Eustress instead of Distress

: A quantitative investigation into technostress and promoting eustress in IT users.

Abstract

Technology related stress or Technostress has mainly been studied as an individual’s inability to cope with the effects of using information systems in a healthy way. As such, there are various studies that provide insight into negative technostress or techno distress. The positive effects of information technology use, or techno eustress have not received as much attention. Techno distress is caused by factors related to the characteristics of information systems (technostress creators). Organizations can mitigate these effects with measures aimed at helping users better deal with distress. Contrary to most prior research, this study develops a model to examine the effects of technostress creators and inhibitors on eustress and the intention of users to continue or even expand use of information systems. The study was conducted via a survey in which employees of 4 municipalities in the Netherlands were asked specific questions regarding the subject. A sample of 389 cases was obtained for analysis. Research questions were acquired from earlier studies into the subject to operationalize the developed model. The results show a positive correlation between technostress inhibitors and eustress on intention to continue and expand IS use. The study also shows that user consultation facilitation is a valuable construct in research into technostress inhibitors. Organizations can benefit from these findings by implementing or expanding on technostress inhibitors available to their employees.

Date of Award	13 Aug 2020
Original language	English
Supervisor	Lars Rieser (Examiner) & Remko Helms (Co-assessor)