%0 Conference Paper %1 rintakahila2018consequences %A Rinta-Kahila, Tapani %A Penttinen, Esko %A Salovaara, Antti %A Soliman, Wael %B Proceedings of the 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences %D 2018 %I Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences %K automation knowledge_work %R 10.24251/hicss.2018.654 %T Consequences of Discontinuing Knowledge Work Automation - Surfacing of Deskilling Effects and Methods of Recovery %U https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/50543 %X IS automation pervades business processes today. Thus, concerns have been raised about automation’s potential deskilling effects on knowledge workers. We conduct a revelatory case study about an IT service firm where a managerial decision was taken to discontinue a fixed assets management (FAM) software that provided seemingly effective automation of fixed assets accounting and reporting. We study how automation can result in latent deskilling that later becomes apparent when the system gets discontinued, causing disruptions in employees’ daily work and organizational processes. We also investigate how the employees and the company recover from this disruption by leveraging various coping strategies. We suggest that automation of an accounting function/process played a key role in the deskilling of accountants. Although the effect on worker skills may not be obvious when the system is operational, discontinuing the system brings the effect to the apparent level.

@inproceedings{rintakahila2018consequences, abstract = {IS automation pervades business processes today. Thus, concerns have been raised about automation’s potential deskilling effects on knowledge workers. We conduct a revelatory case study about an IT service firm where a managerial decision was taken to discontinue a fixed assets management (FAM) software that provided seemingly effective automation of fixed assets accounting and reporting. We study how automation can result in latent deskilling that later becomes apparent when the system gets discontinued, causing disruptions in employees’ daily work and organizational processes. We also investigate how the employees and the company recover from this disruption by leveraging various coping strategies. We suggest that automation of an accounting function/process played a key role in the deskilling of accountants. Although the effect on worker skills may not be obvious when the system is operational, discontinuing the system brings the effect to the apparent level.}, added-at = {2023-07-31T17:25:03.000+0200}, author = {Rinta-Kahila, Tapani and Penttinen, Esko and Salovaara, Antti and Soliman, Wael}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/260d4b39bf8aa677b536c3b02b80485e9/meneteqel}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences}, doi = {10.24251/hicss.2018.654}, interhash = {f1fe15d5f03fcb26667306fe15bdee5a}, intrahash = {60d4b39bf8aa677b536c3b02b80485e9}, keywords = {automation knowledge_work}, language = {en-US}, publisher = {Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences}, timestamp = {2023-07-31T17:28:24.000+0200}, title = {Consequences of Discontinuing Knowledge Work Automation - Surfacing of Deskilling Effects and Methods of Recovery}, url = {https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/50543}, year = 2018 }