On the Importance of Error and Learning Culture for the Digitalization of Industry

• In Event: 52.083 - Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 52.083-9 - Error Culture and Corporate Climate: Dealing With Errors and Near Misses at Work

Abstract

Objective

The digitalization of industry is a change process that introduces autonomous production technologies in industrial manufacturing. The technical innovation follows a change of workplaces as well as work organization. This presentation investigates how companies’ organizational culture and error culture can support transition processes of digitalization through fostering the commitment to the digitalization of work.

Theoretical framework

Commitment is a key factor for a successful change process (Armenakis, 1999; Klein & Sorra, 1996) and a predictor for the support of change (Meyer et al., 2007). Organizational change processes are relying on the adaption to new situations and on the commitment of the employees to these adaptions. Employees will adapt to new situations only if they feel that they can master these changes. Therefore, Herold et al. (2007) propose to investigate the contextual factors that help employees to master the challenges of change in order to raise their commitment. Arenas et al. (2006) suggest that a positive orientation towards errors and learning helps to master insecure situations. As change being an insecure situation, a positive orientation towards errors and learning should help to master change. Hence, companies should aim at implementing shared positive orientations among all employees. Following Schein’s (2004) cultural theory, shared orientations or beliefs form the basis of an organizational culture which itself determines companies’ error culture (Putz et al., 2013) and learning culture (Sonntag et al., 2005). Assuming that companies’ contextual factors influence employees’ commitment to change and that error culture and learning culture help to master insecurity, we hypothesize that a positive organizational error culture and learning culture has a positive impact on employees’ commitment to change.

Method

To test this hypothesis, a survey study was carried out that comprises scales on learning culture (Hilkenmeyer, unpublished), error culture (Putz et al., 2013) and affective commitment to change (aff. C2C, Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002). We controlled for positive attitudes towards technology in general by applying a scale measuring technological commitment (Neyer et al., 2012).

Data

The sample (n = 176) shows acceptable reliability of the used instruments, ranging from α = .71 to α = .89 and significant correlations between the proposed dimensions.

Results

The findings indicate that besides positive attitudes towards technology, organizational culture on learning and errors can indeed foster the organizational members commitment to the change.

Scientific significance

Former research (e.g., Herold et al., 2007, Weiner, 2009) addressed already since ten years the lack of studies investigating the influence of organizational culture on commitment to change. Studies in this area still are scarce (e.g., Ahma & Gelaidan, 2011) and they do not address particularly error or learning culture. This study, hence, sheds a new light on the scholarly discussion on error culture, organizational culture and change management in companies.


Appendix: Tables

Authors

• Christoph Fischer, University of Paderborn

• Christian Harteis, Paderborn University