Publication: A Review of Workplace Stress in the Virtual Office
Research articles
These are my blog posts related to my research activities.
This category includes my academic publications, opinion pieces on academia or open science, research methods tips... Although I do my best to avoid academese, their content is research-focused and sometimes hard to read. Therefore, these articles are mostly destined to an academic audience.
Publication: Appraisal of Email Use as A Source of Workplace Stress: A Person-Environment Fit Approach
Publication: The technostress trifecta - techno eustress, techno distress and design: Theoretical directions and an agenda for research
Technostress—defined as stress that individuals experience due to their use of Information Systems—represents an emerging phenomenon of scholarly investigation. It examines how and why the use of IS causes individuals to experience various demands that they find stressful. This paper develops a framework for guiding future research in technostress experienced by individuals in organizations. We first review and critically analyse the state of current research on technostress reported in journals from the IS discipline and the non-IS disciplines that study stress in organizations (eg, organizational behaviour and psychological stress). We then develop our framework in the form of the “technostress trifecta”—techno-eustress, techno-distress, and Information Systems design principles for technostress. The paper challenges 3 key ideas imbued in the existing technostress literature. First, it develops the argument that, in contrast to negative outcomes, technostress can lead to positive outcomes such as greater effectiveness and innovation at work. Second, it suggests that instead of limiting the role of IS to that of being a stress creator in the technostress phenomenon, it should be expanded to that of enhancing the positive and mitigating the negative effects of technostress through appropriate design. Third, it lays the groundwork for guiding future research in technostress through an interdisciplinary framing that enriches both the IS and the psychological stress literatures through a potential discourse of disciplinary exchange.
Publication: E-mail load, workload stress and desired e-mail load: a cybernetic approach
Purpose – Using email is a time-consuming activity that can increase workload stress. This paper investigates the relationship between the individual’s email load, workload stress and desired email load, drawing from the cybernetic theory of stress.
Design/methodology/approach – Based on prior theory, we first hypothesized relationships among email load, workplace stress and desired email load. We then tested these relationships on a sample of 504 full-time workers in the U.S., using survey data and covariance based structural equation modeling techniques.
Findings – We find that (1) higher email load is associated with higher workload stress; (2) higher workload stress is associated with lower desired email load; (3) lower desired email load is associated with lower email load; and (4) higher workload stress is associated with higher psychological strain, higher negative emotions, and lower organizational commitment.
Originality/value – The study provides a novel understanding of workload stress due to email load, through the lens of cybernetic theory. It contributes to the email overload and technostress literatures by conceptualizing desired email load as a potential outcome of workplace stress and as a regulator for email load. For practitioners, the study highlights the importance of managing employees’ email load to prevent the negative effects of workplace stress and associated strains.
Publication: Electronic communication in the workplace: boon or bane?
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review technostress-related challenges arising out of workplace communication, for employees and organizations, and to provide suggestions for taking these challenges on.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents an overview of current research and practice in the area of technostress-related challenges workplace communication.
Findings – Employees face technostress challenges relating to workplace communication in the form of technology overload, interruptions and work-home interferences. Organizations have to strike a balance between giving employees the technology they want and protecting them from these challenges. Several interventions to strike such balance are reviewed and commented on.
Practical implications – The paper gives practitioners an accessible overview of current research and practice in the area of technostress from workplace communication such as e-mail. A number of practical interventions are reviewed and commented on, which could help employees tackle such challenges.
Originality/value – Although this paper reviews state-of-the-art research, it is written in an accessible and practitioner-oriented style, which should be found valuable by readers with limited time but urgency to deal with technostress challenges arising out of workplace communication.