Is the Internet of Things a helpful employee? An exploratory study of discourses of Canadian farmers

Abstract

The increasing global population and the growing demand for high-quality products have called for the modernization of agriculture. “Internet of Things” is one of the technologies that is predicted to offer many solutions. We conducted a discourse analysis of 19 interviews with farmers in Ontario, Canada, asking them to describe their experience of working with IoT and related technologies. One main discourse with two opposing tendencies was identified: farmers recognize their relationship with IoT and related technology and view technology as a kind of “employee”, but some tend to emphasize (1) an optimistic view which is discourse of technology is a “Helpful Employee”; while others tend to emphasize (2) a pessimistic view which is a discourse of technology is an “Untrustworthy Employee”. We examine these tendencies in the light of the literature on organizational behavior and identify potential outcomes of these beliefs. The results suggest that a farmer's style of approaching technology can be assessed on a similar scale as managers’ view of their employees and provide a framework for further research.