Explicating Collective Technology Efficacy in Work from Home Context: Study of Employees with Positive Feelings

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown forced business firms to undertake employee work from home (WFH). The pandemic situation created a general negative sentiment. Employees, while practicing WFH, worked remotely. They worked collectively using network technology in the virtual context and achieved job efficacy even in challenging times. Employees’ achievement of job efficacy helped achieve better results in terms of work performance at organizational team levels. Data were collected from Indian managers during COVID-19 unlock phase. Three hundred twenty-six managerial responses were collected and analyzed using structured equation modeling. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions was applied for the study. A theoretical model was developed with a positive feeling as an antecedent variable, effort as a mediating variable, and collective technology in virtual team efficacy as the dependent variable. The findings of the study adhered to the perspectives of broad and build theory.