Computer-related technostress : an investigative study

Abstract

South African businesses have experienced challenging times since the country's re-entry into the global economy in 1994. These challenges include the ever-increasing pace of computerisation within the workplace, the increasing speed and power of computers, the access to large quantities of information from all over the world through networks and the Internet, as well as perpetually changing employee job roles due to the changing ways in which tasks are performed. Considering the increased vulnerability of employees to stressors from their work environment and the consequent physiological and psychological effects of stress should their coping mechanisms be ineffective, one can safely deduce that computer technology is doing a great deal for, but also something to the computer user. This latter effect is known as technostress. The objective of this research is to determine whether computer-related anxiety, negative computer thoughts and negative computer attitudes are present within the occupational contexts chosen as the domain of this study. The research will verify the levels of technostress experienced by the sample group, as well as those experienced by gender and employment status sub-groups. As point of departure, this study indicates how the development of the modern computer, together with the development of stress as a construct, has produced the new concept of technostress. An attempt is also made to define technostress by making use of a stress model developed within the South African context. The empirical research was done among employees from the following occupational areas: process, engineering, financial, information technology, and administration. The empirical research utilised three measuring instruments to determine the presence of the three elements of technostress, namely computer anxiety, negative computer thoughts and negative attitudes towards computers. The results of this study indicate that technostress is present in the industry at three levels: no technostress, low technostress and moderate/high technostress. In addition, results indicate no significant correlation with results obtained in a similar American study. Recommendations are made regarding possible ways to identify and measure the levels of technostress in the industry, as well as regarding possible means of behavioural intervention to minimise its impact on the employee and the organisation.