Impact of Automation on Corporate Citizenship Behavior of Affected Staffs

This article discusses the impact of automation on corporate citizenship of affected staff. It explains the implication, evaluation, and case study of robots adoption in workplaces. The write-up concludes that leadership has a role to influence staff when implementing automation in the workplace to avoid adverse effects of job insecurity and low morale in the organization.

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Impact of automation to corporate
Citizenship Behavior of Affected Staffs
Background
Automation in work place can be traced from early usage of basic hydraulic and pneumatic
systems to today’s modern robots. Automation emerged in 1800s but the widespread of remote
and intelligent technology was experienced in 1980s where organizations started automating
almost everything (Lin et al., 2016). Automation is a technique, system, or method of controlling
or operating a process using automatic means like electronic devices and reduces human
intervention (Frey and Osborne, 2017). Organizations are continually implementing automation
in their processes that has a direct impact to employees and influence their corporate citizenship
behavior. The following write up discusses the impact of automation on corporate citizenship of
affected staff. This will involve explanation, implication, and evaluation of automation to
corporate behavior a case study of robots adoption in workplaces.
Explanation
Robots are highly replacing human capital in organizations. Robots are using computerized
algorithms and artificial intelligence to perform tasks that would otherwise be jobs for human
beings. Robot automations improve speed and quality of goods produced while lowering cost of
production and prices in the market (Lin et al., 2016). Robots are impacting how employees feel
and perceive their roles in organization. Employees think and feel job insecure as there is
likelihood of being retrenched. For instance, in Ocado online supermarket in UK, 1000 robots
replaced human labour and the remaining 200 employees’ behavior is influenced by future
automation (Lin et al., 2016). This shows that robots change employees’ behavior by changing
motivation drive.

Implication for staff performance
Use of robots in organization processes to replace or minimize human intervention has impact to
staff performance. The staff performance is determined by their behavior in the work place
(Cascio, and Montealegre, 2016). When staff feels that their job is threatened, they reduce their
input in terms of creativity, customer relationship, efficiency, and overall effectiveness in the
organization. Robots cannot be creative or effective in customer relationships. According to
Paillé, Raineri, and Valeau, (2015), automation increase resistance to change behaviors staff.
This increases inefficiency causing a decline in staff performance in the workplace. I agree that
replacement of staff with robots increase resistance to change as employees feel their positions in
the organizations are threatened.
Implication for motivation
The effectiveness and efficiency of an organization is determined by employees’ motivation.
Highly motivated employees increase productivity through increased performance. Robots
reduce staff motivation. Employees are not inspired to maintain their tenure in fear they will
eventually lose their job (Frey and Osborne, 2017). Automation decrease employees job security
that increases staff anxiety in the workplace. Rosen, and Wischniewski, (2017), found that robots
replace human being in the organization that limit employees job advancements and recognized.
The employees lack intrinsic drive and are unable to put forth necessary effort in delivering high
performance. You and Robert, (2017) found that whenever employees are engaged and there is
effective leadership, employees does not feel threatened by robots in workplaces. I agree with
Frey and Osborne, (2017) work that employees’ current behavior is influenced by a feeling of
job security in the future.
Evaluation
Different authors are divided on how robots impact corporate citizenship behavior and staff
performance. Cascio, and Montealegre, (2016) and Frey and Osborne, (2017) hold that robots
largely affect staff motivation that has adverse impact on staff performance. This entails that
robots negatively impact corporate citizenship by decreasing morale and increasing job
insecurity. These authors put forward that introduction of robots in an organization reduces staff
effectiveness and efficiency in the workplace. On the other side, Lin et al., (2016) and You and

Robert, (2017), hold that robots and automation compliment employees performance and
increase speed, quality and lowers cost of production. Robots make employees job easier and
increases their ability to increase performance. I agree with Lin et al., (2016) and You and
Robert, (2017), that robots compliment staff performance if the leadership supports and engage
employees in the process of introducing automation in the organization. Cascio, and
Montealegre, (2016) and Frey and Osborne, (2017) view that robots cause adverse impact to
corporate citizenship outline the role that leaders have to play to minimize negative impact of
automation.
Questioning findings
Rosen, and Wischniewski, (2017) argument that robots have negative impact to corporate
citizenship behavior does not consider the benefits that automation has to employees’ who work
in different conditions. The use of robot in Ocado supermarket case used is limited to one
industry whose application can be different in another sector or industry.
Challenging findings
I think that everybody would like to work where little energy is needed to get massive results.
This means that employees can be motivated to accept and adopt working with robots to achieve
organizational objectives. Staff performance can be influenced by leadership through continued
motivation when introducing robots in the organization. Therefore, robots can be used in an
organization without necessarily affecting staff performance.
Summary
From the discussion, automation is highly replacing employees and has impact on corporate
citizenship behavior. Robots are programmed to increase speed and maintain high quality
standards in production. Organization staffs feel that robots threaten their job security that
adversely impacts their morale in the workplace. Literature is divided on staff performance
following introduction of robots in organizations. Some authors see robots as compliment to staff
performance while others view robots as threats. I agree that robots should be used to
compliment staff performance and should not be viewed as threats. The write-up therefore

concludes that leadership has a role to influence staff when implementing automation in the
workplace to avoid adverse effects of job insecurity and low morale in the organization

References
Cascio, W.F. and Montealegre, R., (2016). How technology is changing work and organizations.
Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 3, pp.349-375.
Frey, C.B. and Osborne, M.A., (2017). The future of employment: how susceptible are jobs to
computerisation?. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 114, pp.254-280.
Lin, T., Baron, M., Hallier, B., Raiti, M., Olivero, S., Johnson, S. and Dugan, J., (2016). Design
of a low-cost, open-source, humanoid robot companion for large retail spaces. In Systems and
Information Engineering Design Symposium (SIEDS), 2016 IEEE (pp. 66-71). IEEE.
Paillé, P., Raineri, N. and Valeau, P.J., (2015). Professional employee retention: Examining the
relationships between organizational citizenship behavior and turnover cognitions. Journal of
Applied Business Research, 31(4), p.1437.
Rosen, P.H. and Wischniewski, S., (2017). Task Design in Human-Robot-Interaction Scenarios–
Challenges from a Human Factors Perspective. In International Conference on Applied Human
Factors and Ergonomics (pp. 71-82). Springer, Cham.
You, S. and Robert, L., (2017), December. Facilitating Employee Intention to Work with Robots.
AIS.