Technological readiness during different stages of the pandemic: A qualitative comparative analysis approach

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a significant transformation, requiring society to adapt to the ‘new normal’ and shifting how individuals and organizations operate. This study seeks to analyze the changes in technological readiness among the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic and to explore the impact of key factors on individuals' readiness to embrace digital technologies. We investigate how organizations' technological readiness is influenced by employees' characteristics, including adaptation to change, attitude toward change, collaboration with others, coping with stress, and decisiveness. A Two-Step Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) was adopted in this study to disentangle the causal complexity under Technological readiness and study its interplay with possible relevant individual characteristics during and after the pandemic. Our study highlighted significant insights comparing 2020 and 2022, notably the importance of collaboration as a necessary condition for technological readiness later in the pandemic. Other individual characteristics significantly lead to high technological readiness in both years. We also suggested future studies that would help strengthen our current study.