Mar 3 – Stefan Tams – “Cognitive Aging and the Struggle of Older Workers with Post-adoptive IT Use”

Time: Friday, 3 March 2023, 10:30–12:00
Room: LW420

Abstract

Older workers use organizational IT in qualitatively different ways than their younger counterparts. In particular, they often focus on a few core features of an IT instead of exploiting the full range of features. This behavior is indicative of the significant reduction in post-adoptive IT use that occurs as the workforce ages. However, since the causes of this reduction remain unclear, managers and systems designers have difficulty addressing the problem of the underuse of technologies by the aging workforce. By means of a serial mediation model, this research note argues that the reduction in post-adoptive IT use among older workers—and specifically the reduction in extended feature usage—is caused by the decline of fluid intelligence that occurs with aging and by the impact of this decline on the ability of users to learn about new features. To test the model, data were collected from younger and older users of Microsoft Excel. Different measures for extended feature usage were employed for triangulation purposes. To reinforce the confidence in the study results even more and to yield broader implications for the post-adoptive use of IT, intention to explore and user innovation with IT were also brought into play as outcome measures. In addition, the triangulation strategy was based on different measures for age and for the primary mediating variable. The results supported the model and indicated some important ways that managers and systems designers can help older workers use more features of workplace IT despite the decline in their fluid intelligence.

Bio

Stefan Tams holds the Professorship in Technology and Aging at HEC Montréal, Canada, where he is an associate professor of information systems. His current research interests focus on the roles of age and stress in IT use. His work has appeared in several scientific journals, including MIS Quarterly, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, and Journal of Strategic Information Systems, among others. His research has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and other outlets.