How Does Intelligent System Knowledge Empowerment Yield Payoffs? Uncovering the Adaptation Mechanisms and Contingency Role of Work Experience

Intelligent systems (IntelSys) are transforming the nature of work as humans and machines collectively perform tasks in novel ways. Although intelligent systems empower employees with algorithm-generated knowledge, they require employees to adapt how they work to enhance their job performance. We draw on the coping-adaptation framework as the overarching theoretical lens to explain how employees’ perceptions of IntelSys knowledge as an empowering external coping resource affect the mechanisms through which they adapt to IntelSys-induced changes to their work, as well as how their internal coping resources regulate their adaptation. Our coping-adaptation explanation of intelligence augmentation integrates (i) the empowering role of external coping resources, specifically IntelSys knowledge, captured as intelligent system knowledge empowerment (ISK-Emp); (ii) the benefit-maximizing adaptation mechanism (through infusion use enhancement) and the disturbance-minimizing adaptation mechanism (through role conflict reduction) that channel the impact of ISK-Emp on job performance; and (iii) the regulating role of internal resources, specifically, employees’ work experience, in influencing the importance of the adaptation mechanisms for the employee. We conduct studies in three distinct settings in which different intelligent systems were implemented to support employees’ knowledge work. Our findings show that ISK-Emp increases job performance through each of the two adaptation mechanisms. The benefit-maximization mechanism (via enhanced infusion use) plays a more important role for novice employees than for experienced employees, whereas the disturbance-minimization mechanism (via reduced role conflict) has higher importance for experienced employees than for novice employees. Our work provides insights into the critical role of adaptation mechanisms in linking ISK-Emp with performance outcomes and into the relative importance of the adaptation mechanisms through which job performance payoffs are realized by novice and experienced employees.