Technology Characteristics as Predictors of Psychological Strain

Introduction

At present times, we are engaged in a “digitally-driven environment” that is characterized by excessive use of technology. Many employees perceive technology as beneficial, whereas others perceive technology as damaging. Till today, there are still debates about whether technology is useful or harmful. Thus, recently, there has been a shift in research for examining the negative effects of technology rather than the positive effects, especially since technology has shown to create threats rather than only opportunities for organizations (Lai, 2016).

Recent surveys showed 45% of employees feel socially disconnected because of technology; 18% identify the use of technology as a significant source of stress; 20% relate to technology as a cause of more stress when functioning improperly; 86% remain digitally connected; thus, high levels of stress have emerged (APA, 2017). Indeed, technology is not entirely replacing the human labor force, but it is demanding new sets of cognitive skills since work demands are transitioning from physical to mental loads. As a consequence, advances in technology have intensified the existence of psychological stress/strain.

Earlier and recent studies in the technology and stress literature have mainly focused on examining various job outcomes (e.g., productivity, user satisfaction, innovation, performance, and organizational commitment, etc.) rather than employees’ psychological well-being (e.g., Brooks, 2015; Hwang & Cha, 2018; Chandra, Shirish, & Srivastava, 2019). Because of such limited studies (e.g., Ayyagari, Grover, & Purvis, 2011), estimating the impact of technology on individual well-being has been challenging. In a recent report by Forbes (2019), organizations and businesses are incurring annual losses in billions of dollars because of focusing more on their growth and less on their employees’ mental health. Therefore, the current research attempts to answer the following main research question:

• RQ: Is technology perceived as a significant cause of psychological strain at work?

Drawing on the work system misfit model, the present research develops and tests a model consisting of three different technology characteristics (usefulness, presenteeism, and responsiveness) as antecedents, five techno-stressors (techno-overload, techno-complexity, techno-uncertainty, techno-invasion, and techno-insecurity) as mediators, and psychological strain as an outcome. A web-based survey questionnaire was utilized to test the twelve proposed hypotheses by surveying 163 employees from different financial and technological organizations.

This research offers two contributions with practical and theoretical significance. First, technology research has been integrated more thoroughly with the psychological stress domain. Specifically, the current research adopts a multi-disciplinary exchange framework to investigate which specific technology characteristic or feature is perceived as the most significant antecedent or cause of psychological strain. Such studies have been relatively rare in literature, which led to limited findings and a lack of practical awareness. Thus, this research delivers new insights for organizations to develop their technological environments and consequently, improve their employees’ mental health. By doing so, organizations are able to significantly reduce their annual losses. Second, because of global competition, the constant need for growth, and rapid technological advancements, new technology features have recently emerged without any empirical measurements to support their practicalities. Therefore, this research develops a short measure of a new dynamic technology feature (i.e., responsiveness) that may be used by scholars and practitioners in the broad Information Systems (IS) discipline.

The remainder of this research is structured as follows: the next section expands on the concepts of technostress, techno-stressors, and psychological strain. Then, the author presents arguments for the proposed research model and the hypotheses development preceded by the work system misfit model. These are followed by the methodology section. The author then elaborates on the results and conclude with a discussion of the findings.