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INTEREST CATEGORY: SERVICE, SELLING AND SALES MAN
POSTING TYPE: Calls: Journals

Author: Ashish Kalra

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Digitalization of Business Processes with a Focus on Employees, Salespeople and Frontline Employees

Organizations face major challenges and opportunities due to the increasing digitalization of their different work processes such as daily work tasks, sales processes, and service offerings among others. Though digitalization has been heralded as an epitome for future business models, organizations are looking for the optimal ways to develop and invest in digital technologies to enhance their employee effectiveness and efficiency. While organizations focus on developing digital transformation strategies, employees such as salespeople and frontline employees (FLEs) are often at the forefront of delivering these digitalization processes. We define digital technologies as the digital and connected hardware and software that salespeople frontline employees and other colleagues/stakeholders can use to accomplish certain job tasks and gather information. In a sales/service context, digital technologies include social media, CRM, videoconferencing, and productivity apps to name few. In a non-sales/non-service context, digital technologies include all connected tools that employees use to conduct their day-to-day operations.

In this special issue, we are interested in papers that focus on the psychological aspects and processes of digitalization process in organizations. This digitalization of the business processes can focus either on the way organizations internally manage their workflows (e.g., HRM systems, enterprise social media) and how this impacts salespeople/FLEs in their jobs or how these organizations adopt digitalization process to manage their external businesses (e.g., services, sales). We define psychological processes as either individual/organizational traits and behaviors that support digitalization or an understanding of the processes that help transform digitalization process into meaningful measurable business outcomes.

All methodologies (quantitative, qualitative among others) and paper types (conceptual, empirical, literature reviews and others) are welcome. Submissions that focus on the global perspectives of the research topic are highly encouraged as well. Examples of possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Personal and managerially relevant factors that can enhance the successful adoption of digital technologies at workplace.
• The impact of digital technologies on work structures in frontline employees/salespeople context
• Ambidextrous effects of digitalization process. For instance, enhancing performance but simultaneously increasing overload or other dark side of digital technologies including assessment of productive and counter-productive work behaviors.
• Impact of digital technologies on occupational health psychology of salespeople/FLEs (e.g., work-family conflict, technostress, and well-being) and relevant mitigating variables.
• Impact of digital technologies on firm’s relationships with their employees/customers.
• Impact of customer’s adoption of digital technologies on their relationships with salespeople/FLEs. This may also include related issues of cyber security and ethical dimensions related to digitalization process.
• The changes caused by digital technologies to customers purchasing habits and behaviors.
• Tensions within and/or between organizations due to the increasing digitalization of business organizations and related potential coping mechanisms/strategies.
• Understanding the relationship between organizational psychology and digital technologies use at work.

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