It is an important research issue to develop approaches to adapt to environmental change for Japanese companies with low sensitivity to changes. This study regards COVID-19 as a major environmental change and analyzes relationships between (1) top management team (TMT) diversity and adaptation to environmental change and (2) adaptation to environmental change and workplace investments. The sample comprises Information and communications and Services industries listed on the Prime Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. We conducted regression analysis using cross-sectional data. The results reveal that TMT diversity has a positive impact on adapting to the environmental change and that companies adapting to environmental change make proactive workplace investments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study contributes to the literature on the workplace and the upper echelon theory.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in the use of remote work in businesses. This has led to an increase in the use of cloud services in businesses, as well as an increase in the use of unapproved shadow clouds in the workplace. Therefore, in this study, the motivation of employees to use unapproved shadow clouds in the workplace was clarified based on previous research and the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis revealed that employees perceived benefits in job performance in workplace relationships, which are social norms, and do not perceive security risks, leading to shadow cloud use behavior. On the other hand, the IT function’s trust was found to be a hindrance to shadow clouds.