Getting Ready for the Future, Is It Worth It? A Dual Pathway Model of Age and Technology Acceptance at Work

作者：Ulrike Fasbender, Fabiola Heike Gerpott, Laura Rinker · 发表于：Work Aging and Retirement · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.1093/workar/waac035 · 被引用次数：42 · 研究领域：Technology Adoption and User Behaviour、Technology Use by Older Adults、Psychological and Temporal Perspectives Research

Abstract Rapid technological advancements and global workforce aging shape the future of work. Drawing on the technology acceptance model, our study aims to connect the literature on aging with the research on technology use in organizations. At its heart, the technology acceptance model suggests that the two core components, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, predict the attitude toward a new technology. We connect these components with two age-related processes: first, we suggest a motivational pathway via future time perspective, including one’s perceived future opportunities and remaining time at work. Second, we propose a capability pathway via cognitive constraints, including one’s perceived struggle to process new information (i.e., perceived processing speed difficulties) and the perceived struggle to organize one’s work (i.e., perceived organization difficulties). Moreover, we explore digital leadership as a potential buffer to the detrimental relations between age and technology acceptance. We preregistered our hypotheses and tested them using three-wave data from 643 employees. Our findings support our hypotheses for the motivational pathway, showing that age is negatively linked to attitude toward new technology via future time perspective and subsequent perceived usefulness as well as perceived ease of use. Digital leadership buffered the negative indirect relations between age and attitude toward new technology. For the capability pathway, the resul...