Integrating and synthesising technostress research: a meta-analysis on technostress creators, outcomes, and IS usage contexts

Abstract

ABSTRACT The expansion of technostress research in the organisational and private IS usage contexts has generated substantial theoretical and empirical insights into the relationship between technostress creators and psychological and behavioural outcomes. However, we observe empirical inconsistencies in terms of effect sizes and conceptual inconsistencies regarding the aggregated and disaggregated treatment of technostress creators. Against this background, we argue that a fine-grained estimation and comparison of effect size strengths of technostress creators on outcomes can provide clarity on these essential matters. Using the Hunter and Schmidt method, we integrated and synthesised empirical data from 102 articles, encompassing 113 independent studies with a total of 49,955 observations. Our analysis offers four important contributions to the technostress literature. First, it confirms that technostress is meaningful in terms of its detrimental impact on both psychological and behavioural outcomes. Second, the results provide accurate effect size estimates for technostress creators on different outcomes in organisational and private usage contexts. Third, the results reveal that psychological outcomes are more immediate than behavioural outcomes. Fourth, the findings suggest that in certain contexts, a disaggregated account of technostress creators can reveal meaningful empirical information.