Do emotions matter in digitized workplace? Technostress and employees’ emotional well-being during the pandemic
ISSN: 0368-492X
Article publication date: 6 September 2022
Issue publication date: 28 November 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This study aimed to examine the impact of COVID-19 concerns on employees’ well-being, considering workplace stress, aggression, and emotional outcomes, such as emotional engagement, emotional exhaustion, and negative emotional reactions. This study also considers the moderating role of technostress between workplace stress and aggression, which has been overlooked in previous studies.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from frontline hotel employees in Turkey. Online data were collected through Amazon Mechanical Turk services. A total of 250 questionnaires were distributed. Nevertheless, only 204 questionnaires with valid responses were usable for analysis through partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).
Findings
The analytical findings showed that COVID-19 concerns (financial, social gaze, and technological) cause workplace stress, resulting in aggression. Aggression subsequently affects the employees’ emotional outcomes, impacting their emotional well-being. Furthermore, the results showed that technostress insignificantly moderates workplace stress and aggression.
Practical implications
This study provides valuable practical implications to the hotels’ top management, practitioners, and policymakers to provide preventive measures to employees, such as wearing masks and maintaining distance. Hotel practitioners should limit employees’ direct contact with customers and reduce factors that result in overall financial losses and create financial stress for employees.
Originality/value
The current study examined the relationships between the study’s variables in Turkey’s hotel industry context by employing the conservation of resources (COR) theory. The study investigated stress and aggression phenomena, their impact on employees’ emotional responses, and ultimately their influence on the employees’ well-being.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research paper was partially supported by Ms. Saira Sohail who is a Ph.D. candidate at Superior University. The authors acknowledge her input during the revision stage because she provided insight and expertise that greatly assisted the research study. The authors are immensely grateful to her for her support during the revision of this manuscript.
Citation
Ali, F., Nisar, Q.A. and Nasir, S. (2023), "Do emotions matter in digitized workplace? Technostress and employees’ emotional well-being during the pandemic", Kybernetes, Vol. 52 No. 12, pp. 6122-6143. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-10-2021-1000
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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