR is a fusion of technologies and a blurring of the lines between physical, digital and biological spheres. Not only has it given rise to an unprecedented pace of innovation, causing disruption in every conceivable industry, but as technologies fuse, it is also transforming the way people work (Narsi, 2020). The 4IR has brought with it a wealth of new, advanced technologies that have allowed organisations to build on a long history of innovation and technological leadership. A technological leader fosters technological innovation and understands the technology life cycle. Such a leader initiates and steers commercialisation of technological advances, links business and technology strategies, manages technology research and development and understands technological revolutions. By continuing to evolve and to embrace these new technologies, organisations continue to lead the way with cutting-­edge robotics, AI and digitalisation-led automation. These new technologies cause disruptive change, and one of the challenges that every organisation is facing in this era is to ensure that employees, who are an organisation’s most valuable assets, are not left behind. Becoming redundant is an understandable fear amongst

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members of the employed and unemployed workforce as new digital technologies are displacing people in the workplace. They also fear that technology may eliminate their current roles or future job opportunities (Sukraj, 2020). The 4IR creates additional challenges, such as job transformation and the need for advanced skills. It also creates opportunities and technologies that are not only disruptive but also transformative. Advancements in the 4IR are rightly held in balance by various tensions striving to adjust society to a new equilibrium. It is imperative to adopt a positive technology curve with a high level of innovation across the general population. Creating better positive technologies represents a potential way to increase accessibility, affordability and effectiveness of positive interventions. These efforts could decrease the economic cost of mental health care and increase engagement and well-being in the workplace (Paddy, 2020). A simple mind shift would align efforts to find ways to solve the challenges introduced by the 4IR through widespread and immersive education and reskilling, creating sustainable value and game-changing innovations, which in turn will boost the economy and create more employment opportunities. Strong uncertainty is created by the disruptive changes of the 4IR and needs further clarification. It should also be noted that uncertainty is a multilevel concept. 2.4.1.2 Strong Uncertainty A univocal concept has a single meaning and one experimental referent. Uncertainty is not like that; there are diverse shapes of instability. The instability resulting from the 4IR operation of the economy nowadays is qualitatively different from the instability people and businesses experienced under capitalism during the twentieth century. An explanation of the two different types of uncertainty was presented by American financial analyst Frank H. Knight (1885–1973) nearly a century ago, and it is still valuable. Everybody knows that 4IR uncertainty implies that we do not know what is going to happen. Knight (1965) emphasises that when we cope with uncertainty, we need to be mindful of a key polarity. In some cases, people confront weak uncertainty, which means that they are ready to indicate all the conceivable results together with their comparing probabilities (e.g. when buying a lottery ticket). At other times, they confront strong uncertainty, which means they are unable to characterise, or indeed envision, all future results, so probabilities cannot be attached. A basic thought experiment can clarify this conceptual refinement (Knight, 1965; Pol & Reveley, 2017). Assume that time travelling to the past is possible. We can now return to the beginning of the twentieth century. Now consider the launching of the internet in 1990. The point is that there is no direct link between the beginning of the twentieth century and the development of the internet. Past encounters and occasions have no direct link to future advancements and results. This bifurcation of the concept of uncertainty has profound implications not only for thinking about how people might deal with the effects of labour-displacing technological change on their life chances but also for what it means to be rational. To the degree that thinking about future

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states of 4IR issues is based on probabilities, it is inductive in nature. However, under conditions of strong uncertainty, inductive (probabilistic) thinking falls short, to the degree that “the 4IR future will not be appropriately just like the past” (Feser, 2017). If the 4IR future is not appropriately just like the past, being judicious in the sense of creating contentions based on probabilities is, hence, inconceivable (Pol & Reveley, 2017). 2.4.1.3 Coping One of the most noteworthy challenges that people confront is stress management. Stress is characterised as “a mind-body excitement that can, on one hand, spare our lives and on the other, weaken body systems to the point of malfunction and disease” (Girdano, Dusek, & Everly, 2009). Stress gets to be negative when it outperforms our capacity to manage our lives properly. Coping can be portrayed as the capacity with which an individual handles an unpleasant occasion. Stress may have direct negative effects on people’s wellbeing, including sleep disturbances (Wallace, Boynton, & Lytle, 2017), depression, suicide (Brownson, Becker, Shadick, Jaggars, & Nitkin-Kaner, 2014) and recurring or frequent illness, or indirect effects such as maladaptive coping behaviours like smoking (Thomas, Hodge, & Kotkin-Jaszi, 2016), drug and alcohol abuse (Metzger, Blevins, Bountress, et al., 2017; Stoltzfus & Farkas, 2012) and overeating. Coping is considered to be of basic significance in deciding whether an upsetting occasion results in versatile or maladaptive results (Maykrantz & Houghton, 2020). Personality traits can impact any point of the stress–appraisal–coping sequence (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). This sequence includes an introduction to stressors, reactivity to or an examination of stressors (e.g. seeing a stressor as a threat or a challenge) and a response to or coping with stressors (Suls & Martin, 2005). Similarly, emotions can appear in various elements of the sequence. Lazarus (1999) proposes that when there is stress, there are also emotions; he endorsed the concept of emotion-focused coping (i.e. efforts to alleviate stress-related emotions through strategies such as reappraisal, seeking social support and distraction). However, emotions are not essential to the stress–appraisal–coping sequence. Individuals could potentially perceive a 4IR challenge, appraise it as such and cope with it without necessarily experiencing intense feelings or emotions (Segerstrom & Smith, 2019). A functionalist view, namely, that individuals perceive feelings as a useful and functional guide to behaviour, gives emotions a prominent role in coping in the 4IR context. Feelings lead individuals to focus on a specific set of stimuli out of all the possible stimuli with which they could possibly cope. By emphasising important elements of the environment, emotions motivate cognitive and behavioural reactions. Individuals are unlikely to perceive a 4IR challenge or find it necessary to cope unless it evoked significant emotions. Additionally, emotions train individuals for action in response to stimuli. Certainly, to feel literally means to prepare for action (Maxwell & Davidson, 2007). Feelings also appear to prepare the body for action (Tooby & Cosmides, 2008).

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Coping with emotions includes the idea of coping with one’s emotion beyond emotion regulation. Emotion regulation includes conscious efforts to modulate the intensity of individuals’ emotions (e.g. by avoiding emotion-eliciting situations or by reappraising the meaning of a situation) (Gross, 1998). In contrast, coping with emotions can include behaviours elicited by an emotion, regardless of whether the behaviours are intended to regulate the emotional experience (Segerstrom & Smith, 2019). For example, fear of technological unemployment could motivate individuals to improve their science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills, thereby ensuring that they have a competitive edge in knowledge-intensive economies. Upskilling might reduce their fear, but it could also possibly maintain or even exacerbate their fear. Some behaviours might even seem to be peripheral to the eliciting emotion, such as destructive anxiety, but they nonetheless follow from an emotional experience. People respond differently to emotions. Individual differences occur even in situations where it is expected that certain responses will be nearly universal. Some responses are considered to be organised as they could increase evolutionary fitness. For example, fear motivates flight or avoidance. Getting or staying away from something that individuals are afraid of could facilitate survival. However, even the well-known relationship between fear and avoidance can be moderated (e.g. by higher-level goals) (Bossuyt, Moors, & DeHouwer, 2014; Segerstrom & Smith, 2019). Thus, even when responses are expected to be nearly universal, different people respond differently to emotions. Individual differences in how individuals cope with emotional states can have implications for their long-term psychological and physical health. 2.4.1.4 Resilience There are two perspectives on psychological resilience (Jackson, Firtko, & Edenborough, 2007; Robertson, Cooper, Sarkar, & Curran, 2015). The first is that psychological resilience could be a trait that permits people to bargain and alter emphatically in a difficult situation. The second considers resilience to be a dynamic process that includes a disturbance of the environment and reintegration into that environment, which means that a person adjusts positively despite the difficulty encountered (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000). This suggests that resilience is a “state” and that it can be developed and managed (King, Newman, & Luthans, 2015). Both the “trait” and “state” perspectives imply that individuals can bounce back from physical and psychological stressors (Garcia-Dia, DiNapoli, Garcia-Ona, Jakubowski, & O’flaherty, 2013; Luthans, Youssef, & Avolio, 2007; Smith et al., 2008). This view implies that people construct resilience by selecting mental assets when they experience unpleasant occasions; these mental assets can then be used in future, possibly more demanding circumstances (Berinsky, Huber, & Lenz, 2012; Prayag, Spector, Orchiston, & Chowdhury, 2019). Resilience is thus a complex and dynamic process  – the ability of individuals to adapt successfully to adversity, stressful life events, significant threat or trauma. It is best conceptualised as a

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c­ ontinuum, with potential for change across the lifespan. Studies have repeatedly shown that severity and frequency of exposure to stress matter (Feder, Fred-Torres, Southwick, & Charney, 2019). Employee resilience is an emerging area in the 4IR context (Cooke, Cooper, Bartram, Wang, & Mei, 2016; Tonkin, Malinen, Näswall, & Kuntz, 2018). In this context, resilience is a positive internal resource that employees can use to navigate disruptive change, strong uncertainty and a stressful workplace (Avey, Luthans, & Jensen, 2009). When developed and managed effectively, resilience has the ability to elicit positive employee and organisational outcomes (Youssef & Luthans, 2007). Employee resilience is conceptualised in terms of organisational behaviours, that is, the attitudes and abilities of employees to cope with the challenges of the 4IR. The relentless process of transition involves advanced technology applications giving way to even newer, more impactful innovations. Employee insights into social networks and new approaches to AI, big data, fintech and 3D printing create new industrial and consumer products, processes and services. The internet of things (IoT) and the development of co-bots and electronically controlled and programmable aerial vehicles (drones) now form the centre of a process of continuous and disruptive transformation (Dunn, 2020). A resilient workforce is capable of responding positively and competently in the face of uncertainty and is crucial for organisational survival and future prosperity (Wang, Cooke, & Huang, 2014). The 4IR is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres. It heavily relies on digital applications, including the replacement or enhancement of human faculties and the creation of new mechanical and physical tools driven by software programs that control algorithms and robots (Dunn, 2020). Resilient employees in the 4IR workplace thrive, rather than just survive; they are more able to bounce back and learn from adversity and uncertainty (Luthans, Avey, Avolio, Norman, & Combs, 2006). Such skills are becoming increasingly important as individuals hold more jobs throughout their work life and have more flexible work schedules (Luthans, Avey, et al., 2006). Employee resilience should therefore be seen as a set of skills and abilities that can be developed through appropriate human resources interventions. For example, resilience in the workplace can be enhanced by providing social support in a way that centres on human development (Bardoel, Pettit, De Cieri, & McMillan, 2014). This requires emphasis on the behaviour and engagement of managers and leaders that encourage the development of supportive behaviours in employees (Luthans, 2002; Prayag et al., 2019). Dunn (2020) postulates that resilience is about outcome or the manner of response to adversity. This perspective is corroborated by Coutu (2002), who observes that resilience is a reflex – a way of facing and understanding the world that is deeply etched into a person’s mind and soul. Resilient employees and organisations face reality with staunchness, make meaning of hardship instead of crying out in despair and improvise solutions from thin air. Other organisations do not. The primary resource on which employees and organisations rely for this resilience is their imagination creativity. This resilience may be reflected at the i­ ndividual level or at the level of the collective, whether as a narrow community or a wider society.

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2.5 Method 2.5.1 Study Design The critical review of the research literature entailed a broad systematic review of contemporary research on the themes of the 4IR. This approach allowed the author to evaluate documented research on a resilience-based coping strategy for disruptive change.

2.5.2 Study Eligibility Criteria The boundary of the systematic review was defined to include only documented contemporary research in the field of career psychology published from 2016 to 2020. A search was done by means of an online information technology service, including search engines such as EBSCOhost/Academic Search Premier and Google Scholar academic databases. The terms 4IR, smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, algorithms, coping behaviour and resilience-based coping strategy were used in the search. The full texts of publications were downloaded from databases to ascertain which articles to include or exclude from the systematic review. The inclusion criterion for articles reviewed for the purpose of this chapter was studies exploring a resilience-based coping strategy for disruptive change. The research articles were treated as the sources of data.

2.5.3 Data Analysis A qualitative approach was followed in exploring the 4IR and a resilience-based coping strategy for disruptive change. In the first stage, the author read the studies carefully to form an understanding of the 4IR and a resilience-based coping strategy for disruptive change. In the second stage, the author formed a picture of the 4IR to account for relations and linkages amongst its aspects. Stage 3 consisted of theorising about how and why these 4IR relations appear as they do, and Stage 4 consisted of recontextualising the new knowledge about the 4IR phenomena and relations in the context of how other authors have articulated the evolving knowledge. Thirty-­ three studies were identified in a systematic search for relevant research published between January 2016 and June 2020  in the following electronic databases: EBSCOhost/Academic Search Premier and Google Scholar academic database. Publications were evaluated for quality, and eight studies were identified as the primary sources for exploration.

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2.5.4 Strategies Used to Ensure Data Quality Systematic, rigorous and auditable analytical processes are amongst the most significant factors distinguishing good research from poor research. The researcher therefore articulated the findings in such a manner that the logical processes by which they were developed are accessible to a critical reader; the link between the actual data and the conclusions about data is explicit; and the claims made about the data set are rendered credible and believable. Potential publication bias (i.e. the assumption that all research on the topic may not have been published), trustworthiness or credibility, true value and quality, appropriateness, reflection on the research endeavour in its entirety and best practices were also considered. Value and quality were assured by reviewing each article in terms of scientific and methodological rigour in exploring the 4IR and resilience-based coping strategies for disruptive change. All data were retained for possible future scrutiny. The limitations of the study were that it did not include practical empirical data and that only literature was reviewed within the time period as mentioned above.

2.6 Discussion and Practical Implications This section is deliberated firstly on the micro-level analysis that focuses on the individual. Secondly, the meso-level analysis follows that involves organisations. Thirdly, the discussion is concluded by the macro-level analysis that focuses on governments at large.

2.6.1 Micro-level Analysis 2.6.1.1 Uncertainty and Coping Robotisation which refers to the introduction of robots to carry out industrial tasks and automation as the creation and application of technology to monitor and control the production and delivery of products and services are continuing apace. Also, human augmentation is generally used to refer to technologies that enhance human productivity or capability or that somehow add to the human body. Modern advancements in many areas of IT have led to a greater variety of implants and other technologies that could be classed as human augmentation. If we claim that expanding technological unemployment is becoming a greater probability, an important question arises. How can social researchers offer assistance to employees in coping with the distress, lost hope and social disengagement that the threat of joblessness is likely to cause? Searching for employment in conditions of uncertainty is known to incite negative feelings (Standing, 2011; Wilson & Ebert, 2013), but the basis of knowledge on which career advice can be given to employees is less than solid. For one thing, the degree of technological unemployment – the phenomenon’s

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q­ uantitative measurement  – cannot be known in advance. It is also important to note that during the 1IR, 2IR and 3IR, jobs were created through technological advancement. The impact of the 1IR was felt on the agricultural community. Work was predominately performed by hand. People who no longer were able to farm as their land got taken over by factories reskilled to become boiler makers, ironsmiths, mechanics, etc. as these industries now have machines that need to be fabricated or repaired. These skills were previously in low demand. There were short-term job losses, but different jobs were created that did not previously exist. With the transition from steam power to electricity in the 2IR, there may have been short-term job losses, but if the steam mechanics reskilled to electricians, they would have retained their jobs. Yet again there were new skills to be acquired that previously did not exist. Also, with mass production lines, more jobs were created than previously required. In the 3IR, jobs got replaced by computers and robots; however, if individuals were not computer literate, then they may have lost their jobs. Yet again, new jobs were created that previously did not exist, e.g. software and hardware engineers (Noble, 2020). For another thing, optimisation of any sort is absolutely out of the question in conditions of strong instability (which, to reiterate, implies that the finest that can be given could be a credibility contention concerning business prospects). Pol and Reveley (2017) postulate that, in conditions of strong uncertainty, a decision-maker has basically two choices: do nothing, or lock in coping behaviour. 2.6.1.2 Rationality of Coping Behaviour To understand the rationality of coping behaviour for decision-making in general, it is helpful to stop for a minute to examine the concept. The simplest conceivable definition of coping behaviour is based on human nature. People bargain successfully with a changing reality by adjusting and responding – that is, by coping with the circumstance. The idea of coping behaviour is unobtrusive. Optimising behaviour and coping behaviour are not mutually exclusive. Rather, optimising behaviour is a particular form of coping behaviour. For example, in the 4IR context, the behaviour of organisations is consistent with the expansion of expected profits in the short run. When the circumstances change, profit-expansion organisations respond by adjusting their optimal levels of production. When employees face strong uncertainty, they also react and adapt, but the growth of expected revenues is not possible simply because meeting the requirements of all future products is out of the question. Endeavouring to be innovative under strong uncertainty is like performing plastic surgery on an invisible patient; it is irrational (Pol & Reveley, 2017). Metaphorically, strong uncertainty creates an obliviousness zone. The decision-­ maker needs to limit the obliviousness zone and create rules for sound choices. According to King (2016), coping behaviour in conditions of strong uncertainty is based on a story and a set of heuristics. A story verbalises pieces of data that show up to be significant in order to limit the obliviousness zone. There are two reasons why a story is required: It permits people to think about the future in subjective terms; and it gives a stage for choosing the pertinent heuristic. The heuristic, in turn, comprises rules of thumb to cope with distinctive issues inside the story. A

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s­elf-­evident and important example is commerce development. A few inventive companies use slogans, such as “innovation all over and for everyone”, to communicate to employees why the firm must pursue cutting-edge robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and digitalisation-led automation (Sukraj, 2020). It would appear that coping behaviour is not required in very uncertain times as expansion is out of the question. Basically, there is nothing to be expanded or minimised. It ought to be clear that coping behaviour could be a rational way of creating choices in conditions of weak uncertainty. Rationality in the setting of weak uncertainty implies that the decision-maker expands a well-defined objective function, such as an anticipated returns function or a stochastic utility function. This clarifies why financial authorities tend to conflate rationality with innovation. Pol and Reveley (2017) propose that coping behaviour is a rational way of making decisions when the future is unknowable, when expansion is impossible and when the only guidance is based on plausibility-based envisioning. Under strong uncertainty, coping behaviour is rational in the sense that it is open to reason and rigorous judgement. Logical deduction is not ruled out, but reliable deduction appears to be a vital ingredient of any coping strategy under strong uncertainty in the 4IR. 2.6.1.3 Constructing a Resilience-Based Coping Strategy Universal diffusion of information about the inevitable innovation of smart technology, AI, algorithms and robotisation is needed to create individual awareness and sociopolitical receptiveness. An emerging narrative like this is presently evolving. The creation and declaration of narratives are central to imagining better futures in the 4IR (Milojevic & Iniyatulla, 2015; Iniyatulla, Izgarjan, Kuusi, & Minkkinen, 2016). The key focus of the narrative in question would highlight that smart technology, AI, algorithms and robotisation, despite being unavoidable, present a challenge that needs to be overcome and not an immitigable risk. To oppose employee and public despondency, a mindset can be invigorated and strengthened with a set of heuristics. The objective is to create hope amongst employees. When it comes to heuristics, it would be realistic to commence with a common-sense rule of thumb: invest in employee skills development. Humans have a competitive advantage over robots in interpersonal skills. Research by Frey and Osborne (2013) shows that skills development should be directed to interpersonal skills that robots, by their nature, would find problematic to develop. Yet, the service businesses where these social skills are vital may simply not be able to attract enough employees who need jobs. Pol and Reveley (2017) write that resilience-enhancing emotion management skills must therefore not only be added to the list of employees’ competitive advantages but must also be a high priority. Augmented resilience can prevent pessimism and desperation and thus equip employees to confront the 4IR challenge head-on. Resilience has distinguishable universal and individual psychological and interpersonal features (Masten, 2014). For the employee, resilience denotes personal characteristics such as being flexible and holding an inner strength that tolerates for positive change to undesirable conditions (Bell, 2001). Kashdan and Rottenberg

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(2010) emphasise “psychological flexibility” in coping with circumstances of disruptive change during the 4IR. Also, it is important for employees to have the ability to bounce back from negative emotional experiences (Tugade, Fredrickson, & Barrett, 2004). Positive psychology emphasises that employees could have the potential to be resilient – it is a potential that can be both realised and improved (Waller, 2001; Feder et al., 2019). Armstrong (2020) suggests that resilient employees could cope with the disruptive change brought about during the 4IR in the following ways: Awareness of predictions  Technological and social change happens unevenly. Many of the predictions will come true; others will not. Predictions may come true sooner or later than expected. Employees should plan for the future but live in the present. Upskilling  In time of change, employees’ ability to keep learning to be current and upskill their abilities is even more important than the specific things they learn. Employees need to harness the skill to reinvent themselves over and over, thereby staying relevant. It is a conscious choice to keep learning. Core skills  These include good old-fashioned skills like collaboration, effective communicating, initiative, persistence, trustworthiness, creativity and diligence, which will become more central to career success. STEM skills  Science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills will remain vitally important in many growing job categories over the next several years. Technological knowledge  It is very important that employees use the tools at their disposal and the new technology that is becoming available. This could enhance employees’ organisational productivity and effectiveness. Diversity  Employees are working in a gig economy that requires the balancing act of diversifying their skills and a determination to succeed in their careers. Employees must guard against being mediocre at many things at the expense of excelling at a few. Performing meaningful work  If employees regard their work to be meaningful and purposeful, it becomes a source of motivation and ultimately success. Understanding future demand  Careers that are less likely to be performed by a robot in the short to medium term require the following three things: social intelligence, creative intelligence and manual agility. Careers that emphasise these skills are less vulnerable to automation and may experience growth in demand in the future. Humanness  The customers that employees serve generally base their decisions on how they feel rather than on what they know. For employees to be effective in the workplace, they need to be able to engage the hearts, minds and souls of their customers. Ultimately, it is their humanness that defines and distinguishes them. Power of speech  The digital world is exposing new frontiers in ethics, politics and governance. Employees need to make their voices heard so that they are not victims in the sea of disruptive change but have the ability to shape their future.

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Resilience is not only a quality of employees; wider environmental and social systems can also be resilient (Brand & Jax, 2007). Although the emphasis is on adapting to transforming environmental conditions (Pelling, 2011; Nelson, Adger, & Brown, 2007), strong uncertainty appears to be central to this field of the 4IR. Resilient socio-economic actions provide substantial support to those in need, as wider processes of economic, political and social change occur rapidly. One recommendation, for example, is to alleviate robotisation-driven income disparity by increasing employee ownership of wealth (Freeman, 2015). The question can be asked: “What makes individual and social-level resilience a practical enabling strategy for coping with the effects of the 4IR and disruptive change on future jobs?” The answer lies in strong uncertainty itself. Strong uncertainty means that we do not know how widespread job losses due to robotisation will be. As a result, financing actions could increase the readiness of employees to face that future and empower citizens to shape that future (Masten & O’Dougherty Wright, 2010). Also, mindfulness training offers many perspectives that can be useful for coping with the robotisation challenge (Jacobs & Blustein, 2008; Monshat et  al., 2013). There are many studies that attest to the resilience-enhancing effects of mindfulness (Meiklejohn et al., 2012). Roeser (2014) suggests that mindfulness training can assist employees in being resilient in the face of the challenges posed by robotisation. Another study attests to the complementarity between the inculcation of mindfulness and the creation and sustenance of a future-oriented “narrative of hope” (Moses & Choudhury, 2016). Furthermore, mindfulness training (Mathiowetz, 2016; Comstock, 2015; Hyde & LaPrad, 2015) helps employees to become better citizens. It improves citizens’ political engagement and therefore helps to increase social resilience. This is important because increased social resilience does not happen without effort; in a liberal democratic context, it requires a concerned, critically engaged citizenry prepared to push policy-makers to respond to the 4IR challenge. Whether this is through extending employee ownership, creating a guaranteed basic income or some other means is immaterial. Without a citizenry actively engaged in politics, resilient social arrangements are unlikely to develop; they need a political spur (Pol & Reveley, 2017).

2.6.2 Meso-level Analysis 2.6.2.1 Coping Strategies for Organisations Organisations could implement strategies to cope with disruptive change during the 4IR. Industrial Mode Change The conventional industrial tools and strategies will be dispensed with under the fierce pressure to produce increased effectiveness and customised items during the 4IR. Organisations have to change their present mass and cost-saving production

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modes to embrace an intellectual, instructive, advanced and programmed industrial mode. Cleverly, associated and adaptable production lines are required for future industrial production. This modern industrial mode can use data interaction innovation as a link between equipment and plants in order to computerise production processes and check alteration by observing scattered production bases (Mpu & Adu, 2019). With the assistance of intelligent industrial systems, organisations can become highly productive and flexible and develop the capability to produce personalised products on a large scale (Guoping, Yun, & Aizhi, 2017). This would ensure low costs and fast production speeds. At the same time, organisations will be able to reduce uncertainty in production processes gradually, to make adjustments to the market and to turn their reactive manufacturing into predictive manufacturing. Strategic Change The dynamic technologies that characterise the 4IR have led to an increased interest in personalised production, the utilisation of customers and the integration of online and offline networks. Confronted with quick changes, organisations must raise intellectual production systems to improve their development ability and productivity and ensure the security and quality of network information to preserve unique features and development. Moreover, in a furiously competitive environment, organisations ought to alter their demeanours towards competition (Vernon, 2019). Skilled manufacturing organisations are slanted to go straight to the worldwide market stage; they organise their production, logistics and consumers with the sole aim to overtake their competitors. The ideal model should be that consumers all over the world pass the demands via the internet to the intellectual robot centre (Liebenberg, 2020). The intellectual centre then guides enterprises to arrange production, while consumers supervise the whole production process, including the design, production and transportation, on the internet. The global market is becoming more and more unified as a result of the 4IR. The abundance of information and choices has not only opened up a vast market but has also led to new challenges: excellent enterprises must now develop a global perspective to survive their fierce competition (Guoping et al., 2017). Organisational Transformation Compared with manufacturing tycoons with core technology, conventional organisations are short on productivity, adaptability and humanity. Not only has a 4IR world given rise to an unprecedented pace of innovation, causing widespread disruption in every conceivable industry, but as technologies fuse, it is also transforming the way people work. Guoping et al. (2017) postulate that a careful transformation of organisational structures would help latecomers to catch up. In the future, successful organisational structures will be characterised by extraordinary strengths and awesome adaptability. Diverse sorts of groups, such as research, production, consumer and service groups, will become crucial units of the organisation. These

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groups are dependable for their individual sections independently. Senior management will make key choices at organisational level while handing some control over decisions to different divisions, thereby creating a balance between centralisation and decentralisation. Obligatory management will become cooperative management. Only if this transformation can be achieved will organisations increase their productivity and adaptability and create a humanised atmosphere (Narsi, 2020). Employee Empowerment It is no surprise that organisations are approaching transformation with a sense of urgency and moving towards smart technologies that are set to disrupt the most traditional organisation in order to stay ahead. However, to take employees along the transformational journey is key to a successful, digitally driven business. While digital transformation is the way forward, it cannot succeed without employees’ optimism and collaboration in co-creating these solutions that will bring about a sense of belonging and value for them. Balgobind (2020) asserts that to spark excitement, organisational leaders need to focus on employee experiences, create an open space to build a shared purpose, foster a supportive digital workplace and give employees the freedom to share innovative ideas. Creating a culture of innovation starts with supporting key initiatives that validate an employee’s role in the organisation. Leaders need to consider different options, test theories and listen intently to their employees or risk being trapped in a plateaued environment. Organisations need to redefine employees’ roles and responsibilities, as well as new ways of working that align with digitally driven goals. The transition can be rather chaotic. If employees do not have role clarity, are uninformed about their accountability and are not empowered, or if there is no transparent communication, some of them may be discouraged from following their leaders owing to the disorganised nature of the transformation. Leaders should communicate the reasons for the change and why it would be beneficial to employees; they should explain how change could lead to better efficiency and work–life integration (Guoping et al., 2017). As noted before, positions are rapidly being replaced with AI technology and intelligent manufacturing technology. However, employees and artificial intelligence are not completely irreconcilable. Leaders should promote employee training and assist employees in improving their capabilities to ensure that they will be able to perform their work in the future and work with smart technologies.

2.6.3 Macro-level Analysis 2.6.3.1 Coping Strategies for Governments Governments could adopt coping strategies to facilitate the disruptive changes brought about by the 4IR.

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Application of New Development Plans Events in Britain and the United States have shown that every industrial revolution alters the world hierarchy in some way. The 4IR is proving to have significant impacts on production, financial development, social advancements and worldwide exchange, and all governments should take forceful action to stay abreast of the changes we are witnessing. Developing nations might now have an opportunity to improve with leaps and bounds during this time. Developed nations might be able to leave their competitors far behind. Numerous counties have already formulated national procedures in reaction to the 4IR. In 2008, Germany put forwards the concept of “Industry 4.0” to highlight intellectual production. The German government considers the Web of Things and the servitisation of production as signs that the 4IR has arrived and has already translated Industry 4.0 into High-Tech Methodology 2012 (Zhou, Liu, & Zhou, 2015). Guoping et al. (2017) indicate that the European Union is committed to increasing high-tech advancement capacity, changing the innovation framework and giving priority to the development of six key businesses in the future. In 2014, the Japanese government changed the revitalisation methodology of Japan. In this amendment, Japan affirmed the critical role that mechanical revitalisation and the information technology industry play in its development. In 2015, China formally released the Made In China 2025 report. This report focuses on a combination of advanced data innovation and mechanical production. It emphasises the so-called four changes, five ventures and ten significant areas (Guoping et al., 2017). Its aim is to alter current circumstances and China’s “big but not strong” production industry. The Chinese government seeks to establish solid, efficient and inventive manufacturing industries in China within the next 10 years. Acceleration of Infrastructure Construction The valuable customised production and utilisation modes developing during the 4IR are based on digitalisation, informatisation, intelligence and networks. The enhancement of open offices and network server frameworks is exceptionally basic. Germany considers intelligent production and intelligent production lines as its major improvement objectives (Kurt, 2019). They are making awesome strides in the development of the Web of products, service systems and smart cities to compensate for inadequate data innovation and utilisation of their production industries. The United States has been attempting to expand conventional production by means of computer program services (Guoping et  al., 2017). Silicon Valley has helped the United States to obtain a worldwide competitive advantage in computer programming and innovation. The computer program industry has created an interface between the virtual world and the real world. The European Union is committed to overhauling its network infrastructure to accommodate the IoT (European Commission, 2016).

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Development of High-End Human Capital The 4IR has already led to high-tech competition throughout the entire world. This is not only competition between organisations but also between countries. Competition between nations will change from competition in hardware innovation or generation to the competition in scientific research, computer programming and inventive thoughts. Already top talent is the leading asset and source of competitive advancement. In numerous cases, specialised developments have worrying impacts on industry chains, or indeed on the whole field of production and utilisation; they can direct capital streams and bring about gigantic financial and social benefits (Balgobind, 2020). A few of them can even influence national military and security methodologies. It is high time that governments take measures to hasten the disposal of broad production modes that depend on capital and labour input. Knowledge-intensive innovations and developments can assist these governments in dominating global financial development (Guoping et  al., 2017). Governments should also adopt open policy plans to promote innovative advancement and intellectual property. In addition, they should do everything in their power to develop and attract the best talent to strengthen their science, innovation and talent strategies. Macro Industry Reform Individuals are increasingly paying attention to effectiveness, greenness and lifestyle differentiation as a result of the 4IR. Most people want to see the integration of competition, natural security, energy saving, humanisation and differentiation. Although governments do not directly take charge of innovation, improvement and product manufacturing, a dependable and far-sighted government should direct change initiatives (Steyn, 2020). The government should mobilise organisations to arrange skills training courses and assist citizens in adapting modern innovations. If employees find it difficult to accept and use new technologies, the government should take measures to direct and facilitate employee mobility between businesses to prevent serious social problems. For example, employees in old manufacturing businesses can be relocated to service organisations. To understand the seriousness of the wage dispersion issue, governments should take measures to preserve a legitimate proportion of the middle class in society and maintain a strategic distance from income polarisation. Particularly, governments should guarantee equal education rights for all their citizens. Improving the compensation of middle class, such as public servants and skilful specialised staff, utilising the leverage effect of tax and social security are also possible solutions (Guoping et al., 2017). It is recommended that governments should play a catalytic and supervisory role in these reforms while they also accelerate and ensure appropriate organisational change.

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Regulation of Social Inequality Every industrial revolution creates new occupations. If the majority of the population is affected by a technological unemployment problem, a portion of the existing jobs could be replaced. Technological regulation can create jobs in the sectors it protects or promotes, but almost always at the expense of a roughly equivalent number of jobs that become obsolete elsewhere in the economy. At a product-specific or micro level and in the short term, controlling trade could reduce the offending imports and save jobs, but for the economy as a whole and in the long term, this has neither theoretical support nor evidence in its favour (Winters, 2020). Given that protection may have other (usually adverse) effects, understanding the difficulties in using it to manage employment is important for economic policy. The income from replaced jobs will flow to new technology jobs that contribute more to production. Meanwhile, the increased social wealth may continue to widen income gaps in societies, leading to social problems that require government planning (Guoping et al., 2017).

2.7 Conclusion This chapter focused on the disruptive changes and strong uncertainty that result from the incredible speed of development in robotics and AI, whether robotisation will cause technological unemployment and the degree of this unemployment, which may lead to despair amongst employees. Currently, the most important question in employment studies is how to cope with these issues. The presence of strong uncertainty in principle rules out any attempt at optimisation. This uncertainty also rules out probabilistic thinking and inductive argumentation. How can we think rationally about future developments when inductive thinking falls short? In these circumstances, a rational reaction to the robotisation challenge posed by the 4IR could be to utilise the idea of coping behaviour. Coping behaviour in conditions of strong uncertainty is based on two pillars: a story and a set of heuristics. A particular portrayal of these two pillars leads to a resilience-based coping strategy. The story is told to employees and deals with the inescapable dissemination of robotics and its potentially fatal financial results. This would prevent an inclination towards complacency and dissent, which occur whenever existential dangers are faced (Wittes & Blum, 2015). The central focus of the narrative emphasises that robotisation is a challenge that employees can overcome rather than a threat to which they will succumb. This would counteract defeatism amongst employees and reinforce a positive, proactive frame of mind. Positive psychology is the narrative’s legitimating scholarly proposition. Pol and Reveley (2017) emphasise a set of heuristics, investment in employees’ unique social and emotional skills, resilience arrangements to allow positive adjustment and a mindfulness approach to strengthen employees’ resilience.

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2.8 Recommendations and Implications for Practice The 4IR builds on the Digital Revolution, representing new ways in which technology becomes embedded within societies and even the human body (Noble, 2020). The 4IR is marked by emerging technology breakthroughs in a number of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, the IoT, decentralised consensus, 3D printing and autonomous vehicles. The biggest impact of the 4IR is to improve the quality of life, reduce inequality of the world’s population and raise income levels (Moore, 2020). The previous industrial revolutions predicted mass unemployment, but history revealed that it was not true. In fact, jobs were created and living standards improved (Menon, 2019). In the 4IR, the fear is that unskilled workers could be replaced by machines but also workers in skilled professions like medicine and finance. The key strategy for the 4IR and previous industrial revolutions is to retrain and reskill and transform the workforce. History has proven that more jobs are created in new fields and areas. Humans and machines need to work together, for example, the role of a data scientist which was previously not required becomes now very important (Noble, 2020). The implication for practice is that the micro-, meso- and macro-levels should be considered for coping with the disruptive changes brought about by the 4IR. On the micro-level, instead of individuals wasting time worrying about technological unemployment, they should rather develop a resilience-based coping strategy and reskill themselves to be ready for their new role. All they need to do is to choose a new role to take advantage of the 4IR (Noble, 2020). On the meso-level, organisations should adopt a strategic transformational approach to empower employees in the context of the 4IR. On the macro-level, governments should direct 4IR change initiatives (Steyn, 2020). Governments should mobilise organisations to arrange skills training courses and assist citizens in adapting modern innovations.

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Tonkin, K., Malinen, S., Näswall, K., & Kuntz, J. C. (2018). Building employee resilience through wellbeing in organizations. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 29(2), 107–124. Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (2008). The evolutionary psychology of the emotions and their relationship to internal regulatory variables. In J.  M. Haviland-Jones & L.  Feldman Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (3rd ed., pp. 114–137). New York: Guilford. Tugade, M.  M., Fredrickson, B.  L., & Barrett, L.  F. (2004). Psychological resilience and positive emotional granularity: Examining the benefits of positive emotions on coping and health. Journal of Personality, 72(6), 1161–1190. Vernon, D. (2019). Robotics and artificial intelligence in Africa. IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine. https://doi.org/10.1109/MRA.2019.2946107 Wallace, D., Boynton, M., & Lytle, L. (2017). Multilevel analysis exploring the links between stress, depression, and sleep problems among two-year college students. Journal of American College Health, 65(3), 187–196. Waller, M.  A. (2001). Resilience in ecosystemic context: Evolution of the concept. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 71(3), 290–297. Wang, J., Cooke, F. L., & Huang, W. (2014). How resilient is the (future) workforce in China? A study of the banking sector and implications for human resource development. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 52, 132–154. Wilson, S., & Ebert, N. (2013). Precarious work: Economic, sociological and political perspectives. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 24(3), 263–278. Winters, L. (2020). International trade regulation and job creation. IZA World of Labour. Wittes, B., & Blum, G. (2015). The future of violence: Robots and germs, hackers and drones. New York: Basic Books. Youssef, C. M., & Luthans, F. (2007). Positive organizational behavior in the workplace the impact of hope, optimism, and resilience. Journal of Management, 33(5), 774–800. Yüksekbilgili, Z., & Çevik, G. (2018). Endüstri 4.0 Bağlamında Türkiye’nin Yerine İlişkin Güncel ve Gelecek Eksenli Bir Analiz. Journal of Finance Economic and Social Research (JFESR), 3(2), 424–425. Zhou, K., Liu, T., & Zhou, L. (2015, August). Industry 4.0: Towards future industrial opportunities and challenges. In 2015 12th International conference on fuzzy systems and knowledge discovery (FSKD) (pp. 2147–2152). IEE. Rudolf M. Oosthuizen  received a BA degree (Cum Laude) from the University of Pretoria in 1992 and obtained a BA (Honours) in Psychology at the same university in 1993. In 1999, he received an MA degree in Industrial and Personnel Psychology from the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education. In 1999, he registered as industrial psychologist with the Health Professions Council of South Africa. In 2005, he completed a DLitt et Phil in Industrial and Organisational Psychology at the University of South Africa (Unisa). Currently Rudolf is an associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology at the University of South Africa. Rudolf is the manager for the MCom IOP programme, and he is responsible for the lecturing of honours subjects and the supervision of master’s and doctoral students. He has presented conference papers at national and international conferences and published articles in accredited scientific journals. Rudolf’s fields of interests are (1) career psychology, career development and management from an individual, group and organisational perspective in the twenty-first-century world of work; (2) positive psychology, with the focus on salute-genesis and well-being, sense of coherence, locus of control, self-efficacy, the hardy personality and learned resourcefulness; (3) employment relations and the improvement of the quality of employment relations in organisations and in society in general; and (4) the Fourth Industrial Revolution (smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and algorithms).

Chapter 3

Career Wellbeing and Career Agility as Coping Attributes in the Modern Career Space Melinde Coetzee

Abstract  The digital era brings new career challenges and possibilities that put strain on individuals’ adaptive career capabilities. The modern-day career fosters new cognitive thinking and emotional states that elicit either negative or positive coping responses from individuals. This chapter explores the constructs of career wellbeing and career agility as coping attributes for the modern career. The chapter explores whether intrinsic states of career wellbeing positively predict externally driven psychological states of career agility as expressions of adaptive readiness. The chapter reviews theoretical stances underpinning the two constructs from the perspective of the coping circumplex model (CCM). The empirical study revealed that the career meaningfulness state positively predicted problem-solving coping attributes of the future-fit career adapter (i.e. psychological adaptive readiness states of technological adaptivity and agile learning). The career networking/social support state positively predicted coping attributes of the agentic career adapter (i.e. psychological adaptive readiness states of technological adaptivity and career navigation). The agile learning adaptive readiness state was positively predicted by a positive career affective state. The chapter contributes deeper insight regarding the influencing role of people’s states of career wellbeing on their career agility states of adaptive readiness. The chapter outlines suggestions for organisational career support practices that could help facilitate agile coping in the digital era. Keywords  Agile coping · Career agility · Career wellbeing · Problem-solving coping · Emotional coping · Career meaningfulness · Career networking/social support · Positive career affect · Technological adaptivity · Agile learning · Career navigation · Digital era career

M. Coetzee (*) Department of Industrial and Organisational Psychology, University of South Africa, Gauteng, South Africa e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 N. Ferreira et al. (eds.), Agile Coping in the Digital Workplace, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70228-1_3

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3.1 Introduction The modern digital era career space reflects greater unpredictability of and variance in the continuity of jobs and employment. The societal context for careers has become boundaryless and more complex because of, inter alia, increasing globalisation and accelerated technological evolution that result in exponential changes in the nature of jobs and occupations (DeLoitte Insights, 2019; Intuit Report, 2020; McKinsey Global Institute, 2015, 2016). People are taking greater agency in the management of personally meaningful careers. Self-regulated career self-management, career agility, career wellbeing and personal growth and development have become core coping attributes of the modern career (Coetzee, Bester, Ferreira, & Potgieter, 2020; Lent, 2018; Van der Heijden & De Vos, 2015). The career is thought of as a series of meaningful work projects and evolving roles that enhance personal and professional growth and development and maximise personal creativity, growth, happiness and career wellbeing (Coetzee & Schreuder, 2021; Konstant, 2020). The uncertainties and turmoil of the modern career space require important psychological resources of agility that help individuals successfully cope with the new demands of the digital era (Hirschi, 2018). Industry 4.0 brings new career challenges and possibilities that put strain on individuals’ adaptive career capabilities. The digital era career fosters new cognitive thinking and emotional states that facilitate the agile coping capability and career satisfaction of individuals (Wilhelm & Hirschi, 2019; Konstant, 2020; Lent, 2018; UBC, 2020). This chapter explores two under-researched constructs that have emerged as essential coping attributes of the modern career, namely, career agility and career wellbeing. In the digital era, the sustainable career is characterised by flexibility and an agility in adapting to changing needs and interests that are aligned with changing employment contexts (Coetzee, Bester, et  al., 2020). Careers will comprise of shorter-term sequences and more frequent transitions, and people will have to become flexible, agile and entrepreneurial regarding their careers (Coetzee & Schreuder, 2021; Lent, 2018). People will attach an idiosyncratic (subjective) meaning to their careers which will be shaped by personal life, work and career values and interests. The meaningfulness of jobs and careers will be a hallmark of individuals’ career wellbeing. The latter alludes to the capability to remain healthy, productive, satisfied and employable and feeling secure to meet economic and quality of life needs in technologically advanced employment contexts (Coetzee & Schreuder, 2021; Van der Heijden & De Vos, 2015).

3.2 Chapter Objective Research on the link between the constructs of career agility and career wellbeing is limited. In the modern career space, the construct of career wellbeing has been explored by various scholars as an outcome of other psychological constructs (see, e.g. Aderibigbe & Chimucheka, 2019; Wilhelm & Hirschi, 2019; Potgieter, Ferreira,

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& Coetzee, 2019; Steiner & Spurk, 2019). Theory and research on the construct of career agility are limited and mostly explored by the popular media (Andersen, 2020; Konstant, 2020; UBC, 2020) and only recently empirically by research scholars (Coetzee, Bester, et  al., 2020). The chapter addresses the current gap in research on the two constructs of career wellbeing and career agility. The aim is to explore whether career wellbeing (as an intrinsic psychological state) positively predicts career agility (as an extrinsic psychological state). In this regard, the chapter firstly reviews modern theoretical stances underpinning the two constructs from the perspective of the coping circumplex model (CCM: Stanislawski, 2019). Secondly, the chapter reports and discusses an empirical study on the link between the two constructs. Thirdly, the chapter critically considers the implications for modern career theory and organisational support practices.

3.3 Theoretical Framework In the coping context, the modern digital era career space potentially presents numerous, unprecedented changes, transitions and traumas to individuals in the management of their careers (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012). These may elicit certain stress responses from individuals. Coping with career-related stress is therefore of relevance in exploring the link between the coping attributes of career wellbeing and career agility. The coping circumplex model (CCM: Stanislawski, 2019) views individual coping as cognitive, emotional and behavioural responses (both volitional and automised, and intrinsic and/or externally driven) to stress. Individuals face the tasks of problem-solving and emotion regulation when confronted with stressful situations (Stanislawski, 2019). Problem-solving involves active cognitive and behavioural efforts to understand the situation, predicting the course of events, choosing the most appropriate solutions and engaging in actions to solve the problem. Problem-solving involves either positive emotional coping in the form of (1) efficiency (i.e. positive reinterpretation and growth that enable finding new avenues for solutions that generate positive emotions and expectations) or (2) negative emotional coping in the form of helplessness (i.e. negative expectations of problem that generate negative emotions; preoccupations with one’s exaggerated limitations and negative aspects of the situation; and hedonic disengagement). Preoccupations stemming from negative emotional coping lower the capability to sustain wellbeing. Emotional coping may also give rise to hedonic disengagement (i.e. the avoidance of information on the problem and a strong tendency to maintain momentary wellbeing) (Stanislawski, 2019).

3.3.1 Career Agility Building on the basic premises of the CCM (Stanislawski, 2019), career agility is seen as a form of externally driven positive emotional coping in anticipating and solving the challenges that the digital era brings to occupations, jobs and careers.

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Coetzee, Bester, et  al. (2020) view career agility as individuals’ extrinsic state of adaptive readiness or willingness to adapt to and proactively respond to changes that influence their career wellbeing, career success and career satisfaction. Problem-­ solving behaviour of career agility involves three forms of adaptive behaviour: (1) technological adaptivity, (2) agile learning and (3) career navigation (Coetzee, Bester, et  al., 2020). These three career agility facets of coping-related problem-­solving involve positive emotional coping that represents efficiency in adapting to the technologically driven career environment. Generally, the three facets of career agility function as motivational energisers of adaptivity that promote the efficient building of the personal resources needed to achieve career goals (Coetzee, Bester, et al., 2020). Technological adaptivity reflects individuals’ optimism and positive affect towards the possibility of new and exciting job and career opportunities that technological advancement may bring. Problem-solving behaviour includes, for example, an eagerness to deliberately search for job roles that evolve with the changing technological conditions because of the personal growth opportunities these offer. Individuals exhibit efficiency in actively updating their skills and knowledge in order to capitalise on the new growth opportunities (Andersen, 2020; Coetzee, Bester, et al., 2020; Konstant, 2020). Agile learning coping behaviour reflects positive emotions and efficiency in setting and managing career goals. Individuals feel alive and full of energy in actively searching for opportunities to learn new skills that will improve their career success in changing employment contexts. Career navigation relates to positive and efficient problem-solving behaviour in the form of active readiness to scan the environment for new career opportunities. Individuals exhibit environmental awareness; they are eager to remain informed of changes and opportunities in the job market in order to leverage and apply changes with confidence to their own career and job situation (Andersen, 2020; Coetzee, Bester, et al., 2020). As illustrated in Fig. 3.1, the facets of career agility represent three externally driven characteristic psychological states of adaptive readiness: (1) ideation of the open-minded career adapter, (2) activation of motivation of the agentic career adapter and (3) activated agency of the future-fit career adapter (Coetzee, 2020). Open-minded career adapters are people who score high on agile learning and career navigation. They actively engage in the ideation of new job/career opportunities in changing environmental contexts and set goals for searching for new opportunities to learn new skills. Agentic adapters are individuals who score high on technological adaptivity and career navigation. Their motivation to embrace and adapt to changes of technological advancement is activated, and they are willing to actively search for new job/career opportunities (Coetzee, 2020). Individuals who score high on agile learning and technological adaptivity are future-fit career adapters who exhibit activated agency and motivated engagement in embracing technological advancement and change. They proactively and deliberately take action in upskilling themselves in order to be successful in the

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Career agility: externally driven states of adaptive readiness

Agile learning

Agency

Activation

Ideation

Technological adaptivity

Agile learning

Career navigation

Technological adaptivity

Career navigation

Future-fit career adapter

Agentic career adapter

Open-minded career adapter

Fig. 3.1  Career agility facets as psychological states of adaptive readiness. (Source: Author’s own work)

changing job/career environment. The three forms of adaptive readiness allude to the notion that individuals psychologically differ in adapting to change in the job/ career environment. Some people may be more ready than others in embracing the opportunities that technological advancement may bring (Coetzee, 2020). Research by Coetzee, Bester, et al. (2020) shows that the three facets of career agility, and their psychological states of adaptive readiness, positively predict important career coping behaviours such as exhibiting efficiency in assuming responsibility for one’s vocational behaviour and applying self-regulation strategies to positively adjust to the needs of different settings. Career agile people demonstrate positive emotional dispositions and a learning orientation that positively predict their adaptability (Coetzee, Bester, et al., 2020; Johnston, 2018). The open-minded career adapters’ adaptive readiness seems to reflect a psychological state of forming ideas about new opportunities and setting goals for starting to scan the environment for new career opportunities. The agentic career adapters seem to be in a psychological state of getting ready to embrace the change. Future-fit career adapters seem especially more concerned than the agentic and open-minded career adapters with their career future and demonstrate proactive career planning behaviours which include active upskilling to achieve better person-environment fit (Coetzee, Bester, et al., 2020). However, the extent to which states of career wellbeing influence the various psychological states of adaptive readiness that underpin the facets of career agility is still unclear. The next section explores from the perspective of the CCM (Stanislawski, 2019) the role of career wellbeing in enhancing individuals’ career agility.

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3.3.2 Career Wellbeing Career wellbeing is seen as intrinsic-driven positive psychological conditions that reflect individuals’ long-term contentment with their career outcomes, career achievements and career changes, and their sustainability amidst the complexities of the contemporary work environment (Bester, Coetzee, Ferreira, & Potgieter, 2019). As such, the present research treats the construct of career wellbeing as a predictor of the extrinsic state of career agility. The CCM (Stanislawski, 2019) explains that effective coping (e.g. career agility as a form of coping) is dependent upon intrinsic psychological conditions (i.e. cognitions and affect of wellbeing) and the nature of the situation in which coping strategies are employed. Career wellbeing alludes to a long-term psychological state of subjective wellbeing generated by individuals’ current career situation in lieu of the anticipated future career context. Individuals have positive perceptions of and feelings of contentment or satisfaction with their current career-life; these positive psychological conditions engender certain self-regulatory behaviours in career adaptation processes (Wilhelm & Hirschi, 2019; Potgieter et al., 2019; Steiner & Spurk, 2019). Coetzee, Ferreira, and Potgieter (2020b) differentiate between three positive states underpinning individuals’ career wellbeing: (1) positive career affect involving feelings of career growth and satisfaction, (2) positive cognitions about and behaviour conducive to networks of career support and (3) positive cognitions and emotions about the value and worth or meaningfulness of one’s career. These three states of career wellbeing denote important intrinsic psychological conditions that help people feel safe and confident in coping with changing career contexts that engender stress. Such psychological conditions may help in mustering behavioural coping responses to improve the stressful circumstance (Lyubomirsky & Porta, 2010). Positive career affect alludes to positive emotions flowing from psychological states characteristic to feeling satisfied with conditions instrumental to the achievement of career goals. Feeling satisfied with one’s career and the progress made towards achieving important career goals, feeling personally supported in one’s career, and feeling satisfied with the career resources to one’s avail, are typical positive affective career states of wellbeing (Coetzee, Ferreira, & Potgieter, 2020b). Positive emotions are known to buffer the adverse consequences of stressful situations and conditions. States of positive mood and feelings are coping mechanisms that help to decrease the autonomic arousal produced by negative emotions by increasing flexibility of thinking and problem-solving (Reich, Zautra, & Hall, 2010; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004). Career networking/social support is a career wellbeing state that reflects confidence in having a network of people that supports one in one’s career and reaching easily out to others to help and support one in achieving career goals. Individuals feel confident that receiving feedback from such a network of social support helps them to stay in touch with their personal strengths and areas for enrichment (Coetzee, Ferreira, & Potgieter, 2020b). Research has documented the importance of social support as protective variable in coping with stressful conditions (Charuvastra & Cloitre, 2008; Mikulincer, Shaver, & Pereg, 2003; Reich et al., 2010).

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As a state of career wellbeing, career meaningfulness relates to experiencing the career as a personal choice and as being interesting and personally meaningful. The career is experienced as being valuable and worthwhile and that which contributes to a bigger life purpose (Coetzee, Ferreira, & Potgieter, 2020b). In the coping context, a sense of purpose is seen as central to the process of stress recovery. Research provides evidence that meaningfulness and sense of purpose in life predict psychological resilience, greater life satisfaction and subjective wellbeing (Lee, Cohen, Edgar, Laizner, & Gagnon, 2004; Reich et al., 2010). The belief that one’s life pursuits have meaning appears to engender optimism about the future and attitudes that help sustain mastery motivation and efforts to adapt or survive in the context of extreme adversity (Masten & Wright, 2010). Research suggests that high levels of subjective wellbeing engender creative thinking, problem-solving, flexible thinking and professional achievement (Diener & Seligman, 2004; Sirgy, 2012). Positive cognitive and emotional states appear to enhance attention and other cognitive processes, which in turn lead to creative and flexible thinking (Frederickson & Branigan, 2005; Sirgy, 2012). However, positive states are not universally more adaptive than negative states; generally, it depends whether the situation involves a perceived threat or a perceived opportunity (Bless & Fiedler, 2006). The CCM (Stanislawski, 2019) explains that in a controllable situation, states of distress (i.e. negative states) may be positively associated with hedonic disengagement as coping mechanism. Individuals may avoid information on the problem, disregard the problem and have lower engagement in solving it. Individuals with a strong tendency for hedonic disengagement may tend to have a low ability to adjust their behaviours to signals for change from their environment (Snyder, 1974). The question remains whether individuals’ state of career wellbeing (i.e. intrinsic-driven states) significantly predicts their career agility (i.e. externally driven psychological states). The two case illustrations below seem to suggest that on face value, this may be the case. For example, in both case illustrations, the state of career meaningfulness seemed to be a strong influencing factor for high scores on agile learning. However, empirical evidence is still lacking. The empirical study that follows is the first to the author’s knowledge to explore the statistical link between career wellbeing and career agility.

Case Illustration 1 Rozelle is a future-fit career adapter. She scored high on agile learning and technological adaptivity. Her high sense of agency enables strong adaptive readiness for technological changes and new skills learning. Some areas of growth in career agility are actively searching for gaps in the market that she could fill in unique ways and actively setting new career goals. Rozelle obtained high scores on all three career wellbeing states, and especially on career meaningfulness.

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Case Illustration 2 Charles is an open-minded career adapter. Although he scored high on technological adaptivity, his scores on agile learning and career navigation were especially high. His strong ideation of the new career opportunities that technological change may bring makes him eager to set goals for new skills learning. He also eagerly scans the environment for new career and skills development opportunities. He scored especially high on state of career meaningfulness and affective career state. His area for development seems to be developing confidence in reaching out for career networking/social support.

Gaining deeper insight into the influencing role of people’s state of career wellbeing on their career agility states of adaptive readiness may inform organisational career support practices. Such practices are important for creating the psychological conditions employees need to cope with and adapt to changing technological work contexts. Research provides evidence that need-supportive work environments facilitate need satisfaction and influence individuals’ mindsets towards the organisation (Olafsen, 2017). Career wellbeing is associated with meaningful life-career self-construction and often involves looking at how social environments (e.g. significant others, jobs, occupations, organisations) enable people in achieving important goals (Fitzsimons & Shah, 2008; Xie, Zhou, Huang, & Xia, 2017). Taking research and theory together, it stands to reason that individuals’ states of career wellbeing (i.e. positive career affective state, career networking/social support state, state of career meaningfulness) will positively predict their career agility and the underpinning psychological states of adaptive readiness. The following research hypothesis was formulated: H1: Scores on states of career wellbeing positively predict scores on facets of career agility. The study endeavoured to answer the following research question: Does the intrinsic state of career wellbeing predict career agility as an extrinsic state of coping?

3.4 Method 3.4.1 Research Design The study employed a cross-sectional quantitative research design to test the research hypothesis.

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3.4.2 Participants A convenience sample of (N  =  177) adult workers (mean age  =  34  years; SD = 10.14) participated in the study. The participants involved employees from across the globe (South Africa, 72%; Western Europe, 12%; Eastern Europe, 6%; Africa, 6%; Australia/New Zealand, 2%; USA, 2%). They were employed in managerial (39%), staff (38%) and professional consultant (23%) level positions. The sample was represented by White/Caucasian people (67%), Black Africans (18%), Asians (5%) and mixed races (3%). The sample also included men (46%) and women (54%).

3.4.3 Measuring Instruments Career agility  Participants’ career agility was measured by the career agility scale (Coetzee, Ferreira, & Potgieter, 2020a). The scale measures three facets of career agility: technological adaptivity (seven items; e.g. “I feel that the acceleration of technology brings new, exciting job and career opportunities”); agile learning (five items; e.g. “I feel it is important to search for new and better growth opportunities”); and career navigation (six items; e.g. “I regularly scan the environment for new career opportunities”). The 18 items are rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree). Preliminary research indicated construct validity and high internal consistency reliability of the career agility scale (Coetzee, Bester, et al., 2020). The internal composite consistency reliability coefficients for the subscales were as follows: technological adaptivity (.90), agile learning (.79) and career navigation (.81). Career wellbeing  Participants’ career wellbeing was measured by the career wellbeing scale (Coetzee, Ferreira, & Potgieter, 2020b). The scale measures three states of career wellbeing: affective career state (six items; e.g. “I regularly feel I am making progress towards accomplishing my career goals”); career networking/ social support state (four items; e.g. “I have a network of people that support me in my career”); and state of career meaningfulness (four items; e.g. “My job and career contribute to a bigger life purpose”). The 14 items are rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree). Preliminary research indicated construct validity and high internal consistency reliability of the career wellbeing scale (Coetzee, Ferreira, & Potgieter, 2020b). The internal composite consistency reliability coefficients for the subscales were as follows: affective career state (.86), career networking/social support state (.85) and state of career meaningfulness (.87).

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3.4.4 Procedure The professional LinkedIn was used as online platform to collect the data. Participants received an electronic link to the questionnaire. Responses were captured on an Excel spreadsheet and converted into an SPSS file for data analysis purposes.

3.4.5 Considerations of Ethics Ethical clearance and permission to conduct the research were obtained from the management of the University of South Africa (Ethics certificate reference: ERC Ref#: 2019_CEMS/IOP_010). The participants gave informed consent for the groupbased data to be used for research purposes. Participation was voluntary. The privacy, anonymity and confidentiality of all the participants were ensured and honoured.

3.4.6 Data Analysis Descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations and multiple regression analysis were performed by using SAS/STAT® software version 9.4M5© (2017). Tolerance (less than 0.20) and the variance inflation factor (VIF exceeding 4.0) were utilised to assess any concerns about multicollinearity. Results were interpreted at the 95% confidence level interval (Coetzee, Ferreira, & Potgieter, 2020a).

3.5 Results Table 3.1 shows that the internal composite consistency reliability coefficients for all the constructs were high (≥ 0.79 to ≤ 0.90). The correlations between the three career agility constructs and the career wellbeing constructs were all positive and significant (r ≥ 0.18 to r ≤ 0.46; p = 0.0001; small to large practical effect). Table 3.2 shows that all the three ANOVA models were practically significant: Model 1 (technological adaptivity): F = 8.90; p = 0.0001; R2 = 0.34 (large practical effect); model 2 (agile learning): F = 10.81; p = 0.0001; R2 = 0.40 (large practical effect); model 3 (career navigation): F = 8.83; p = 0.0001; R2 = 0.34 (large practical effect). The tolerance values for all the models were greater than 0.30, and the VIF values were lower than 0.26 which showed that multicollinearity was not a threat to the findings. As shown in Fig. 3.2 and Table 3.2, affective career state was a statistically significant and positive predictor of agile learning (β = 0.49; p