Conquering the dark side of digitalization: humanizing innovation in digitally mediated work

While digital transformation is generally seen as a positive phenomenon that improves our lives and makes us work less, certain facts also reveal its dark side. Individuals faced with the need to innovate in the context of digitally mediated work report declining levels of life satisfaction and happiness, while working more, being under pressure, feeling isolated, and burned out. Scholars should gain more knowledge about the negative consequences before promoting or stimulating innovation and the digital transformation in organizations. In this chapter, the authors adopt a multilevel lens and develop a conceptual model explaining potentially negative outcomes of innovation on the individual, team and organizational levels in the digitally mediated work context. Propositions are developed with regard to their underlying mechanisms, conceptualized against the backdrop of ethics and sustainability. They also capitalize on recent findings in organizational and job design literature to explore the boundary conditions of the negative outcomes of innovation in the setting of digitally mediated work across levels.