Attitude toward AI and Work Engagement: The Role of Perceived Organizational Support
Miriam Alfano
Department of Psychology
Faculty Supervisor: Shiyu Yang
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly integrated in the workplace, it is crucial to understand how employees' attitudes toward it shape their work-related outcomes. The present study focuses on the effect of one positive and one negative attitude — AI utility and AI-induced job insecurity — on work engagement (WE), and investigates the potential moderating role of perceived organizational support (POS). Drawing on the Technology Acceptance Model and the Job Demands-Resources framework, we predicted that a positive attitude would positively predict WE, whereas a negative attitude would decrease it, and that POS would amplify or buffer these relationships accordingly. We collected data from 93 working adults in the United States and Canada via an online survey. We found support for H1, as AI personal utility was a significant positive predictor of WE, but not for H2: AI-induced insecurity did not predict WE. POS did not moderate either relationship, possibly because AI use is becoming normalized in the workplace, making attitudes less consequential than they may have been in the past. Post-hoc analyses revealed that AI-induced job insecurity negatively predicted WE among women and among employees based in the San Francisco Bay Area. We finally discuss theoretical and practical implications, as well as limitations and future research directions.