Advantages of and Barriers to Crafting New Technology in Healthcare Organizations: A Qualitative Study in the COVID-19 Context

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Aug 12;19(16):9951. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19169951.

Abstract

Nursing professionals are constantly required to adapt to technological changes, and especially so in the wake of COVID-19, which has prompted the development of new digital tools. A new and specific form of job crafting in relation to new technology has recently emerged in the literature; that is, adoption job crafting. However, little is known about this specific form of job crafting, especially within the pandemic context. We aim, in this study, to explore the advantages of and barriers to adoption job crafting. We used NVivo software to analyze 42 semi-structured interviews conducted during COVID-19. Our findings revealed that nurses had proactive and positive attitudes toward new technology (adoption job crafting) to enhance efficiency, sustainability, well-being, virtual teamwork, communication, and knowledge sharing. We also identified many barriers to adoption job crafting due to several organizational obstacles, such as the lack of human resource management practices, especially training, and the characteristics of the technology used. We contribute to the literature by documenting innovative cases of and barriers to adoption job crafting, which have not been explored before. These findings stress the necessity to adopt human resources practices, especially training, to foster positive job crafting among nurses and safeguard their adaptive expertise.

Keywords: adaptive expertise; adoption job crafting; communication; human resource management; new technology; sustainability; virtual teamwork; well-being; workload.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19*
  • Delivery of Health Care
  • Humans
  • Qualitative Research
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Technology

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), grant number 430-2019-00993.