PERCEPTIONS, COMFORT AND ACCEPTANCE OF THE DIGITALLY-ASSISTED MANAGER IN ORGANIZATIONS

The digital environment is increasingly imposing itself within the organizational framework, and digital tools such as artificial intelligence are becoming a habit and no longer remain the idea of something new; as a consequence, contemporary managers are changing, and with this change, confusion, reluctance, and even preferences may arise among employees. They might not only face difficulties in adapting to a digitally assisted manager, but could also question the efficiency of the digitally-assisted decisions made by them. Therefore, this paper pursues and is based on one main objective, namely, to show what employees’ perceptions are of this „modern manager”. The chosen study methodology is quantitative, built around a questionnaire whose purpose was to collect people’s perceptions regarding the comparative perspective between the traditional and digitally assisted manager, their comfort with this new type of manager and also their willingness to accept it. The research results will determine elements such as the role of empathy, efficiency, the importance of human relationships, the willingness to work and accept the modern manager, as well as the perception of empathy and efficiency among the two types of managers. Hence, the study attempts to make a significant contribution to understanding not only current perspectives in the contemporary organizational framework, but also to highlight possible future directions. As a result, the main statistical contributions of the paper manage to put into perspective very relevant issues, such as the fact that those who perceive the traditional manager as efficient do not reject the idea of a digitally assisted manager or that those who consider human relationships important do not reject the digitally assisted manager.