Adaptation and Validation of Technostress Creators and Technostress Inhibitors Inventories in a Spanish-Speaking Latin American Country

Abstract

The use of information and communications technology (ICT) in organizations is a global phenomenon. Their benefits: providing companies with efficiency and productivity, are well-known. Even so, there is growing worry over the stress that workers experience due to technology—technostress—and its negative consequences for organizations and workers. Technostress has not been studied much in a Latin American setting. As a starting point, it is necessary to possess valid and reliable instruments to measure the factors that generate it and the organizational mechanisms that have the potential to reduce its effects. The purpose of this study is to adapt and validate the Technostress Creators and Technostress Inhibitors Inventories in Peru, a Spanish-speaking Latin American country. A linguistic and cultural adaptation was carried out in order to evaluate the psychometric properties of the instruments in a sample of 360 employee ICT end-users. The results indicate the validity of the construct and high reliability for the Technostress Creators Inventory but not for the Technostress Inhibitors Inventory. This study demonstrates that the factors generating technostress are the same in different regions but that the suitability of different organizational practices to address it varies. It is necessary to identify mechanisms best suited to the cultural context of Latin America.