ICT as an Employee Engagement Driver: Evidence from Russian Firms

Digital technologies are becoming more and more critical in the modern employee and manager’s practice. Today employers use not only a computer, but often intelligent sensors, complex information systems, and big data. Is an employee ready to accept and enhance the role of information and communications technologies (ICT) in modern production? The study aims to identify the relationship between the use of information technology in the professional activities of the Russian firm’s employers and their engagement, measured through the alienation degree and behavioral opportunism level. The work used data from a survey of 300 employees of Russian firms conducted in September 2020. The employees represent firms operating in various sectors of the economy in 18 cities of Russia, aged 18 to 65 years. Integral indicators transform the survey results into quantitative scales to assess the alienation degree and behavioral opportunism level. Z-test and two-way ANOVA are used to process the data. The research shows that using ICT in work and everyday life affects employees’ alienation and behavioral opportunism in Russian firms. More frequent use of ICT leads to less alienation and opportunism in firms (including its components: opportunism willingness and conditions for opportunism). The research results only one insignificant relationship: between the frequency of ICT use in everyday life and opportunism willingness.