Investigating the Coping Mechanism Towards Technochanges: A Perspective of Social Network Theory

Abstract

For the purpose of better understanding the sociopsychological factors involved in an individual's coping process towards technochanges, this study examines how the social capital derived from two types of social networks - supportive and informational - influences individual adaptation to the new ICT and its related performance. Based on the social network theory and the coping theory, we establish a research model that combines social network variables with psychometric ones. A total of 85 responses are analyzed to test the proposed model and its hypotheses using PLS and UCINET. The results show that the coping effort mechanism of individuals can be explained in terms of social networks. Specifically, supportive network position significantly predicts self-efficacy that explains emotion-focused coping mechanism, while informational network position significantly influences absorptive capacity that accounts for problem-focused coping mechanism. We conclude the paper by discussing theoretical and practical implications for the research findings in terms of social networks and technochanges.