Hybrid and virtual work settings, the interaction between technostress, perceived organisational support, work-family conflict and the impact on work engagement

PurposeThe study assessed the impact of technostress creators, work–family conflict and perceived organisational support (POS) on work engagement for employees operating within the virtual and hybrid work settings. The idea is to redefine the antecedents of work engagement in work settings that are characterised by excessive technology and work–family conflict.Design/methodology/approachData gathered from 302 academics and support staff employees at a selected university in South Africa were utilised to assess the abovementioned relationships via variance-based structural equation modelling.FindingsThe combined effect of technostress, work–family conflict and POS on work engagement indicates that work–family conflict is a critical component in the relationship between technostress and work engagement. Although POS is seen as a job resource that lessens stress, the study found that the influence of work–family conflict is stronger than that of POS;hence, a negative influence is reported on work engagement. Despite the presence of support, overwhelming technostress creators and work–family conflict issues increase demands and influence work engagement negatively.Research limitations/implicationsThe results noted that, in hybrid and virtual work settings, managers can drive employee engagement by focussing on designing more favourable work–life balance (WLB) policies, providing adequate information communication technology (ICT) support, fostering aspects of positive technology and defining the boundaries between work life and family time.Practical implicationsThe managers need to realise the detrimental effects of both technostress and work–family conflict on work engagement in virtual and hybrid work settings. Expanding the personal and job resources of individuals in hybrid and virtual settings is critical to enable them to meet the additional work demands and to manage the strain imposed by technostress. Instituting relevant organisation support has proved to be inadequate to address the challenges relating to technostress and work–family conflict. Therefore, introducing WLB policies that assist employees to set clear boundaries between work and family time to avoid burn out and spillover is critical. This is especially important when dealing with technostress creators in the remote work setting. Additionally, providing adequate ICT support as well as training related to use of different devices and software should be part of the organisational culture.Social implicationsA manageable and reasonable workload should be maintained bearing in mind the complexity and ambiguity associated with the hybrid work setting. Managers should make allowances for employees to adjust managers' schedules to accommodate personal obligations, as well as adjust employees' workloads to accommodate family responsibilities. As for the coping strategy of technostress and work–family conflict, considering the positive effects of the supportive work environment is important.Originality/valueThis study provides a model on the interaction of the redefined antecedents (technostress and work–family conflict) of work engagement in high-tech environments such as virtual and hybrid work settings.

Analysis of technostress experienced by students at the university of cape town, during the COVID-19 pandemic

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is used to improve the quality of many people's lives. However, heavy reliance on ICT can lead to technostress, causing health and productivity problems. Technostress has been analysed in organisations, but not in a university context, especially under remote learning during COVID-19. The purpose of this paper is to provide an explanatory contribution to knowledge regarding university students' experiences of technostress and how it impacts their academic productivity and performance. The data for this paper was collected using an online questionnaire among the students of one leading research university in Africa and used to test hypotheses related to a technostress theoretical model. The data was gathered from a convenience sample of 100 student responses. A technostress model (based on transaction theory of stress) was formed for hypothesis testing. Some hypotheses were not supported, but those that were indicated that universities should ensure that techno-complexity is reduced, and remote learning environments are improved. It was also found that technostress has a negative impact on academic productivity and performance, and that coping mechanisms can moderate the relationship between technostress and academic productivity and performance. The findings related to student remote learning environments and the moderating effect of student coping mechanisms are unique to this study. © 2022 International Association for Computer Information Systems

Factors That Impact the Relationship between Perceived Organizational Support and Technostress in Teachers.

In the last two years, the obligatory use of technologies due to the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the technostress suffered by education professionals. This study investigates the relationships between technostress and perceived organizational support and the influence of certain socio-demographic variables. An online survey was administered to 771 teachers working in different educational stages in various autonomous communities in Spain. Perceived organizational support was found to be significantly correlated with technostress. Women tend to experience more technostress in general and significant gender differences were also found in the dimension of anxiety. The analyzed data also suggest that perceived organizational support is higher in private schools. In urban centers, teachers' technostress increases in higher educational stages, such as secondary education and baccalaureate. Further work is needed to develop school policies that address the needs of teachers and provide support for those at risk of technostress. In addition, there is a need to design coping strategies and prioritize the most at-risk sectors to improve their overall health and well-being.

Webcams and technostress: the complicated web of amplified online learning, webcam use, and technostress during COVID 19

Technological advances and COVID-19 have led to expedited technology use and online learning in higher education. Increased technology use and online learning have led individuals to either adapt or experience technostress. Higher education is a ripe context for technostress to occur, especially for students, since many courses are being offered in a hybrid and/or synchronous online format due to COVID-19. Students have often been required and/or encouraged to use multiple technologies, especially webcams, during online courses. Thus, this study explores the technostress students could be experiencing from requested webcam use as well as potential influencers and outcomes of technostress for students via exploring factors from Davis's [Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319-340] technology acceptance model in a new proposed model. Results indicated the model was a significant predictor for digital skills, perceived ease of use, technostress, and cognitive learning for students being required or not required to use webcams. Implications for researchers and instructors as well as future research directions are discussed.

University professors: teleworking conditions and use of technologies in the emergency remote teaching framework

The aim of this study is to learn about the experiences of university teachers during and after emergency remote teaching (ERT), which emerged in the context of isolation due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Its methodology has a qualitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional and descriptive design with a phenomenological approach. As results, the university professors consulted consider that during the ERT, the time dedicated to work increased, both due to meetings outside the timetable and to the creation of educational materials. They express having to use their own resources to teach their subjects online and also detail that there is a lack of technological training. The teachers also commented that they suffered health problems, such as visual weakness, body aches, stress, anxiety and depression. In conclusion, teachers face the situation by updating themselves in information and educational technologies, being flexible and adapting. A limitation of this study is that the sample was obtained with a non-probabilistic method by convenience, in 35 Mexican Institutions of Higher Education (IESM), so it is difficult to generalize these results to all Mexico.

Technostress Among Higher Education Students During the COVID-19 Outbreak

The experiences that higher education students have with technology and learning with the support of technological resources can generate feelings of stress and anxiety. Understanding whether or not students are ill-adapted to technology is of utmost importance to understand the extent to which changes are needed in the teaching and learning process. With this purpose, the students' perceptions about the technology, namely its familiarity, the ease of use, the utility of technological resources, levels of satisfaction with learning from remote learning, and levels of technostress during the confinement period due to the COVID-19 pandemic were evaluated. Several statistical methods were applied, including the multiple correspondence analysis and the k-means clustering algorithm, in order to obtain a partition of students based on their perceptions and experiences in the course of remote learning. The results revealed three distinct profiles concerning students' perceptions about their relationship with technology. Copyright © 2022, IGI Global.

Working in a bubble: techno-isolation as an emerging techno-stressor in teleworkers

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate existing and emerging technology-driven stressors using the transactional model of stress and coping (TMSC). Design/methodology/approach: In-depth semi-structured interviews with 36 professionals were performed to obtain qualitative data to explore emerging techno-stressors. The findings were validated a year into the pandemic with human resource (HR) professionals. Findings: The authors identify a previously unreported techno-stressor, Techno-Isolation (TIS), which arises from a heavy dependence on information communication technologies for professional social interactions. Additionally, several considerations of interaction characteristics are identified that, based on the platform used, affect the experience of TIS, further expanding the TMSC with the addition of medium-interaction compatibility. The authors present a testable model and discuss implications. Originality/value: This study identifies three new information communication technology (ICT)-based antecedents leading to a new techno-stressor, as well as the importance of medium-interaction compatibility in the experiences of stressors as strains. The authors discuss how these elements fit with and extend the existing stress literature. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Learning Complex Technology Online: Effect of Challenge and Hindrance Techno-stressors on Student Satisfaction and Retention

Despite increasing attention to online learning worldwide, learning complex technologies online has always been challenging and even hindersome to students, who are subjected to elevated levels of technostress. In contrast to most previous studies that focused on the negative side of technostress, this study investigated both the negative and positive sides of technostress. Based on the challenge hindrance framework (CHF), the holistic stress model (HSM), and the person-environment fit (P-E Fit) model, we examined how challenge and hindrance techno-stressors caused distress and eustress in online students and lead to associated outcomes. We empirically validated the research model by analyzing survey data collected from 565 online graduate business students enrolled at a university in the United States. The results revealed that some hindrance and challenge techno-stressors were associated with techno-distress and techno-eustress, which further impacted student satisfaction and student retention. We discussed the contributions and implications and provided future research directions.

Technostress at work during the COVID-19 lockdown phase (2020-2021): a systematic review of the literature.

Technostress is a psychosocial phenomenon associated with the use of technologies to the detriment of health, the same one that during the pandemic was accelerated in the work considering home confinement. This work aims to systematize the main research on the impact of technostress at work during the severe confinement stage of the pandemic, between the years 2020 and 2021, with the purpose of identify and evaluate its main determining factors. A systematic review of the literature was carried out during COVID-19, using the words "technostress work COVID-19." The works found focus mainly on analyzing the creators and inhibitors of technostress in workers, as well as the main consequences of the materialization of this technological risk associated with work performance during the stage of confinement by COVID-19. Techno invasion and techno overload were identified as the main techno stressors, with the main type of technostress appreciated in the literature being techno fatigue. Technostress is identified as a problem that had direct and relevant effects during the season of severe confinement and remote work at home due to COVID-19; highlighting techno fatigue as the most frequent type of stress, and techno stressors such as techno invasion and overload as the ones that presented the highest incidence.

Teaching after the pandemic: The role of technostress and organizational support on intentions to adopt remote teaching technologies.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to several changes in academic teaching practices. Although educational digital technologies have been crucial during the initial phases of the pandemic, their forced adoption has led to negative consequences. In the present study, we aimed to integrate the Technology Acceptance Model theoretical framework (Davis, 1989) by exploring the effects of some possible factors that influence the willingness to adopt digital learning tools in the future when the pandemic is over. Among them, technostress was considered one of the external factors that could have adversely affected digital teaching technology adoption in the future. In contrast, the perception of technical support offered by the university was considered a potential protective factor. A total of 463 Italian university faculty completed an online questionnaire at the end of the first semester (a.y. 2020-21). The frequency of distance teaching technologies usage behavior was measured objectively by extracting teachers' activities from the University's e-learning databases. Key findings indicated that distance teaching technologies' frequency of use increased technostress, which in turn negatively impacted the perception of ease of use. The latter influences - both directly and indirectly through perceived usefulness - the intentions to adopt distance learning tools after the pandemic. Organizational support negatively predicted technostress. Implications to help public institutions develop functional strategies to cope with the technological changes brought by the pandemic are discussed.

Segmentation preference and technostress: Integrators' vs segmenters' experience of technology-induced demands and related spill-over effects

Remote work is becoming the "new normal”, and more people are working in the home office due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Boundary management and the individual preferences to segment work and private life are a current topic of research as digital technologies have the potential to aggravate segmentation due to their invasive effect. In this context, we add to a current research stream on technostress, investigating technology-driven spill-over in a longitudinal study based on data assessed during the pandemic. The use of communication technologies leads to work-to-family stress due to the occurrence of techno-stressors interruptions, invasion, and overload. Differences between "segmenters” (people with a strong wish for separation) and "integrators” (who rather integrate life domains) were found. They experience techno-stressors differently in dependence on their technology use. Our paper offers interesting theoretical insights into boundary transcending effects of technology use. Recommendations for employers on how to shape the "new normal” are discussed.

Why university students are technostressed with remote classes: Study-Family conflict, satisfaction with university life, and academic performance

Due to the global effects of COVID-19, most universities quickly went online and sent their students home, switching from traditional face-to-face classes to video conferencing platforms. Massive virtual protests in several countries showed signs that university students suffered from technostress, questioning the assumption that "digital natives” are better prepared for technology-mediated learning. We analyzed whether one cause of this technostress was the obligation to share home space and family time with studies. We also analyzed whether this technostress affected satisfaction with university life and, ultimately, academic performance. We tested the hypotheses using structural equation modeling and analyzed data from 189 college students. Our main conclusion is that study-family conflict given remote learning affects academic performance in students. The effect of this conflict on performance is mediated by technostress and satisfaction with university life. The perception of invasion and overload due to remote learning causes dissatisfaction with university life in students, and this dissatisfaction decreases academic performance. Higher education institutions should become concerned about this problem and take action. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd

Sociability and Technostress in Online Classes: The Effects on Students' Emotional Exhaustion During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The move to online classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led students in high schools to experience new issues because of their constant use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). One of the consequences of constant ICT use is emotional exhaustion, which is raised or limited by different factors. The teachers' sociability is one of the factors that might decrease emotional exhaustion in students during online classes, while technostress could further it. Moreover, technostress creators could act as moderators on the effect of sociability on emotional exhaustion. These effects are tested with the help of a study with 592 participants, discovering that the sociability in online classes has an effect on how emotionally exhausted the students are. The antecedent technostress also has an effect on emotional exhaustion, thus furthering it. This paper contributes to the information systems (IS) literature by showing how students are affected by constant ICT use. © 2023 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Technostress in university students as an effect of the coronavirus pandemic

Technostress-the difficulty of adapting to technologies-is a psychosocial condition that can affect one's emotional state and certainly seems to be affecting today's society. This is no longer a concept that is exclusive to workers whose work activities are directly related to technology;it now also affects millions of students in education. Digital migration forced by compulsory confinement has led to technostress in students all over the world, with consequences such as rejection, denial, fear, uncertainty and a series of other problems that affect students' mental state and integrity. These conditions in turn lead to a decrease in the quality of education, as students become fatigued, tired, or bored by having to spend so much time in front of information and communication technologies. The purpose of this chapter is to measure the level of technostress in higher education students who have been forced to change from on-site to the online educational models. It is also intended to compare the perception of the same students regarding these two educational models, in order to detect variants that affect their academic performance. The research uses a four-dimensional construct, in addition to analysing students' perception of each educational model through a fifth dimension. The results show that for students, the forced change from on-site to online education has posed a great challenge, resulting in negation, rejection, and addiction, among other conditions, which together account for a high level of technostress. © 2022 Emerald Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.

From Conflict to Balance: Challenges for Dual-Earner Families Managing Technostress and Work Exhaustion in the Post-Pandemic Scenario.

Within the last three years, the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has contributed to changing many aspects of individual and collective life. Focusing on professional life, the forced shift to remote working modalities, the consequent blurring of work-family (WF) boundaries, and the difficulties for parents in childrearing have significantly impacted family routines. These challenges have been more evident for some specific vulnerable categories of workers, such as dual-earner parents. Accordingly, the WF literature investigated the antecedents and outcomes of WF dynamics, highlighting positive and negative aspects of digital opportunities that may affect WF variables and their consequences on workers' well-being. In view of the above, the present study aims to investigate the key role of WF conflict and WF balance in mediating the relationship between technostress and work exhaustion. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to examine direct and indirect relationships among technostress, WF conflict, WF balance, and work exhaustion. Respondents were 376 Italian workers, specifically dual-earner parents who have at least one child. Results and implications are discussed with specific reference to the organizational policies and interventions that could be developed to manage technostress and WF conflict, fostering individual and social adjustment to the new normal.

Knowledge diffusion–application association during the COVID-19 pandemic: investigating the role of technology intervention: Very Informal Newsletter on Library Automation

PurposeKnowledge management during the pandemic has been a challenging task due to the sudden intervention of technology in the organisational environment and the unexpected shift to the work-from-home culture. This study aims to investigate the role of technology intervention in the relationship between knowledge diffusion and knowledge application.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional study was conducted and data were collected from 541 employees who were working from home during the pandemic in India.FindingsThis study found significant relationships between knowledge diffusion and technology intervention. This study also observed the mediating role of technology intervention in the relationship between knowledge diffusion and knowledge application.Originality/valueTis study stands with other pioneering studies that have explored the role of technology intervention in the knowledge diffusion–application relationship using the job demand-resource model.

Social Support as Technostress Inhibitor: Even More Important During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Due to ongoing digitalization and the social distancing measures that came along with the COVID-19 pandemic, the working conditions and environments have changed for many individuals. Because of increased telework, the use of digital technologies for communicating and collaborating at work has been intensified, which can cause technostress. With longitudinal data from two surveys – one before and one during the COVID-19 pandemic – the paper analyzes the relationship between four social support dimensions (supervisor support, co-worker support, sense of community at work, and family support) and technostress creators. The study shows that social support can be an effective inhibitor of technostress creators. However, social support dimensions have to be differentiated in that regard. Further, the results show that the inhibiting effect of family support has become even more important during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results contribute to technostress research and research with regard to the new normal of working after the pandemic. © 2023, The Author(s).

¿Teletrabajadores o tele explotados? Implicaciones en las vivencias laborales y extralaborales en pandemia en Argentina

La pandemia mundial de COVID-19, alteró las bases del mercado del trabajo en Argentina, acentuando las desigualdades sociales. Las empresas reconsideraron el potencial del teletrabajo, pues esta dimensión de análisis delimitó el futuro de la organización, de la vida laboral y personal. El presente artículo sintetiza dos objetivos: primero, describir cómo la pandemia repercutió en la actividad laboral y extralaboral de los teletrabajadores. El segundo objetivo fue explorar el futuro del trabajo, ahondando qué creen que harán las empresas y qué desea el trabajador. Anclados en enfoques transdisciplinarios y situados en una perspectiva interpretativa fenomenológica de naturaleza cualitativa, se diseñó un estudio exploratorio y descriptivo asincrónico (2020-2021), el muestreo no probabilístico incluyó 113 sujetos voluntarios y la herramienta de recolección fue la entrevista en profundidad semiestructurada. Bajo la aparente expresión de satisfacción en el trabajo, se escondió la sobrecarga, la falta de apoyo empresario en términos de equipamientos, el aumento del control, el temor al desempleo, la ansiedad, la insatisfacción con los superiores y una mayor demanda de confianza en los estilos de liderazgo;se concientizó la disponibilidad de competencia blandas, el derecho a la desconexión y a la privacidad, para defender el sano equilibrio entre la vida laboral y extralaboral.

New spaces of inequality with the rise of remote work: Autonomy, technostress, and life disruption

The proliferation of remote work with the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a new geography of work and new spaces of inequality. While working remotely can be advantageous, remote work experiences have varied substantially. Those who balanced work-from-home with childcare and education required greater life adjustments. Additionally, while some may have found flexibility and autonomy in where and when they work, others experienced technology-related stress. The upshot is that remote work has transformed the spatial dynamics of work and living space in ways that require reexamining geographic conceptualizations of labor inequality. We build on research on remote work in economic geography, organizational science, and urban studies to (re)conceptualize the varieties of experiences with the transition to remote work and the inequalities embodied in those experiences. To investigate these dynamics, we surveyed 1,172 remote workers in the US during the Covid-19 pandemic, examining how remote work has (re)shaped their working lives and lived experiences of the labor market, as measured by autonomy, technostress, and life disruption. The results identify old and new spaces of inequality as manifested in a wide divergence of work experiences and outcomes, especially across race, age/generation, and the number of dependents. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd

Work, life and COVID‐19: a rapid review and practical recommendations for the post‐pandemic workplace

Remote working because of the COVID‐19 pandemic has eroded boundaries between work and home, necessitating the need to evaluate the long‐term impacts of these changes and mitigate any negative effects on workers' work‐life experiences. To do so, we reviewed and examined work‐life research published since the start of the pandemic. The review yielded a sample of 303 work‐life scholarly articles, with three common themes: 1) work‐life boundaries have become more permeable, with behavior‐based and time‐based work‐life conflict emerging as the more salient forms of work‐life conflict;2) technical work demands have increased, as employees grapple with techno‐invasion, techno‐overload and techno‐complexity;and 3) psychological and emotional work demands have intensified. Based on these key findings, we call for multi‐level and multi‐agency responses to deal with the complex, diverse nature of work‐life demands. Specifically, we offer recommendations at the individual‐, team/organizational‐ and societal/governmental‐levels to enhance employees' work and non‐work lives after the pandemic. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)