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Top1. Introduction
Recently, multiple reports have emerged as warnings of increased levels of stress among employees in multiple industries. Due to global warfare, the pandemic, and economic concerns, general stress levels have increased to shocking degrees (APA, 2022). In parallel, technology-related issues and concerns have been related to higher levels of stress in employees (Lynn, 2021). Therefore, there is strong evidence that we are dealing with an unprecedented level of work-related technological stress that requires urgent academic and empirical investigation.
In these modern times, we are engaged in a “digitally empowered environment” that is characterized by many modern technologies throughout diverse organizations and industries. Work tasks often demand a certain level of technology use. While this use leads to benefits for organizations, it can also lead to numerous harmful effects on psycho-physiological well-being and job performance. Technostress, one indicator of such adverse effects, is the first focus of this study. Technostress has been defined as a negative, psychological impact caused by technology (Weil & Rosen, 1997); an unintended, negative outcome of technology (Tarafdar et al., 2011); and a negative, psychological state of stress linked to technology use (Fischer and Riedl, 2017), technology-use demands (Gaudioso et al., 2017), or the abuse of technology (Salanova et al., 2014).
In the information systems (IS) literature, technostress is conceptualized as techno-stressors, which are stressful conditions caused by technology use that lead to negative outcomes (Tarafdar et al., 2007; Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008). These techno-stressors are behaviorally and psychologically manifested in five dimensions (i.e., techno-overload (TO), techno-invasion (TINV), techno-complexity (TC), techno-insecurity (TINS), and techno-uncertainty (TUN)).
In the technostress literature, there is a growing interest in examining the effects of techno-stressors on employee health and psychological well-being rather than on organizational outcomes (e.g., productivity) (Laspinas, 2015). Consequently, techno-stressors are associated with two main psychological experiences (i.e., techno-strain and techno-addiction (Salanova et al., 2014)), which may eventually affect behavioral responses (e.g., performance). However, techno-strain experience (related to anxiety, fatigue, burn-out, and exhaustion) has received more attention and empirical support than techno-addiction (e.g., Ayyagari et al., 2011; Maier et al., 2015). Therefore, this study focuses on techno-addiction, which is a type of psychological strain/anxiety associated with the compulsive use of technology (Salanova et al., 2014).
Technostress studies focus on the effects of techno-stressors with different antecedents (e.g., technology characteristics, computer self-efficacy, and demographics) (Ayyagari et al., 2011; Shu et al., 2011), moderators (e.g., personality traits, cultural dimensions, and technostress inhibitors) (Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008; Srivastava et al., 2015; Ma & Turel, 2018), and outcomes (e.g., productivity, performance, employee innovation, user satisfaction, and discontinuous usage intention) (Tarafdar et al., 2007; Srivastava et al., 2015; Maier et al., 2015). Nevertheless, to our knowledge, despite the urgent calls to focus more on employees’ mental health within financial technology companies (FinTechs) (FinTech Global, 2021), a limited number of studies examine technostress in these companies. Only a few recent studies have attempted to examine technostress in FinTechs, but from a consumer’s/user’s perspective rather than an employee’s (e.g., Lee, 2021). Other studies have focused on traditional financial institutions rather than on FinTechs in the era of digitalization (e.g., Liu et al., 2020). Therefore, based on the above arguments, we attempt to address the following research question: