Jolanta Kowal

Information and Communication Technology Management for Global Competitiveness and Economic Growth in Emerging Economies

The scarcity of published research on the topic of ICT management in emerging economies provides motivation for this special issue. The papers included in this special issue were selected from the best papers presented at the First International Conference on ICT Management for Global Competitiveness and Economic Growth in Emerging Economies (ICTM 2012) in Wroclaw, Poland, September 17-18, 2012.

Do Organizational Ethics Improve IT Job Satisfaction in the Visegrád Group Countries? Insights from Poland

The effect of organizational ethics on the job satisfaction of information technology professionals in Poland, a transition economy from the Visegrád Group, was examined. Three dimensions of organizational ethics—ethical optimism, corporate social responsibility, and top management action—are investigated. The necessary data is collected by a survey conducted among 391 respondents in different regions of Poland. Results indicate that all three dimensions of organizational ethics, ethical optimism, corporate social responsibility, and top management action, affect the job satisfaction of information technology professionals. The highest job satisfaction seems to be in organizations where the top management propagate and enforce high ethical standards. The authors believe that the application of these will help in creating incentive system for information technology professionals. This new incentive system can lead to better job efficiency and quality of information systems in the Visegrád Group.

Job satisfaction of IT professionals in Poland: does business competence matter?

This paper examines the effects of business competence on the job satisfaction of Information Technology (IT) professionals in Poland. The necessary data is collected from a survey conducted among 391 IT professionals working in various companies in Poland. The results of the analysis indicate that business competence, in general, positively affects the job satisfaction of IT professionals in transition economies. However, business competence seems to have mixed effects on various aspects of job satisfaction. Although business competence affects satisfaction with co-workers, supervision and work itself, the surveyed IT professionals feel that business competence does not have any substantial effect on their salary level and professional promotions. The theoretical implication of this study is that systematic development of human capital by building business competence will have positive effects on the job satisfaction of IT professionals in transition economies. This paper also has a practical implication for managers in transition economies seeking improvements in productivity as it may help them to devise a compensation and promotion system that would better account for competency in their employees.

Phenomenon of Mobbing as IT Users Burnout Premises. Insight from Poland

The article is related to ethical, human and organizational - motivational aspects of IS development. The first goal of the study is to explore the occurrence of professional burnout and psychological violence among IT users in Poland, a transition economy. The second goal is to verify the dependency of professional burnout and negative communication aspects as mobbing or bullying, among IT users. The results of the analysis fill the gap in the scientific literature that concerns the ethical experiences associated with negative communication at work, such as psychological violence (called bullying or mobbing) and its impact on the burnout of IT users. The authors adapted, elaborated and used two questionnaires. The first one related to mobbing includes such dimensions like impact of the hindering on the ability to communicate, actions to disrupt the public perception of the person, the impact of disrupting of social relations, activities affecting the quality of life and employee situation, actions detrimental effect on the health of the victim. The second questionnaire is related to burnout syndrome and its three dimensions like physical, social and mental symptoms. The study is based on a pilot survey conducted among 120 IT users in south-west region of Poland. The results of this analysis show that phenomena of mobbing and professional burnout exist. Mobbing has an impact on professional burnout of IT users in transition economies. Managers and politicians in transition economies can benefit our study, by the use our findings to change some legal rules and positively influence the organizational ethical climate that, in turn, will remove psychic aggression and positively affect job satisfaction.

Job Satisfaction and Ethical Behaviors Premises of IT Users Insight from Poland

The paper concerns ethical, human and organizational aspects of IS development. The aim of the research is to examine the dependency of job satisfaction (JS) and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) with its two dimensions (individual and organizational), among IT users in Poland, a transition economy. The research results complement the gap in the scientific literature, that concerns the psychosocial characteristics of IT users, as ethical attitudes and job satisfaction components. The authors elaborated questionnaire of JS including such dimensions like relations between employees, supervisors’ managing style, the organization of work in the company, information and communication within the company, representing the interests of the employee, creating opportunities for staff development (motivation, evaluation, promotion) and subjective JS. The analysis is based on a survey conducted among 362 IT users in south-west region of Poland. The results of this survey show that job satisfaction has an impact on ethical behavior premises of IT users in transition economies.

The Presence of Spiritual Archetypes Among Representatives of Eastern and Western Cultures

Abstract Cross-cultural research on the basis of Jungian psychology is not so much a laborious task as an inspiring one. However, conducting research on remote cultures, ones as different as the Polish and Korean cultures, turned out to be a challenge. Although we encountered dissimilarity in almost every area, our curiosity to discover the deeper premises conditioning human behavior motivated us to ask a question. How can we reach the archetypal sphere of both cultures? We intended to find out the archetypes dominating a given culture, as well as the ways the subjects experienced reality and functioned within it. We also aimed to discover the meanings that might be hidden behind the symbolic representation of archetypes present in a given culture. We were particularly interested in the influences of the Great Mother and Wise Old Man archetypes in the process of individuation in the research subjects, who served as representatives of the given cultures. A total of 140 subjects took part in our research. We applied our own projective method, which consisted of a set of eighteen colorful pictures representing six main archetypes described by C. G. Jung. This article presents the results of the first stage of our project, in which the subjects chose the picture with the greatest impact on them. The research indicates numerous similarities within archetypal phenomena, as well as the specificities of the individuation process in the representatives of both cultures.

Does Human Potentiality Affect IT Professionals’ Organizational Behavior? An Experimental Study in Poland and Germany

The goal of our paper is to examine if human potentiality (HP) affects IT professionals’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in relation to Poland (transition economy) and Germany (developed economy). For the goal of the study the authors elaborated two novel questionnaires: the Human Potentiality Inventory (HPI) and adapted Employee Behavior Questionnaire (EBQ). We investigated seven dimensions of the HP and two dimensions of the OCB. We collected necessary data by random interpersonal network and sequence sampling. We also applied the passive optimal experiment design, conducted among IT professionals, in Germany and Poland. Our findings confirmed the effects of nationality and association between HP and OCB among IT professionals, in Germany and Poland. The novelty of the study is the cross cultural approach, experimental passive design and recognition of association between human potentiality and organizational citizenship behavior.

Gender and Business Competences of Knowledge Workers in Poland

The purpose of the research described in this article is to verify the influence of gender difference and firm size on the business competencies self-assessment of knowledge workers in small regional enterprises of Lower Silesia region, in Poland, a transition economy. An individual survey was conducted on the basis of the questionnaire of business competencies. Two trials of 169 knowledge workers were constructed via an interpersonal network and sequential random sampling, with the use of passive experimental design. Several dimensions of business competencies are investigated. The results show that females working as knowledge workers in regional small enterprises in Poland manifest less levels of business competencies self-assessment than male colleagues. However, females have the highest scores in sphere of knowledge self-assessment concerning organizational units and organizational responsibility. The novelty is the first use the adapted questionnaire of business competencies self-assessment among knowledge workers in relation to gender and regional small and micro firms, in Poland.

ICT for Global Competitiveness and Economic Growth in Emerging Economies: Economic, Cultural, and Social Innovations for Human Capital in Transition Economies

Emerging economies are countries or regions that are moving from developing to developed status, to a free market system, and toward a knowledge-based economy. Those emerging economies that resulted from the breakup of the Soviet Union or represented the Eastern Block are called transition economies (Kowal & Roztocki, 2013). Emerging economies have typically low standards of living, a weak industrial and commercial base, and a poor infrastructure. In contrast, advanced – developed economies have a high level of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, as well as a very significant degree of industrialization, commercial base, high standards of living, and a well-developed infrastructure (Kowal & Roztocki, 2013; Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2016). The progress of information and communication technology (ICT) forces constant training and upgrading of professional qualifications, managing competencies and innovativeness in information systems (IS) that leads to human capital (HC) and economic growth development (Kowal et al., 2016; Kowal & Roztocki, 2013; Ludwig, Reuter, & Pipek, 2016). HC of the organization comprises employees and their professional and psychosocial characteristics such as knowledge, skills, social competencies, behavior, and innovativeness (Kowal & Jasińska-Biliczak, 2016). HC development is a key element of knowledgebased economy (Brockman & Roztocki, 2017). Well qualified and skilled staff with high level of competency and innovativeness is the most important factor of HC and is an “engine” for organization competitiveness. The level of HC in an economy can be assessed by the Human Capital Index (HCI) (range 0–100) that measures countries’ ability to maximize and leverage their HC resources. This index evaluates learning and employment outcomes across distinct age groups, and assesses the majority of economies (World Economic Forum, 2017). Competitiveness is a factor of economic growth that forces innovation and increases productivity (Stiglitz, 2002; Stiglitz, Sen, & Fitoussi, 2010). Productive competitiveness results frommany aspects, which are indicated by the Global Competitiveness Index GCI (range 0–10). This index takes into account scores from 12 pillars such as quality of institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health, primary education enrollment rate, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, and innovation (World Forum 2017; Yunis, El-Kassar, & Tarhini, 2017). Innovations are important factors of organizational development that support economic growth (Kowal & Jasińska-Biliczak, 2016). Innovativeness of an organization from organizational and technical processes perspective means the ability to create and implement innovations that manifest themselves in the capability to introducing new or modernized products, technology or enhanced organizational and technical processes (OECD/Eurostat, 2005, p.49). Innovations from the perspective of HC and ICT mean the capability of developing novel competences such as new ICT knowledge, skills, social and managerial competencies for businesses, governments or social community (Qureshi, 2007; Kowal & Jasińska-Biliczak, 2016). They can be measured by the Global Innovation Index (GII) (scored 0–100) that provides detailed metrics about the innovation performance of countries and economies around the world (INSEAD, 2017). Economic growth can be understood as the increase in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy over time (Investopedia, 2017). It is usually measured as the percent rate of increase in real GDP, or real gross national income

Mobbing and Burnout in Emerging Knowledge Economies: An Exploratory Study in Poland

Many transition countries, known as emerging knowledge economies, can not to catch up with more advanced, matured economies. Low salaries, job insecurity, pressure to keep low cost create a work environment in many transitions economies where mobbing and burnout is common place. This paper examines the relationship between mobbing and professional burnout syndroms among knowledge workers in Poland. The study is based on a preliminary survey among 160 Polish respondents. The results of this study confirm that phenomena of mobbing and professional burnout are very common in emerging knowledge economies. Knowledge workers, female and employees of small firms are especially impacted by mobbing and burnout. Mobbing has an influence on job burnout of knowledge workers. Managers and politicians in emerging knowledge economies can benefit from our findings, by the use our conclusions, by changing regulations and companies polices.