Organizational use of information and communications technologies (ICT) is increasingly resulting in negative cognitions in individuals, such as information overload and interruptions. Recent literature has encapsulated these cognitions in the concept of technostress, which is stress caused by an inability to cope with the demands of organizational computer usage. Given the critical role of the user in organizational information processing and accomplishing application-enabled workflows, understanding how these cognitions affect users' satisfaction with ICT and their performance in ICT-mediated tasks is an important step in appropriating benefits from current computing environments. The objective of this paper is to (1) understand the negative effects of technostress on the extent to which end users perceive the applications they use to be satisfactory and can utilize them to improve their performance at work and (2) identify mechanisms that can mitigate these effects. Specifically, we draw from the end-user computing and technostress literature to develop and validate a model that analyzes the effects of factors that create technostress on the individual's satisfaction with, and task performance using, ICT. The model also examines how user involvement in ICT development and support mechanisms for innovation can be used to weaken technostress-creating factors and their outcomes. The results, based on survey data analysis from 233 ICT users from two organizations, show that factors that create technostress reduce the satisfaction of individuals with the ICT they use and the extent to which they can utilize ICT for productivity and innovation in their tasks. Mechanisms that facilitate involvement of users, and encourage them to take risks, learn, explore new ideas, and experiment in the context of ICT use, diminish the factors that create technostress and increase satisfaction with the ICT they use. These mechanisms also have a positive effect on users' appropriation of ICT for productivity and innovation in their tasks. The paper contributes to emerging literature on negative outcomes of ICT use by (1) highlighting the influence of technostress on users' satisfaction and performance (i.e., productivity and innovation in ICT-mediated tasks) with ICT, (2) extending the literature on technostress, which has so far looked largely at the general behavioral and psychological domains, to include the domain of end-user computing, and (3) demonstrating the importance of user involvement and innovation support mechanisms in reducing technostress-creating conditions and their ICT use-related outcomes.
The research reported in this paper studies the phenomenon of technostress, that is, stress experienced by end users of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and examines its influence on their job satisfaction, commitment to the organization, and intention to stay. Drawing from the Transaction-Based Model of stress and prior research on the effects of ICTs on end users, we first conceptually build a nomological net for technostress to understand the influence of technostress on three variables relating to end users of ICTs: job satisfaction, and organizational and continuance commitment. Because there are no prior instruments to measure constructs related to technostress, we develop and empirically validate two second order constructs: technostress creators (i.e., factors that create stress from the use of ICTs) and technostress inhibitors (i.e., organizational mechanisms that reduce stress from the use of ICTs). We test our conceptual model using data from the responses of 608 end users of ICTs from multiple organizations to a survey questionnaire. Our results, based on structural equation modeling (SEM), show that technostress creators decrease job satisfaction, leading to decreased organizational and continuance commitment, while Technostress inhibitors increase job satisfaction and organizational and continuance commitment. We also find that age, gender, education, and computer confidence influence technostress. The implications of these results and future research directions are discussed.
Based on empirical survey data, this paper uses concepts from sociotechnical theory and role theory to explore the effects of stress created by information and computer technology (ICT)--that is, "technostress"--on role stress and on individual productivity. We first explain different ways in which ICTs can create stress in users and identify factors that create technostress. We next propose three hypotheses: (1) technostress is inversely related to individual productivity, (2) role stress is inversely related to individual productivity, and (3) technostress is directly related to role stress. We then use structural equation modeling on survey data from ICT users in 223 organizations to test the hypotheses. The results show support for them. Theoretically, the paper contributes in three ways. First, the different dimensions of technostress identified here add to existing concepts on stress experienced by individuals in organizations. Second, by showing that technostress inversely affects productivity, the paper reinforces that failure to manage the effects of ICT-induced stress can offset expected increases in productivity. Third, validation of the positive relationship between technostress and role stress adds a new conceptual thread to literature analyzing the relationship between technology and organizational roles and structure. In the practical domain, the paper proposes a diagnostic tool to evaluate the extent to which technostress is present in an organization and suggests that the adverse effects of technostress can be partly countered by strategies that reduce role conflict and role overload.