D. (Dijana) Aleksic

We are living in the age of Industry 4.0, or Society 5.0 - the naming promoted by the Japanese government to signal the transformation technological innovation of the fourth industrial revolution brings. The idea of Society 5.0 is based on society at the center, rather than the industry, where taking the technology as a catalyst and a driver, Society 5.0 looks for the general welfare of citizens and aims for a super-intelligent society (Minevich, 2019). The focus on societal benefits is important, as Industry 4.0 brought a lot of excitement towards automation and digitalization; and with that also, anxiety about the speed of change and infiltration of intelligent technologies in almost all parts of our lives. Enormous amounts of data available, affordable computing power, and ever smarter technologies that learn, provide opportunities in many spheres of the society. We are experiencing prevalence of different technologies under the umbrella of Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as machine learning, natural language processing and similar, which are changing the capability of algorithms from fast and executional computing, to learning and conversational computing.

While different aspects of our life are engaging with technology, business opportunities and work environments are changing as well. On one hand, many tasks are automized, and many jobs are going away; on the other hand, that frees up time for a more enjoyable, creative and innovative work, creating new jobs. Employers have still not come to grips with effects of these changes for an individual employee and his/her/their motivation. Nor is there an understanding yet, how we can harness possibilities of AI and conversational user interfaces (chatbots), not just for automations, but to create a work environment that is conducive to employee flourishing and well-being.

This gap in understanding of supportive nature of AI and chatbots will be an essence of this research - using Self-Determination Theory as a theoretical lens to examine satisfaction of three basic psychological needs (need for autonomy, competence and relatedness) through interaction/intervention of AI/chatbot in the workplace. The satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs will lead to an increased internalization of employee motivation (autonomous motivation), which results in more creativity, performance, well-being and overall flourishing. The research will deliver three studies that will examine interaction with AI/chatbots in three different work-related contexts and the impact on employee psychological need satisfaction. Research studies will examine the following questions:

1. What features of AI/chatbot in task interaction, contribute to the satisfaction of basic psychological needs and autonomous motivation?

2. How is AI/chatbot intervention strengthening the relationship between job crafting and the psychological need satisfaction?

3. What latent abilities are triggered by tasks replacement by AI/chatbot, and its effect on the feeling of autonomy, competence and relatedness?

In this research, I will use a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, including one explorative case-study. For the quantitative method, I will bring a novelty to the scientific community by using a recently published questionnaire “Autonomy and Competence in Technology Adoption Questionnaire (ACTA)” (Peters, Calvo and Ryan, 2018), recommended by authors for research in technology design for well-being. The objective of this research is to contribute to the development of Self-Determination theory regarding the employee psychological need satisfaction through interaction with AI/chatbots, as well as provide material for further discussion on usage and effect of intelligent technologies in the workplace.