Location
Hilton Waikoloa Village, Hawaii
Event Website
https://hicss.hawaii.edu/
Start Date
7-1-2025 12:00 AM
End Date
10-1-2025 12:00 AM
Description
Given their lower skill endowment, blue-collar workers tend to experience greater difficulty in adapting to digitalized work. Yet, there is a dearth of research focusing on the digitalization of blue-collar work or how blue-collar workers adapt to the digitalization of their work. This paper presents an exploratory case study on a cleaning company to investigate how managers of blue-collar workers facilitated their adaptation to digitalized work. Career Construction Theory is employed as the theoretical sense-making lens in analyzing the case study data, resulting in the identification of ten interventions taken by managers in facilitating blue-collar workers adapt to digitalized work. Contributions of this study to research are then drawn, and recommendations on future research direction are posited. Practical implications for managers, unions and governments are also presented. In conclusion, a call for more research on this strategic and emancipatory topic of ‘digitalization of blue-collar work’ is presented.
Recommended Citation
Chan, Calvin; Tan, Justina; Billett, Stephen; and Chong, Wan Har, "Blue-Collar Workers Adaptation to Digitalization: A Career Construction Theory Analysis" (2025). Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 2025 (HICSS-58). 2.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/hicss-58/sj/inclusive_labor/2
Blue-Collar Workers Adaptation to Digitalization: A Career Construction Theory Analysis
Hilton Waikoloa Village, Hawaii
Given their lower skill endowment, blue-collar workers tend to experience greater difficulty in adapting to digitalized work. Yet, there is a dearth of research focusing on the digitalization of blue-collar work or how blue-collar workers adapt to the digitalization of their work. This paper presents an exploratory case study on a cleaning company to investigate how managers of blue-collar workers facilitated their adaptation to digitalized work. Career Construction Theory is employed as the theoretical sense-making lens in analyzing the case study data, resulting in the identification of ten interventions taken by managers in facilitating blue-collar workers adapt to digitalized work. Contributions of this study to research are then drawn, and recommendations on future research direction are posited. Practical implications for managers, unions and governments are also presented. In conclusion, a call for more research on this strategic and emancipatory topic of ‘digitalization of blue-collar work’ is presented.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/hicss-58/sj/inclusive_labor/2