Unfolding Benefits of Virtual Reality for Workplace and Process Design based on Utility Effect Chains

The advent of sophisticated virtual reality (VR) technologies has the potential to transform the way organizations design their workplaces and processes. The evaluation of artifacts for this use case is mostly limited to short-term effects at the task level. This paper therefore aims to unfold the benefits of using VR for workplace and process design in the long run at the division and corporate level. For this purpose, we applied a mixed methods approach. First, we identified benefits by using a VR software artifact for workplace and process design in field studies. Second, we extended the initial benefits by applying utility effect chains resulting in benefits at the division and corporate level. The resultant utility effect chain model reveals that, in addition to functional benefits, the hedonistic user experience of VR can also provide economic benefits for organizations in the long term