Today’s globalized society is invested by a series of innovations that have become part of individuals’ habits and lifestyles in such a way that they can no longer be separated from the approach that individuals have toward work practices and, consequently, with their professional satisfaction. The organizational environment becomes increasingly competitive and dynamic, leading companies to search for new solutions and approaches in order to respond to unexpected and profound change. A possible approach allowing to answer to these organizational issues is Smart Working (SW). SW is a set of innovative business practices that, on the one hand, are characterized by high levels of flexibility and autonomy in the choice of working spaces, places, hours and tools while, on the other hand, request greater responsibility for results to employees. Despite the relevance of SW in the business domain and the perceived importance registered at practitioner’s level of implementing SW practices, literature seems not only to have a fragmented approach to the phenomenon, without providing a general picture of the effects that SW levers—taken individually and jointly—produce on Job Satisfaction. This work starts developing a model to fill these gaps, and aims to shed some light on the relationship between the SW levers and Job Satisfaction. The effects of the SW levers on Job Satisfaction are considered separately and together, in order to understand which levers have the higher impact. In order to achieve these research objectives, preliminary studies have been carried out: the analysis of academic literature, the collaboration that the authors of this work have established with the ICT & Management Observatories of Politecnico di Milano anf the Focus Groups have allowed to define the objectives of the survey and the analyzed sample, represented by 1,000 workers of several Italian companies. The levers that have been considered in the analysis are four: (i) Leadership refers to the practices and the organizational models present in the company, which are licensed by the organizational culture, (ii) ICT indicates the use and the presence of Information and Communication Technologies in business strategies and practices, (iii) HR Policy represents the organizational policies adopted by companies, (iv) Physical Layout is the presence of unconventional workspaces. An exploratory and confirmatory analysis based on the calculation of Cronbach's Alpha has been performed to test the actual statistical significance of the constructs. Once validated these constructs, Structural Equation Models (SEM) were made to test the significance of the relationships among Job Satisfaction and the four SW levers—considered individually and jointly. Further tests were also made by inserting dummy variables related to the industry sector and company size. The ultimate goal of these models is to understand which levers or combination of them actually determine Job Satisfaction. Moreover, in the model that includes the four SW levers, some constructs loose significance. The main theoretical contribution of this thesis refers to the fact that the joint use of SW levers can improve employee satisfaction and the most important practical contribution to results of the analysis is always about the combination of several SW levers. In fact, companies that wish to increase the satisfaction of their employees must simultaneously work on multiple SW levers—proactively exploiting all the potential synergies among these ones on an ongoing basis.
La società odierna, ormai globalizzata, è interessata da una serie di innovazioni che hanno permeato a tal punto le abitudini e gli stili di vita degli individui da rendersi inscindibili dall’approccio che questi hanno con la realtà lavorativa e, conseguentemente, con la loro soddisfazione professionale. L’ambiente organizzativo diviene sempre più competitivo e dinamico, portando le aziende a ricercare nuove soluzioni e approcci per rispondere al repentino cambiamento in atto. Una risposta a tali cambiamenti organizzativi è lo Smart Working (SW), ovvero un insieme di pratiche aziendali innovative che si caratterizzano per flessibilità e autonomia nella scelta di spazi, di luoghi e orari di lavoro e degli strumenti da utilizzare a fronte di una maggiore responsabilizzazione sui risultati. Nonostante le rilevanze e la necessità percepite dalle aziende di implementare pratiche di SW, la letteratura scientifica sembra avere un approccio allo studio di tale fenomeno abbastanza frammentario e disomogeneo. Il presente lavoro di tesi avvia l’implementazione e lo studio di un nuovo modello di indagine che vuole cominciare a colmare tali lacune. Tale modello di indagine si propone di mettere in luce le relazioni tra leve abilitanti lo SW, ovvero la configurazione degli spazi fisici, le pratiche di leadership, le nuovi tecnologie digitali e le policy organizzative, e la Job Satisfaction. Gli effetti delle leve di SW sulla soddisfazione del lavoratore sono considerati sia singolarmente che congiuntamente, in modo da comprendere effettivamente quali siano i fattori che hanno maggiormente impatto. L’analisi della letteratura, l’attività svolta all’interno degli Osservatori ICT & Management del Politecnico di Milano e i Focus Group hanno consentito di definire gli obiettivi di indagine e il campione oggetto di analisi, rappresentato da 1.000 lavoratori di aziende italiane diverse per settore merceologico e dimensione. Le leve considerate nell’analisi e ritenute avere un impatto sulla Job Satisfaction sono quattro, articolate a loro volta in ulteriori sotto-costrutti costituiti dai diversi item derivanti dalla survey e opportunamente classificati: (i) Leadership indica le pratiche e i modelli organizzativi presenti in azienda e abilitati dalla cultura organizzativa, (ii) ICT indica l’utilizzo e la presenza di strumenti ICT in azienda, (iii) HR Policy rappresenta le policy organizzative adottate dalle aziende, (iv) Physical Layout rappresenta la presenza di spazi di lavoro non convenzionali È stata poi svolta un’analisi esplorativa e una confermativa per testare l’effettiva significatività statistica dei costrutti identificati, grazie al calcolo dell’Alpha di Cronbach. Una volta validati i costrutti e quindi le leve rilevanti da un punto di vista statistico, sono stati realizzati dei Structural Equation Models (SEM) volti a testare la significatività delle relazioni tra le quattro leve, considerate singolarmente e congiuntamente, e la Job Satisfaction. Sono stati effettuati anche test inserendo delle variabili dummy di controllo relative al settore merceologico e alla dimensione aziendale. Il fine ultimo di tali modelli è di comprendere quali siano effettivamente le leve determinanti la Job Satisfaction e quale particolare combinazione risulti essere la più rilevante. Nel modello completo, comprendente le quattro leve di SW, emerge come alcuni costrutti perdano significatività. Il principale contributo teorico del presente lavoro di tesi fa riferimento a come l’utilizzo congiunto delle leve SW possa migliorare la soddisfazione dei lavoratori, mentre il più rilevante contributo pratico emerso dalle analisi riguarda sempre l’utilizzo congiunto di più leve di SW. Infatti, le imprese che desiderino incrementare la soddisfazione dei propri lavoratori devono lavorare contemporaneamente su più leve di SW, cercando, su base continuativa e in modo proattivo, di sfruttare tutte le sinergie potenzialmente presenti tra le stesse.
Migliorare la soddisfazione aziendale tramite lo smart working : un'analisi empirica basata su structural equation modeling
TAGLIASACCHI, DARIA VITTORIA;BECCARI, MICHELE
2014/2015
Abstract
Today’s globalized society is invested by a series of innovations that have become part of individuals’ habits and lifestyles in such a way that they can no longer be separated from the approach that individuals have toward work practices and, consequently, with their professional satisfaction. The organizational environment becomes increasingly competitive and dynamic, leading companies to search for new solutions and approaches in order to respond to unexpected and profound change. A possible approach allowing to answer to these organizational issues is Smart Working (SW). SW is a set of innovative business practices that, on the one hand, are characterized by high levels of flexibility and autonomy in the choice of working spaces, places, hours and tools while, on the other hand, request greater responsibility for results to employees. Despite the relevance of SW in the business domain and the perceived importance registered at practitioner’s level of implementing SW practices, literature seems not only to have a fragmented approach to the phenomenon, without providing a general picture of the effects that SW levers—taken individually and jointly—produce on Job Satisfaction. This work starts developing a model to fill these gaps, and aims to shed some light on the relationship between the SW levers and Job Satisfaction. The effects of the SW levers on Job Satisfaction are considered separately and together, in order to understand which levers have the higher impact. In order to achieve these research objectives, preliminary studies have been carried out: the analysis of academic literature, the collaboration that the authors of this work have established with the ICT & Management Observatories of Politecnico di Milano anf the Focus Groups have allowed to define the objectives of the survey and the analyzed sample, represented by 1,000 workers of several Italian companies. The levers that have been considered in the analysis are four: (i) Leadership refers to the practices and the organizational models present in the company, which are licensed by the organizational culture, (ii) ICT indicates the use and the presence of Information and Communication Technologies in business strategies and practices, (iii) HR Policy represents the organizational policies adopted by companies, (iv) Physical Layout is the presence of unconventional workspaces. An exploratory and confirmatory analysis based on the calculation of Cronbach's Alpha has been performed to test the actual statistical significance of the constructs. Once validated these constructs, Structural Equation Models (SEM) were made to test the significance of the relationships among Job Satisfaction and the four SW levers—considered individually and jointly. Further tests were also made by inserting dummy variables related to the industry sector and company size. The ultimate goal of these models is to understand which levers or combination of them actually determine Job Satisfaction. Moreover, in the model that includes the four SW levers, some constructs loose significance. The main theoretical contribution of this thesis refers to the fact that the joint use of SW levers can improve employee satisfaction and the most important practical contribution to results of the analysis is always about the combination of several SW levers. In fact, companies that wish to increase the satisfaction of their employees must simultaneously work on multiple SW levers—proactively exploiting all the potential synergies among these ones on an ongoing basis.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/109293