The impact of human IT capability on workforce agility: exploring the significance of environmental factors

Purpose The purpose of the study is to investigate how human information technology (HIT) capability (in terms of business functions, interpersonal management and technology management capabilities) influences workforce agility (WFA) (termed as workforce proactivity, resilience and adaptability) along with the moderating influences of external environmental factors named environmental diversity (EDiv) and hostility. Design/methodology/approach A simple random sampling technique is used to collect primary responses from information technology (IT) and bank managers working in various public, private and regional rural banking enterprises in India. The analysis is performed using AMOS (Version 25), a covariance-based structural equation modeling approach. Findings The findings are that business functions, interpersonal and technology management skills make the workforce proactive and, to some extent, adaptable, but their adaptability is compromised by excessive resilience when they only focus on developing IT management skills. It is further supported by the moderation analysis with environmental hostility. Additionally, EDiv makes the workforce more agile with augmented HIT capabilities. Originality/value Although the existing literature extensively examines the IT capability-organizational agility relationships, there is very little attention to the human aspects of IT (HIT) and agility (WFA). This kind of research in the context of developing economies such as India is very thin on the ground. Further, a meticulous investigation of how the HIT capability–WFA relationships vary in the presence of external contingent factors offers novel insights into the extant theories.