Relationships between ICT Use for Task and Social Functions, Work Characteristics, and Employee Task Proficiency and Job Satisfaction: Does Age Matter?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
Your study presents an interesting topic and presents well the results obtained, however I leave some suggestions for improvement:
In the abstract, you present an objective (line 12) "we investigate employee age as a moderator of the indirect and total effects of ICT use for task and social functions on self-rated task proficiency and job satisfaction." and in (line 54) you present another one: "The goal of this study, accordingly, was to integrate the model of workplace ICT use and work design" the study has 2 objectives?
(line 15) how were the 3 resources selected (what gave rise to this selection?)
Why make reference to Covid 19? (line 334) I suggest removing " During data collection between July and September 2020 governmental restriction due to the COVID-19 pandemic were largely relaxed in Germany....."
(line 344) refer to: "...and invitations after in-person interviews" were interviews conducted in this study?
(line 378) Measures: I suggest the theoretical rationale for each of the dimensions mentioned.
(line 432) The results should be grounded on the literature, in order to verify their veracity
(line 433) Statistical analysis should be in the methodology, it is only mentioned in the results
Finally, in terms of structure, I suggest placing an Introduction section and another section after the Literature Review.
Author Response
REPLIES TO REVIEWER 1
Reviewer 1 Comment #1 to the Authors:
1. In the abstract, you present an objective (line 12) "we investigate employee age as a moderator of the indirect and total effects of ICT use for task and social functions on self-rated task proficiency and job satisfaction." and in (line 54) you present another one: "The goal of this study, accordingly, was to integrate the model of workplace ICT use and work design" the study has 2 objectives?
Reply by the authors:
Thank you very much for your constructive feedback! We were pleased to hear that you consider our study’s topic interesting. We hope you agree that, through our thorough revisions based on your and the editor’s and other reviewers’ comments, we were able to improve our manuscript and alleviate your concerns.
Our study actually has only one main objective, which is to investigate employee age as a moderator of the indirect and total effects of ICT use for task and social functions on self-rated task proficiency and job satisfaction. The integration of the model of workplace ICT use and work design is a theoretical contribution of our study. In our introduction, we are more precise about this difference now.
“Accordingly, we contribute to theory development by integrating the model of workplace ICT use and work design [14] with the lifespan theory of socioemotional selectivity [15] to develop and test a conceptual model on age, ICT use, work characteristics, and work outcomes (see Figure 1).” (lines 54 ff.)
Reviewer 1 Comment #2 to the Authors:
2. (line 15) how were the 3 resources selected (what gave rise to this selection?)
Reply by the authors:
Considering that our goal was to examine employee age as a moderator, we focus on those three job related resources of the model of workplace ICT use and work design (Wang, Liu, & Parker, 2020) that are also relevant from a lifespan perspective on job design. Truxillo et al. (2012) distinguish between motivational and social work characteristics that are important to consider within a lifespan perspective approach. We examined job autonomy because perceived control about one’s work is a very important work characteristic for promoting employees’ motivation and well-being at work (Hackman & Oldham, 1976; Karasek, 1979). Team cohesion was chosen as an indicator of relational aspects of work that are considered to bring about benefits for (group) performance (Beal et al., 2003; Carless & De Paola, 2000, Evans & Dion, 1991). We chose task significance because, on the one hand, employees are increasingly concerned that their work has a societal contribution (Grant et al., 2008) and on the other hand, this work characteristic might play an important role in the context of new technologies in affecting employees’ perceptions of meaningfulness of their work (Wang et al., 2020).
Beal, D. J., Cohen, R. R., Burke, M. J., & McLendon, C. L. (2003). Cohesion and performance in groups: A meta-analytic clarification of construct relations. Journal of Applied Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.6.989
Carless, S. A., & De Paola, C. (2000). The measurement of cohesion in work teams. Small Group Research, 31(1), 71-88.
Evans, C.R., & Dion, K. L. (1991). Group cohesion and performance. Small Group Research, https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496491222002
Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1976). Motivation through the design of work: Test of a theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16(2), 250-279.
Karasek, R. A. (1979). Job demands, job decision latitude and mental strain: Implications for job design. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24, 285-308.
Reviewer 1 Comment #3 to the Authors:
- Why make reference to Covid 19? (line 334) I suggest removing " During data collection between July and September 2020 governmental restriction due to the COVID-19 pandemic were largely relaxed in Germany....."
Reply by the authors:
We make a reference to the COVID-19 pandemic to provide more context about our sample.
Governmental restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic were related with changes in work for many people. Providing information on when the data collection took place allows to get a better impression on the legal working situation of the employees and thus, about generalizability of our results to other countries. Therefore, we decided to keep the information in our method section.
Reviewer 1 Comment #4 to the Authors:
- (line 344) refer to: "...and invitations after in-person interviews" were interviews conducted in this study?
Reply by the authors:
No, we did not use interviews to collect the data. In line 344, we referred to the quality management of the panel company, which recruited and incentivized our participants. The company uses, for example, interviews to recruit motivated and engaged people for their general panel. From this panel, people were invited to answer to our online questionnaire. We revised the sentence as follows:
“To ensure the quality of the general panel, the company recruits its participants using a variety of sources, from online communities and news portals to members get-members campaigns, social media campaigns, and invitations after in person interviews.” (lines 317 ff.)
Reviewer 1 Comment #5 to the Authors:
- (line 378) Measures: I suggest the theoretical rationale for each of the dimensions mentioned.
Reply by the authors:
We provide the theoretical rationale for each construct included in our model in the introduction and theory sections. Hence, we decided to not repeat the rationale in the Measures section.
Reviewer 1 Comment #6 to the Authors:
- (line 432) The results should be grounded on the literature, in order to verify their veracity
Reply by the authors:
The results are based on our own data collection, and we integrate the results with previous theoretical and empirical research in the discussion section.
Reviewer 1 Comment #7 to the Authors:
- (line 433) Statistical analysis should be in the methodology, it is only mentioned in the results
Reply by the authors:
We described the statistical analysis to test our hypotheses in lines 389 to 406 but we agree that we did not mention correlation and confirmatory factor analysis. Thus, we added the following sentence in the section “Statistical Analyses”:
“Prior to testing our hypotheses, we conducted a pearson's product-moment correlation analysis to examine associations between all study variables. In addition, we specified two CFA models with the substantive model variables to explore the factor structure of the measures of ICT use (T1), job autonomy (T2), team cohesion (T2), task significance (T2), task proficiency (T3), and job satisfaction (T3). Specifically, we specified and contrasted a multi factor model and a 1-factor model.” (lines 390ff.)
Reviewer 1 Comment #8 to the Authors:
- Finally, in terms of structure, I suggest placing an Introduction section and another section after the Literature Review.
Reply by the authors:
We respectfully disagree and decided to keep the existing structure based on recommendations of the American Psychological Association, which includes a general introduction section, followed by a theory and hypothesis development section, followed by the methods and results.
Moreover, we edited our manuscript extensively regarding English language and style. For example, we corrected typos and grammatical errors in lines 42f., 102, 111f., 118, and 437.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The research subject presented in the article is very interesting. Due to changes in the work for many people in the whole world, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, such topics are needed in order to know what factors facilitate and what are hindrances in using information and communication technologies.
The theoretical background was presented in clear and comprehensive way. The sample size is impressive and statistical analyses were performed adequately to formulated hypotheses. The weakest point of the research is the measurement of basic variables: ICT use for task function and for social function, using only one question for each of them with 5-point Likert scale of response. It is good, that Author/s mentioned about it in the Limitations and Future Research section, but I am afraid it is not enough. The problem is on the stage of the research design. There is nothing that one can do about it now. In this regard, I’ve left the decision to the Editor.
The second problem of the paper is the purpose of longitudinal research, which is unclear to me. The Method section should be included the explanation: Why longitudinal research design was used in the presented investigation? What was the purpose of that?
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
REPLIES TO REVIEWER 2
Reviewer 2 Comment #1 to the Authors:
The research subject presented in the article is very interesting. Due to changes in the work for many people in the whole world, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, such topics are needed in order to know what factors facilitate and what are hindrances in using information and communication technologies.
The theoretical background was presented in clear and comprehensive way. The sample size is impressive and statistical analyses were performed adequately to formulated hypotheses. The weakest point of the research is the measurement of basic variables: ICT use for task function and for social function, using only one question for each of them with 5-point Likert scale of response. It is good, that Author/s mentioned about it in the Limitations and Future Research section, but I am afraid it is not enough. The problem is on the stage of the research design. There is nothing that one can do about it now. In this regard, I’ve left the decision to the Editor.
Reply by the authors:
Thank you very much for your constructive feedback! We were pleased to hear that you consider our study’s subject very interesting and you appreciate our sample and analyses. We hope you agree that, through our thorough revisions based on your and the editor’s and other reviewers’ comments, we were able to improve our manuscript and alleviate your concerns.
We agree that the measurement of ICT use can be further developed in future studies as the subdimensions of ICT use for task and social functions were highly correlated (as we mention in the discussion). However, recently there was new evidence that for many rather homogeneous constructs, single-item measures are a reliable and valid measurement approach independent of construct breadth (Matthews et al., 2022).
Matthews, R.A., Pineault, L. & Hong, YH. (2022). Normalizing the Use of Single-Item Measures: Validation of the Single-Item Compendium for Organizational Psychology. J Bus Psychol, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-022-09813-3
Reviewer 2 Comment #2 to the Authors:
The second problem of the paper is the purpose of longitudinal research, which is unclear to me. The Method section should be included the explanation: Why longitudinal research design was used in the presented investigation? What was the purpose of that?
Reply by the authors:
The main reason was to control for baseline levels of the mediator and outcomes variables. That is, we wanted to predict lagged outcomes and controlled for their levels at prior measurement points. In accordance with the assumption that a mediation model is a causal model in which the mediating variable should cause the outcome variable and not vice versa (Jose, 2016), the cause must occur before the effect. To ensure this, first the predictor variables (T1), then mediation variables (T2), and finally outcome variables (T3) must be collected. Cross sectional mediations are limited in giving information about the direction of temporal influences between variables over time (Jose, 2016). Results from cross-sectional mediations typically generate a biased estimate of parameters of longitudinal mediation (Maxwell & Cole, 2007). In addition, cross-sectional models do not allow statistical control of the baseline levels of the variables (Maxwell & Cole, 2007). Another reason was to mitigate common method bias due to single source self-reports.
Jose, P. E. (2016). The merits of using longitudinal mediation. Educational Psychologist, https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2016.1207175
Maxwell, S. E., & Cole, D. A. (2007). Bias in cross-sectional analyses of longitudinal mediation. Psychological Methods, https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.12.1.23
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
I read your manuscript with interest. It is well written and adequately supported. I advise, however, greater care in the written form of the presentation of hypotheses. In the discussion, you develop the implications and try to present clues for future work, without promoting a real discussion about the causes for your results. Dare to propose explanations based on the observation you have made in the field. For example, when you write "Surprisingly, however, we found a negative association between job autonomy and task proficiency, and no significant associations between task autonomy and employee outcomes" you should try to provide an explanation, as this will increase the value of your work. Even if it comes out of your experience on the ground. What you write in the practical implications section is not acceptable, you should make a greater effort. Naturally, don't miss what you've already done based on the theory consulted for the results.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
REPLIES TO REVIEWER 3
Reviewer 3 Comment #1 to the Authors:
Dear authors,
I read your manuscript with interest. It is well written and adequately supported. I advise, however, greater care in the written form of the presentation of hypotheses.
Reply by the authors:
Thank you very much for your constructive feedback! We were pleased to hear that you read our manuscript with interest and you consider it well written. We hope you agree that, through our thorough revisions based on your and the editor’s and other reviewers’ comments, we were able to improve our manuscript and alleviate your concerns.
Specifically, we revised the formatting of our hypotheses in lines 184ff. and 293ff..
Reviewer 3 Comment #2 to the Authors:
In the discussion, you develop the implications and try to present clues for future work, without promoting a real discussion about the causes for your results. Dare to propose explanations based on the observation you have made in the field. For example, when you write "Surprisingly, however, we found a negative association between job autonomy and task proficiency, and no significant associations between task autonomy and employee outcomes" you should try to provide an explanation, as this will increase the value of your work. Even if it comes out of your experience on the ground.
Reply by the authors:
We don’t want to speculate too much about the causes of our contradictory results. However, we revised the section and provide a better integration of our results into the literature now.
“These findings stand in contrast to much previous work showing that job autonomy and task proficiency are positively related [28] and that task significance is a predictor of work motivation and performance [32]. Paradoxical effects might be an explanation. Increases in job autonomy through ICT could be undermined by perceptions of an extended monitoring through ICT, which is called the autonomy-control-paradox [49].” (lines 480ff.)
Reviewer 3 Comment #3 to the Authors:
What you write in the practical implications section is not acceptable, you should make a greater effort. Naturally, don't miss what you've already done based on the theory consulted for the results.
Reply by the authors:
Thank you for your suggestion. We revised the practical implication section as follows:
“Furthermore, our results showed that team cohesion showed positive effects on task proficiency. Therefore, promoting team cohesion could be beneficial to an organization. The literature shows that communicating with colleagues through ICT can help reducing social isolation among employees working from home [56,57], hence, organizations could invest in the expansion of socially beneficial ICT structures.
Moreover, task significance interacted with age in predicting task proficiency which supports findings that showed that older employees value fulfilling and meaningful jobs more compared to younger employees [37,38]. Hence, organizations should try to offer meaningful and intrinsically challenging tasks, especially to their older workers.” (lines 534 ff.)
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I am satisfied with the authors' reply, so I accept the manuscript in present form.
Author Response
Thank you very much again!
Reviewer 3 Report
Nice job.
Author Response
Thank you very much again!
