HR technologies and HR-staff technostress: an unavoidable or combatable effect?
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-08-2018-0214 |
| Pages | 1120-1144 |
| Published date | 02 August 2019 |
| Date | 02 August 2019 |
| Author | Gary Walter Florkowski |
| Subject Matter | Hr & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
HR technologies and HR-staff
technostress: an unavoidable
or combatable effect?
Gary Walter Florkowski
Katz Graduate School of Business,
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Abstract
Purpose –Drawing on the job demands-resources and IS literatures, the purpose of this paper is to identify
organizational factors that mitigate technostress in the HR department; and to evaluate how technostress and
techno-insecurity affect technology’s impact on job satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach –This research draws on a web-based survey of 169 US and Canadian
firms targeting HR executives as key informants. An HR-context-specific, technostress model was tested with
structural equation modeling. Exploratory factor analysis evaluated the structural properties of all multi-item
scales and supported their usage. Moderated regression analysis further assessed whether the age and scope
of technology portfolios affected certain relationships.
Findings –As predicted, department work stress wasless likely to increase when there was HRtechnology
(HRT) governanceinvolvement and top managementsupport for this class oftechnologies. Heightened techno-
insecurity had the opposite effect, another anticipated outcome. HR’s IT-knowledge actually increased
technostress, a counterintuitive result. In turn, HRTs were less likely to improve job satisfaction when
technostress and techno-insecurity werehigh. Top management HRT support and an HR innovation climate
better enabledportfolios to enhance satisfaction. Moderatinginfluences were detectedas well. As hypothesized,
techno-insecurity had a stronger negative effect on job-satisfaction impact for younger portfolios, while
innovation climate had a weaker relationship with techno-insecurity where portfolios were limited in scope.
Research limitations/implications –External validity would be strengthened by not only increasing
sample sizes for the USA and Canada, but also targeting more nations for data collection. In addition,
incorporating more user-oriented constructs in the present model (e.g. group potency, collective efficacy) may
enhance its explanatory power.
Practical implications –These findings underscore the need to consider HR-staff attitudes in technology
rollouts. To the extent HR technologies generate technostress, they at a minimum are impediments to
department satisfaction, which may have important ramifications for usage and service. The results further
establish that initiatives can be taken to offset this problem, both in terms of the ways portfolios are internally
supported and how they are managed.
Originality/value –This is the first study to formally assess how collective work-attitudes in the HR
department are affected by HR technologies. Prior research has focused on user-reactions to HRT features or
their wider influence on stakeholder perceptions. It is also the first investigation to empirically test potential
technostress inhibitors in HR settings.
Keywords Technostress, Job satisfaction, Job insecurity, HR staff attitudes, HR technologies
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Although it is rarely discussed in the literature, HR staff can be on the horns of a dilemma
with HR technologies (HRTs). Positive reactions are the expected response from anticipated
workflow improvements. For example, HR software has been linked to sizable reductions in
administrative workloads (Reddick, 2009; Ruël et al., 2004; SHRM, 2005) and growing
capabilities for analytics and modeling (e.g. Bersin, 2013; CedarCrestone, 2013). With fewer
mundane responsibilities and better tools for analyses, staff can focus more intently on
strategic initiatives as consultants and true business partners (Haines and Lafleur, 2008;
Hussain et al., 2006). This suggests an overall improvement in normal work content and
greater involvement in strategic decision making (Boudreau and Lawler, 2009; Gainey and
Klaas, 2008; Lawler and Boudreau, 2012, 2006; Marler and Parry, 2016). Relations with the
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 41 No. 5, 2019
pp. 1120-1144
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-08-2018-0214
Received 10 August 2018
Revised 25 March 2019
Accepted 28 March 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
1120
ER
41,5
workforce may also improve, particularly with certain applications (Alleyne et al., 2007;
Bissola and Imperatori, 2014). All of these impacts would constitute enhancements of HR’s
working environment.
Much less frequently acknowledged are potential complications that could act as major
disruptors. To begin with, there is a distinct possibility of reduced HR-power as the
breadth of self-service increases (Heikkilä, 2010; Kinnie and Arthurs, 1996, p. 10). The loss
of control over HR data might decrease perceptions of organizational importance and
elevate feelings of staff disenfranchisement (Shrivastava and Shaw, 2003, p. 212).
Exacerbating this problem is the possibility that HR may be perceived as either shirking
its responsibilities by offloading work (Bissola and Imperatori, 2013; Martin and
Reddington, 2010), or as a less-essential actor in employment processes ( John and
Björkman, 2015). The same applications may further interfere with the creation and
maintenance of HR’s social capital (Dellow, 2005; Gibney et al., 2009; Martin and
Reddington, 2010, p. 1563). Diminished social capital would be a cause for concern given
that it has affected both job stress and job satisfaction in other professionals (Boyas and
Wind, 2010; Strömgren et al., 2016; Zhang and Jones, 2011). Third, the acquisition and
expansion of HRTs could elevate job insecurity. Headcount reductions often are projected,
especially among low-level staff (e.g. Gueutal and Falbe, 2005; Lengnick-Hall and Moritz,
2003; Ruël et al., 2004). Finally, HR roles may become less appealing with more emphasis
being placed on role specialization (Bell et al., 2006) and responsibilities for IT-
maintenance (Gardner et al., 2003; Kassim et al., 2012; Strohmeier and Parry, 2014). Any of
these developments could negatively influence how practitioners feel about work.
The end result of these countervailing forces has not been directly examined. We know
there are differing mindsets toward HR technologies (Hall and Torrington, 1989; Kossek
et al., 1994), and that usage intentions are linked to their features (Marler et al., 2009; Yusliza
and Ramayah, 2011, 2012). Researchers have also investigated whether HRTs were able to
secure staff acceptance (Panos and Bellou, 2016; Reddick, 2009; Wahyudi and Park, 2014),
satisfy users (Haines and Petit, 1997; Sareen, 2015; Wickramasinghe, 2010), meet
management expectations (Beckers and Bsat, 2002; DeSanctis, 1986), and advance the
department in the eyes of executives (Hussain et al., 2006). Conspicuously absent is the
imprint they leave on the general work attitudes of HR staff. As previously framed, “[d]o
attitudes like job satisfaction, organizational commitment and professional commitment
improve […] or is there heightened work stress, job insecurity and intentions to leave […]?”
(Olivas-Luján and Florkowski, 2010, p. 11). It is a question still waiting to be answered[1].
Accordingly, this study makes three contributions to the HR literature. It is the first
investigation to probe how HR work-attitudes at the department level respond to HR
technologies. The following constructs were targeted: work stress, job insecurity and job
satisfaction. L ike Ayyagari et al. (2011), the focusis on technology’s isolatedimpact on each of
these variables rather than comparing its influence to other predictors. Second, it integrates
HRT research with the IS literature through a model that is grounded in the “technostress”
construct (e.g. Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008; Tarafdar, Tu, Ragu-Nathanand Ragu-Nathan, 2011).
Hadziroh and Yusliza (2015) explored this connection in case-study interviews without
formally evaluating its explanatory power. Finally,this study assesses the moderating effects
of portfoliocharacteristics, thereby responding to calls formore contextualized, HRT research
(Bondarouk and Ruël, 2009; Florkowski, 2018; Ruël and van der Kaap, 2012).
Literature review
The HR –stress nexus has not been rigorously researched. Few publications have dealt with
this subject, tending to focus either on the stress effects of select HR practices (Heffernan
and Dundon, 2016; Mostafa, 2016) or HR’s general ability to de-stress the workforce
(Harvey et al., 2014; Kreissl, 2012). The dynamics and consequences of stress in the function
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HR
technologies
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technostress
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