Abstract
Digital Transformation (DT) has over the time unfolded as a continuous process which has changed the employees’ routine work through persistent and intense job demands. Although, most of the extant research acknowledge and emphasize the importance of employee’s readiness for change (RFC), primary models largely conceptualize readiness as a cognitive and episodic or static state resulting in limited understanding to how employees sustain readiness under ongoing digital transformation. To address this gap, this paper proposes to develop a process-oriented model which explains how challenge work demands associated with digital transformation shape employee readiness for change through the mediating role of employee wellbeing.
Utilizing the Job Demands Resource theory, this paper reconceptualizes employee wellbeing from only a passive outcome of organizational conditions to an active psychological mechanism enabling employees to change challenge work demands into adaptive change responses. The model focuses on three critical aspects of wellbeing, intellectual, technological and financial which are particularly important in digitally transforming organizations. This paper promotes a more dynamic and employee centred approach of how organizations keep themselves sustained in continuously changing digital contexts.
The theoretical contribution of the framework is focused on extending the readiness for change research beyond cognitive appraisals, explaining and clarifying the role of challenging work demands in DT initiatives and suggesting positioning employee wellbeing as central to adaptive transformation. In doing so, the paper offers a foundation for future theorizing and empirical research on sustainable, human-centred digital transformation.