Impact of Empowering Communication Technology Practices on Service Performance in Information Technology Sector

The technological advancement has tremendously evolved over the last two decades with continuing changes throughout their system and communication practices. The association between the elements of communication technology and service performance, however, has yet to be explored with special focus on employee empowerment from an organizational behavior point of view. This research’s main aim is examine the impact of communication technology practices on service performance in the Information Technology (IT) sector. Therefore the mixed method research approach has been selected for the purposes of this study. 20 interviews have been conducted with experts in the field from the Iran Telecommunication Research Centre. 254 data samples were collected from IT sector employees in Iran. Data was used to test the conceptually developed model via the structural equation modeling-partial least square (SEM-PLS) approach. Based on the qualitative data, communication technology practices can be grouped into six areas including technology application, technology of equal opportunity, individual ability in technology, individual knowledge and attitudes towards technology, technological infrastructure, and security. The results show that among other factors, those variables related to technology application, individual knowledge and attitudes towards technology, organizational infrastructure for technology, and technology security have a positive impact on employees’ empowerment; whereas technology application has a reverse effect. Moreover, the present study’s results show that employee empowerment has a significant relationship to service performance in the ITsector.