Study on techno-stress and coping strategies published in the Journal of Business Economics!
In this year’s September issue of the Journal of Business Economics (formerly: Zeitschrift für Betriebswirtschaft) a study was published with the collaboration of the Schöller Endowed Chair Team. In the article “Technostress mitigation: an experimental study of social support during a computer freeze ” Prof. Dr. Sven Laumer together with Dr. Christoph Weinert, Dr. Christian Maier and Prof. Dr. Tim Weitzel (University of Bamberg) analyses situations in which information technology (IT) does not behave as expected by the respective users. We are all familiar with these situations from our daily use of computers and they often trigger a feeling of stress. In such situations, stressed users seek instrumental (e.g. from the helpdesk) or emotional (e.g. comfort) support.
Using evidence from the psychological literature suggesting that social support reduces the effects of stressors, the study examines how instrumental and emotional support reduces the effects of techno-stressors, such as decreased performance, fatigue, and physiological reactions caused by the unreliability of technology, such as a computer crash.
In a laboratory situation, skin conductance measurements were used to evaluate the techno-stress of 73 subjects who were manipulated by techno- unreliability and then supported with instrumental and emotional support. The results suggest that social support increases end-user performance while reducing fatigue and physiological response. In particular, instrumental support directly affected end-user performance, exhaustion and physiological response, while emotional support only affected exhaustion. Furthermore, this study provides first evidence that the effect of social support on technostress depends on individual differences.
The Journal of Business Economics was founded in Germany in 1924 under the name Zeitschrift für Betriebswirtschaft (ZfB) and has since established itself as the leading scientific journal for decision-oriented management. In the VHB Jourqual 3 ranking, the Journal of Business Economics is listed in the “B” category.
The study can be downloaded here.
Reference:
Weinert, C., Maier, C., Laumer, S., Weitzel, T:. Technostress mitigation: an experimental study of social support during a computer freeze. Journal of Business Economics, 90, 1199–1249 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-020-00986-y