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Top1. Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic forced most organizations to abruptly shift their activities (fully or partially) to the digital sphere. Employees’ inability to use the newly digitalized systems to work during the pandemic may cause stress (Turel et al., 2019). Technostress describes the inability to cope with using an information system tool (Brod, 1984). Barber and Santuzzi (2015) defined technostress as “stress creators appraised by the individual as threatening.” Technostress is not only a source of distraction and interruption (Sonnentag et al., 2018) but also a source of adverse health and well-being (Tarafdar et al., 2020). Positive work interactions foster positive attitudes and behaviors, such as constructive emotions, high morale, job satisfaction and engagement (Luthans and Broad, 2020; Lyubomirsky et al., 2005), and workplace flourishing (Redelinghuys et al., 2019a). Personal growth, quality work relationships, and other organizational interactions foster workplace flourishing (Colbert et al., 2016; Diedericks and Rothmann, 2014).
Employees thrive when performing job-related activities well and experiencing elevated well-being (Keyes, 2007). But the lack of flourishing can inspire a mild form of misbehavior, such as withdrawal. Work withdrawal behavior has increased organizations’ hiring costs since lateness and absenteeism decrease productivity, collective efforts, and work quality (Abubakar et al., 2017; Loi et al., 2015). Because these behaviors are branded non-economic, practitioners and scholars have long ignored their organizational financial table and analysis costs. According to the 2017 Global Workplace report, work withdrawal behaviors cost the US economy around $450 billion, $151 billion to the German economy, and $83 billion to the UK economy (Lifexchange, 2021). Because such behaviors could profoundly impact the Saudi economy, studying workplace flourishing and withdrawal behavior from a technological perspective (e.g., technostress) is essential.
In the wake of technostress, individuals respond to stressful events in various ways, with some displaying avoidance and coping behaviors. Individuals may decrease their use of digitalized systems or quit using them altogether when faced with technostress (Nimrod, 2018a; Salazar-Concha et al., 2021; Tarafdar et al., 2020). The current work considers and examines these realities within the contexts of workplace flourishing and employee withdrawal behavior. This study’s purpose is threefold. First, policy debates and discussions have advocated for remote working, linking it to several positive outcomes for workers and organizations. But the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated migration to remote working, which has altered and produced new, negative work habits (Nimrod, 2020; Pullins et al., 2020), popularly known as technostress. This study aims to generate scholarly research regarding this phenomenon.