National University of Computer and

Emerging Sciences, Islamabad

Impact of technostressors on turnover intention, job burnout and

knowledge sharing: moderated influence by psychological hardiness

Submitted by: Hira Binte Zarshaid

Registration# i20-1103
MS management sciences 2020
Supervisor: Dr. Muhammad Abbas

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 Table of contents

Chapter No. 1: Introduction........................................................................................................................3

1.1 Chapter overview............................................................................................................................3
1.2 Background......................................................................................................................................3
1.3 Gaps and significance......................................................................................................................4
1.3.1 Theoretical significance...........................................................................................................4
1.3.2 Practical significance................................................................................................................4
1.4 Problem statement..........................................................................................................................5
1.5 Research Question...........................................................................................................................5
1.6 Research aims and objectives..........................................................................................................5
1.7 Thesis structure...............................................................................................................................6
1.8 Chapter summary............................................................................................................................6
2 Chapter No. 2: Literature review.....................................................................................................7
2.1 Chapter overview............................................................................................................................7
2.2 Technostressors...............................................................................................................................7
2.3 Technostressors and its outcomes..................................................................................................7
2.4 Technostressors and psychological hardiness.................................................................................7
2.5 Conceptual framework....................................................................................................................7
2.6 Chapter summary............................................................................................................................7
3 Chapter No. 3: Methodology...........................................................................................................8
3.1 Chapter overview............................................................................................................................8
3.2 Sample size and data collection.......................................................................................................8
3.3 Measures.........................................................................................................................................8
3.4 Data Analysis...................................................................................................................................8
3.5 Chapter summary............................................................................................................................8
4 References...........................................................................................................................................9

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1. Chapter No. 1: Introduction:

1.1 Chapter overview

This chapter will briefly discuss the background of techno stressors and how it is leading the
employees towards turnover intention, job burnout and knowledge sharing behavior. This
chapter will also give background to how psychological hardiness will moderate the
relationship of techno stressors with turnover intention, job burnout and knowledge sharing.
The chapter will explain the context of techno stressors to the antecedents and outcomes of
techno stressors with employees and how all of this situation will affect the efficiency and
productivity of organization. The chapter also discusses the research questions and research
objectives which will later be tested in the research study. Latter part of the chapter parleys
about the structure which will be followed throughout the thesis study.
1.2 Background
The fast proliferation of information technology in businesses and organizations have
resulted in noteworthy benefits for the organizations as well as its employees in position to
their performance, consummation, effectiveness and productivity but at the same time the
point is highlighted that IT also possesses some potential negative drawbacks as
well[ CITATION Sat17 \l 1033 ] . In rapidly changing today’s world it has become important for
the employees to adapt and cope up with the changing circumstances at the very same pace
as the world is going. In order to accomplish the business tasks by the employees it is
important to cope up with the new technologies, equipment and systems [ CITATION Mon19 \l
1033 ]. The change May be outside the organization or inside both ways individuals’ limits
are enforced due to it. Therefore, along with the knowledge, skills, techniques and experience
the psychological hardiness plays an essential and important part in survival.
Psychological hardiness concept has gained quite a lot of attention and acceptance as it is
supposed in giving positive alteration under hectic and nerve wracking situations and
circumstances. The approach of applying psychological hardiness is very important and
useful for the occupation dealing with sever stressful situations. [ CITATION Eri20 \l 1033 ]. and
psychological hardiness can be successfully applied in the stressful situations created by
techno stressors. The techno stressors that being considered and studied with the five sources
namely uncertainty, overload, complexity, insecurity and overload[ CITATION Mon20 \l 1033 ]
In today’s life of a the white-collar the permanent connectivity to the information system(IS)
leading towards substantial work, over burden, rapid communication , interruption by digital
incoming messages, multitasking, reachability expectation along with the adaptation to the
modification of software or hardware leads to stress and such stress is known to be
technostress[ CITATION Kat21 \l 1033 ]. Even though the technostress can have a serious out-
turn for employees despite the potential negativity of technostress on employees and
organizations, the dependency of white-collared employees on IT remains intense hence
there is a vast interest by society and organizations in understanding how can technostress be
reduced or alleviated from the IT users[ CITATION XiZ20 \l 1033 ]. Because if technostress not

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 dealt in time and properly it leads to issues like turn over intention, Job Burnout and
reduction in knowledge sharing environment.
Previous research related to technostress shows that the personality traits shows a vital role in
handling the stress and their effects on job burnout and turnover intention [ CITATION Ani19 \l
1033 ]. Burnout which is characterized by physical exhaustion, the point where the
professional has no positive feeling, sympathy, satisfaction or respect for the job. Turnover
intention and job burnout are major issues faced by the Information technology personnel.
The departure of the IT employees not only mean loss of personnel, knowledge and skills but
it also means the loss of business opportunities [ CITATION Chr20 \l 1033 ]. The IT employees
full time requirement is to work penetratingly and intensely with the on a broader scale and
with an uninterrupted motion which leads towards the turnover intention and job burnout of
professionals. Which in turn effects the Employees commitment and satisfaction to job and
organization.
Some scholars have devoted their attention to exploring the influential factors of technology
like organizational technology factors, personal technology factors and environmental
technology factor on employee’s life to get the consequences and effectiveness of their work
in organization[ CITATION Xin19 \l 1033 ]. Knowledge sharing is considered to be a very
valuable asset and knowledge sharing in organizations like IT based among employees is
particularly very important. To reach to the point of success it is important that employees
support each other and corporate with one another specially in IT companies where
employees rely on teamwork[ CITATION Xil17 \l 1033 ] but in academia and for practitioners the
real challenge is how to enhance knowledge sharing among IT employees. As knowledge
sharing is known to be the process of sharing knowledge with the other members of the team.
Hence sharing knowledge will help reduce the technology stress and it will also help in
coping up the stressful situations easily.
1.3 Gaps and significance
1.3.1 Theoretical significance
From past few decades, there has been significant work done on the subject of techno
stressors, as with the time the world is becoming more aware of the issues and factors of
techno stressors or awareness to the fact that it is causing damage or minimizing the growth
rate of organization, research and work on such matter is taking place more seriously and
rapidly. Techno stressors are studied with many other variables but the study on the personal
factors like turnover intention, job burnout and knowledge sharing mediated by
psychological hardiness is hardly found.
1.3.2 Practical significance
The study is chosen because of its practical significance specifically in context with the
emerging IT based departments and firms where it is getting difficult to manage working
hours, and the hectic, stressful workload due to over use of technology leading to many other
problems and issues in employee’s life. The study establishes the negative relationship with
the techno stressors and its negative outcome like turnover intention, job burnout and
knowledge sharing. Furthermore, the study will decode the occurrence of other immediate
outcomes of techno stressors in the organizations such as psychological hardiness and
whether this variable will act as mediator between techno stressors and the dependent
variables. The results gained by this study will not only act as a complete and through
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 investigation but it will also play a vital role in making organizations understand the stance
of employees and assist them in significant ways.
1.4 Problem statement
When employees work is purely IT based or the work is closely related to technology it is
important for the employee to be very comfortable with the work and fresh for the productivity
for the organization rather than facing workload problem, stressed out or overwhelmed feeling
due to the stress created by the technology.
If employee is not in his/her comfort zone and having technostress, then it is clear that the
employee cannot give his/her 100% efficiency and productivity which in turn leads to stressful
environment and situation leading the path towards less friendly environment where there is
no/less learning or knowledge sharing atmosphere, as well as it leads in the direction of the
employee’s turnover intention and job burnout situation.
Such situation can be minimized with the help of the three characteristics of psychological
hardiness namely commitment, control and challenge. Applying these three
characteristics/attitudes of psychological hardiness in IT personnel would be very beneficial in
creating a comfortable, fresh and friendly environment not only for oneself but also for the
organization.
1.5 Research Question
The study main aim is to fill the gap by exploring the following research questions and concerns
 Do technostressors effect turnover intention?
 Do technostressors effect job burnout?
 Do technostressors effect knowledge sharing?
 Does psychological hardiness moderate the relationship between technostressors and
turnover intention?
 Does psychological hardiness moderate the relationship between technostressors and job
burnout?
 Does psychological hardiness moderate the relationship between technostressors and
knowledge sharing?

1.6 Research aims and objectives

The study seeks to have a number of offerings, aims and objectives some of them are as
following
 To study the impact of technostressors on turnover intention, job burnout and knowledge
sharing
 To study the effect of psychological hardiness on technostressors
 To study the effect of psychological hardiness on job burnout, turnover intention and
knowledge sharing.
 The study will reveal the casual relationship between techno stressor, psychological
hardiness, burnout, turnover intention and knowledge sharing.

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  To provide practical and theoretical implications for the researchers in order to be served
as a base for future researches on related topics.

1.7 Thesis structure

Thesis structure will be divided in to five sections. These sections will include introduction,
literature review, methodology, analysis section and final section including results, discussion
part and final recommendations. Thesis will be divided in to two final year projects comprising
of two semesters. First FYP will include first three chapters; introduction, literature review and
methodology. The chapter of introduction will focus on the basis of technostressors. It will also
comprehensively talk about the relationship between techno stressors and other variables of our
study such as turnover intention, job burnout and knowledge sharing. Literature review will
include the studies conducted in past using these variables in various relationships and
perspectives that are relevant to our current study. Next chapter will be literature review.
Literature review will consist of conceptual definitions and the details regarding the
technostressors and the variables.
Second part of FYP will include data collection, data analysis, study results, discussion and
recommendations. The results of this research will be interpreted in comparison with previous
work done in relevant fields. At the end, the practical implications for organizations will be
suggested on the basis of the result of our study and theoretical groundings for further research
will be provided for academicians and scholars to pursue their research in this subject.

1.8 Chapter summary

This chapter has discussed the background, brief history and general understanding about
technostressors as its possible outcomes such as turnover intentions, job burnout and knowledge
sharing. Furthermore, this chapter explains the significance of this research and the research
objectives and questions that this research will target; followed by the structure that will be
followed throughout the thesis. Next chapter will explain the literature review of the main
variables that technostressors and outcome variables - turnover intentions, job burnout and
knowledge sharing. Moreover, it will discuss the relationship between techno stressors,
dependent variables along with the mediation of psychological hardiness.

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2 Chapter No. 2: Literature review

2.1 Chapter overview

2.2 Technostressors
2.3 Technostressors and its outcomes
2.4 Technostressors and psychological hardiness
2.5 Conceptual framework

Psychological
hardiness

Turnover
intention

Techno
Job burnout
stressors

Knowledge
sharing

Here the conceptual framework model shows the five variables where
 Independent variable is techno stressor
 Three dependent variables: turnover intention, job burnout and knowledge sharing
 On the other hand, psychological hardiness is acting as a moderator.

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 2.6 Chapter summary

3 Chapter No. 3: Methodology

3.1 Chapter overview

Methodology chapter includes 5 parts. Starting from the sample size and data collection, this part
states the characteristics of proposed sample and data collection techniques to conduct this thesis
research. Next part explains the measures of data collection for all the variables in this research
thesis that are technostressors, turnover intention, job burnout, knowledge sharing and
psychological hardiness. Furthermore, this chapter explains the statistical analysis and tools that
will be used to analyze the collected data. Moreover, the deliverables of this research and an
estimated timeline to conduct the complete research is mentioned by the end of this chapter.
3.2 Sample size and data collection
This will be a detailed exploratory research and data will be collected quantitatively. This
research will use questionnaire for each variable to collect data from white collar employees of
different organizations related totally to IT or the IT departments of the organizations in order to
understand the prevalence of technostressors and its possible outcomes commonly experienced
by the employees. Data of almost 200 to 250 employees will be used to make sure that the data is
unbiased and valid in all aspects.
To avoid common method variance, time lagged study will be used to collect data through
questionnaires from employees. Data will be collected in two time frames; T1 and T2.
3.3 Measures
Following is the detailed variable list along with the questionnaires that will be used in this
research to collect required data
For technostressors we will assess technostressors using 17 item scale, count on self-rating scale
developed by the researcher Ragu-Nathan et al
3.4 Data Analysis
First, we will find the means, standard deviations, correlations and reliabilities through SPSS for
all our study variables. Beside this, we will run a Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to compare
the multi-factor structure for technostressors (IV), psychological hardiness (mediators) and
turnover intentions, job burnout and knowledge sharing as dependent variables with single factor
structure to check the discriminant validity of the variables. And this study will use
bootstrapping technique by Preacher and Hayes (2008) to analyze both direct and indirect effects

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of variables in this study. Moreover, this technique generates bootstrapped confidence intervals
(CIs) which have higher power. CIs also tend to account for the irregular sampling distribution of
data (Hayes, 2013).
3.5 Chapter summary
This chapter discussed the detailed research methodology. The chapter included the proposed
sample size and data collection techniques. In addition, the chapter explains the measures
(questionnaires) that will be used to gather data for this research. Furthermore, this chapter
included the proposed analysis to analyze the mediation framework

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4 References
Anis Khedhaouria, A. C. (2019). Technostress creators, personality traits, and job burnout: A fuzzy-set
configurational analysis. Journal of Business Research, 101, 349-361.

Christopher B.Califf, S. (2020). An empirical study of techno-stressors, literacy facilitation, burnout, and
turnover intention as experienced by K-12 teachers. Computers & Education, 157, 103971.

Cui, X. (2017). In- and extra-role knowledge sharing among information technology professionals: The
five-factor model perspective. International Journal of Information Management, 37(5), 380-
389.

Erik van der Meulena, P. G. (2020). Longitudinal associations of psychological resilience with mental
health and functioning among military personnel: A meta-analysis of prospective studiesn.
Social Science & Medicine, 255, 112814.

Katharina Pflügner, C. M. (2021). The direct and indirect influence of mindfulness on techno-stressors
and job burnout:A quantitative study of white-collar workers. Computers in Human Behavior,
115, 106566.

Krishnan, S. (2017). Personality and espoused cultural differences in technostress creators. Computers in
Human Behavior, 66, 154-167.

Monideepa Tarafdar, C. L.‐F. (2019). The technostress trifecta ‐ techno eustress, techno distress and
design: Theoretical directionsand an agenda for research. Information Systems Journal, 29(1), 6-
42.

Monideepa Tarafdar, C. M. (2020). Explaining the link between technostress and technology addiction
for social networking sites: A study of distraction as a coping behaviorInformation Systems
Journal. Information Systems Journal, 30(1), 96-124.

Xi Zhao, Q. X. (2020). Impact of technostress on productivity from the theoretical perspective of

appraisal and coping processes. Information & Management, 57(8), 103265.

Xin Zhanga, L. M. (2019). How social media usage affects employees’ job satisfaction and turnover
intention: An empirical study in China. Information & Management, 56(6), 103136.

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