The moderating roles of technological self-efficacy and time management in the technostress and employee performance relationship through burnout

Abstract

Purpose

The ongoing dispute as to whether using technology extensively at work may cause harm continues to gain momentum. Thus, the need for more research on the harmful effect of using technology at work and on the indirect effects on work performance is needed. The call for additional moderators in technostress research is still ongoing. The research contributes to the abovementioned gaps in the literature by analyzing a model with two moderators.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample population was chosen randomly from the lists provided by civil-servant unions and the chamber of commerce subsidiaries in the northwest region of Turkey. The employees received letters that explained the purpose of the study; the questionnaires sent to them. Out of 500 forms, 328 were returned. PLS-SEM technique was selected for hypothesis testing.

Findings

The results revealed support for all the hypotheses, and proposed moderators can be used to mitigate the harms of technostress and burnout. The findings have implications for both theory and practice.

Research limitations/implications

The limitation of this research is its sample characteristics. Due to the cross-sectional nature of the data set, it is difficult to claim causality. Therefore, readers should use caution when extending generalizations to a broader population. As for the theoretical implications, the interest in the challenges posed by various technologies in the workplace on human psychology and health over the long term is quite new. And there is still room for other mediating and moderating mechanism for the interplay between technostress and related outcomes.

Practical implications

One of the practical implications is that technology at work might have the potential to create stress, sometimes greater than its benefits. The effects that might be created by other sources of stress when combined with stress related to technology in the workplace should also be taken seriously. There are tools to reduce the harm caused by technostress that practitioners could make use of such as time-management interventions.

Originality/value

The dispute whether using technology extensively at work may cause harm rather than advantage continues to confuse people, and with time it is gaining momentum. Thus, there is necessity for more research on the harms of technology, and especially on the indirect effects on work performance. Second, the vast technostress literature seems to neglect to discern task performance from contextual one as the dependent variable. Lastly, the call for additional moderators in technostress research is still prevailing. The research contributes to the abovementioned gaps in the literature by analyzing a model with two moderators.

Citation

Yener, S., Arslan, A. and Kilinç, S. (2021), "The moderating roles of technological self-efficacy and time management in the technostress and employee performance relationship through burnout", Information Technology & People, Vol. 34 No. 7, pp. 1890-1919. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-09-2019-0462