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The overload effects associated with the use of mobile information and communication technologies (MICTs) in the workplace have become increasingly prevalent. The purpose of this paper is to examine the overload effects of using MICTs at work on employees’ job satisfaction, and explore the corresponding coping strategies.

The study is grounded on the cognitive load theory and the coping model of user adaptation. The overload antecedents and coping strategies are integrated into one model. Theoretical hypotheses are tested with survey data collected from a sample of 178 employees at work in China.

The results indicate that information overload significantly reduces job satisfaction, while the influence of interruption overload on job satisfaction is not significant. Two coping strategies (information processing timeliness and job control assistant support) can significantly improve job satisfaction. Information processing timeliness significantly moderates the relationships between two types of overload effects and job satisfaction. Job control assistant support also significantly moderates the relationship between interruption overload and job satisfaction.

This study suggests that information overload and interruption overload could constitute an important index to indicate employees’ overload level when using MICTs at work. The two coping strategies provide managers with effective ways to improve employees’ job satisfaction. By taking advantage of the moderation effects of coping strategies, managers could lower employees’ evaluation of overload to an appropriate level.

This study provides a comprehensive model to examine how the overload resulting from using MICTs in the workplace affects employees’ work status, and how to cope with it. Two types of overload are conceptualized and corresponding coping strategies are identified. The measurements of principal constructs are developed and empirically validated. The results provide theoretical and practical insights on human resource management and human–computer interaction.

Personally owned mobile information and communication technologies (MICT) have been widely and routinely used for work purposes in the post-pandemic workplace. Drawing on adaptive structuration theory for individuals (ASTI), this study investigates the antecedents (i.e. characteristics of MICT) and outcomes (i.e. employee affective and cognitive well-being) of routine MICT use in the remote work context.

The research model was empirically tested via a survey of 430 working professionals who use personal MICT for work purposes in the remote work context.

Results show that the routine MICT use increases employee affective well-being (i.e. job satisfaction) and mitigates cognitive well-being (i.e. technology overload). The mediation effects of routine MICT use on the relationships between its characteristics (autonomy and timeliness) and employee well-being (i.e. job satisfaction and technology overload) were also found.

Existing research on remote work has widely focused on employee productivity and performance, while attention has rarely been paid to the effects of the technology-driven “new normal” on employee well-being. Grounded in ASTI, this study identifies three MICT characteristics as sources of user adaptive structuration, which impact employees' routine MICT use behavior and further influence employee affective and cognitive well-being. This research can help understand employees' personal MICT use adaptive behavior and improve their well-being.

Recent development and democratization of digital technologies call for studying base-of-the-pyramid (BOP) consumers’ interactions with these technologies. This study aims to explore how BOP consumers interact with mobile information and communication technology (mICT) and improve their welfare.

Following an extensive literature review, content analysis of the reviewed articles and reports was conducted to build this article’s conceptual foundation.

This study has conceptualized five mechanisms in which mICT improves the lives of BOP customers through enhanced access and control of resources. In particular, the authors characterize a converging nature of mICT and related applications (social media, internet of things, artificial intelligence and sharing economy) as resources for social change. The authors find a striking contrast between BOP and affluent consumers regarding their motivations and barriers to adopting mICT-based applications. Implications to research, technology design and policymaking are discussed.

The intersection of mICT and BOP is under-researched. With this paper, we tried to address this research gap. Further, this study has brought out several important research questions in each application, serving as a springboard for future researchers.

Based on the social capital theory, the authors assume that personal and professional experts are both relevant to people's competence development. However, to date, there is little empirical evidence of how professional experts can support, or impede, people in learning how to deal with social media. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role and position of social media experts in the distribution of information on social media within the library as organization.

The paper draws upon social network and qualitative methods, within three public libraries located in Belgium.

The findings suggest that as the most central actors, social media experts in a library play a significant role in either supporting or constraining the distribution of information on social media.

While the sample size was chosen to conduct a mixed methods study that would explore how the position of a social media expert in an organization such as the library facilitates or prevents the exchange of social media information, the authors acknowledge the need for large-scale empirical studies that can substantiate the findings in larger and more diverse samples.

This unique study explores how the role and position social media experts in Belgian public libraries can support, or impede, librarians in learning how to deal with social media. This study is useful for other public libraries who want to implement social media, establish a social media policy and/or provide social media training.

The purpose of this paper is to use “best practice” regulatory principles to derive proposals for fostering competition in Thailand's telecommunications market.

On‐site research in Thailand was conducted, including interviews with a range of policy and regulatory agencies and telecommunications market participants.

The paper finds that Thailand's relatively late start in applying pro‐competitive regulation in the telecommunications sector presents an opportunity for installation of “regulatory leap‐frogging” measures proposed by the paper. The concession regime that prevails in Thailand is a major obstacle resulting in “gridlock” of Thailand's efforts to develop competition in the telecommunications sector. The Thai Constitution prohibits the regulator from directly regulating telecommunications companies operating on the basis of concessions that were in place prior to the adoption of the new telecommunications law. The paper examines this problem and points to a solution. Another major problem is the protracted absence of the National Broadcasting Commission that has been given joint responsibility (along with the National Telecommunications Commission) for spectrum management. Accordingly, pressing decisions regarding spectrum management cannot be made. The paper concludes that the two Commissions be merged (especially in the face of convergence). The paper finds that Thailand needs to develop and implement a national strategy for the development of communications infrastructure, including a collaborative approach to infrastructure development.

There are very few (if any) independent studies of policy and regulation of Thailand's telecommunications sector. More broadly, the paper indicates – by way of a case study – how “best practice” regulatory guidelines might be applied to enhance competition in developing countries.

This paper aims to investigate the current state and influential factors in the development of digital literacy of the students in Thailand’s higher education institutions.

The quantitative research method was applied with a survey conducted to collect information from the target group that consisted of administrators, lecturers and students of 116 Thai universities. Respondents included 81 administrators, 500 lecturers and 1,000 students.

The findings revealed that 61.73 per cent of the universities set digital literacy as an undergraduate program policy, 30.86 per cent set it as a student development policy, while 12.35 per cent do not have any policy in this regard. In total, 40.74 per cent of the universities establish digital literacy as the required graduates’ trait, and 22.22 per cent establish it as a graduate’s identity. The study of factors related to digital literacy development showed that the respondents see that all of the factors affect students’ digital literacy development at a high level, including infrastructures, human resources, students’ awareness, external environments, development process, university’s policy and academic management.

In Thailand, universities have seen the importance of information literacy development for students at a certain level. However, the concepts of information literacy and digital literacy differ. While information literacy mainly comprises technical skill and information management skill, digital literacy is composed of technical skill, cognitive skill and emotional-social skills. This paper presents the first research on digital literacy development in Thai higher education.

Despite the existing gaps in the use of technology in East Africa, the region is among the fastest-growing mobile data users on the continent. This progress is partially attributed to local initiatives to develop and adapt homegrown technologies to local contexts to increase their accessibility and use even in the remotest areas. In this chapter we identify a few of these innovations in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda and examine how they have been indigenised to fit local contexts as well as the processes of their diffusion, adoption, affordability and accessibility among users and their everyday gratifications from the innovations. The socio-technological assemblage theory, which illuminates the influences of, and the connections between various types of actors and their roles, visions, ideas, concepts and the technological products, informs our inquiry. Other related concepts including ‘innovation’, ‘indigenisation’ and ‘diffusion’ are discussed to understand the homegrown technology innovations and their adaptability. Discussions with both innovators and users/beneficiaries reveal rigorous proactiveness and responsiveness of innovation creators and users in the three countries – reflected in numerous attestations of life transformation. Nevertheless, there is a paradigm shift in the diffusion of innovations amongst users – contrary to the discourse around its early precepts.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the factors playing a role in the engagement of end-users to participate in Living Lab field trials.

Multiple case study analysis of three Living Lab cases in which field trials were organized.

Based on academic literature on field trials, user engagement and the technology acceptance model, the authors argue that several factors play a role in the participation of users in field trials. An influential factor that emerged is the functional maturity of the innovation, the extent to which a prototype resembles the functionalities and the processes of the final, go-to-market product at the moment of the field trial. Within this exploratory paper, we propose the “user engagement model for field trials” to explain the factors that play a role in the engagement of end-users in field trials.

The methodological limitations of a case study design make it difficult to extrapolate the findings toward a larger sample. Therefore, this paper focuses on making an in-depth analysis rather than making general claims. However, the insights regarding user engagement for participation pave the way for future validation on a larger scale and suggest future research directions.

The findings of this paper suggest that Living Lab field trials should carefully take into account the (perceived) functional maturity of the innovation and the specific characteristics of the innovation when engaging end-users for field trials. Interaction and trust between the test-users and the other stakeholders is of great importance for the active engagement of test-users during field trials.

This exploratory paper adds to a general understanding of end-user involvement in innovation development processes and suggests guidelines to engage end-users to participate in field trials. In addition, it introduces the concept of functional maturity of innovations and the user-engagement model for field trials.

Following the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many forms of bottom-up civic action emerged as ways to collectively “flatten the curve” and tackle the crisis. In this paper, the authors examine to what extent local online and offline social integration contributes to civic participation, above and beyond typical predictors such as news consumption and civic talk.

An online survey was administered among 7,137 users of the online neighbourhood network (ONN) Hoplr in Flanders (i.e. the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) from 8 May to 18 May 2020. Regression analyses were used to examine how local social integration, in addition to news consumption, civic talk and political antecedents, predict different types of civic participation.

The results show consistent positive associations between news consumption, civic talk and civic participation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the role of political antecedents varied across different forms of civic participation. Further, the results point to the importance of both offline and online local social integration in explaining civic participation.

This study provides much-needed insight in the societal and democratic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results confirm the importance of local social integration in explaining civic participation, while also advancing theoretical understanding of more established predictors of civic participation, such as news consumption and interpersonal communication.

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-08-2020-0379.