Compositional Effects of Tech-related Resources and Demands on Work Engagement and Psychological Stress

ntroduction: New technological developments in work arrangements are changing the characteristics of work (e.g., new technological demands) and the way in which jobs are designed and organized (e.g., remote working). Within this background, it arises the need to understand how these changes impact workers' occupational health and motivation. While most of research focused on both bright and dark sides of tech-related variables on employee well-being, the role of organizational context and work groups in promoting tech-related advancements and hindering tech-related stress has been only partially addressed. Consistent with these premises and adopting the JD-R theory as an overarching theoretical framework, we propose a multilevel approach to disentangle individual- and departmental-level effects of technological acceptance and techno-overload on motivational and psychological health outcomes. We expect tech-related resources and demands to operate in line with motivational and health-impairment paths proposed by the JD-R model at both levels of analysis, and that departmental-level (shared) tech-related resources and demands may influence such outcomes more strongly than the mere sum of individual perceptions (i.e., at the departmental level, we expect both resources and demands to act “as more than the sum of its employees”). Aims: We conducted a multilevel study aimed at investigating how positive and negative aspects of technology may associate differently at different levels of the organizational system (i.e., between individuals and between departments) with outcomes of psychological distress and work motivation; Furthermore, we aimed to investigate the individual- and departmental- level effects of the job tech-related resource (i.e., technological acceptance) and the job-related demand (i.e., techno-overload) on the selected outcomes (i.e., work engagement and subjective appraisals of stress). Methods: The final total sample is composed of 19,334 workers nested within 123 production units sampled from a large electricity company. Appraisals of tech-related resources and demands were measured by administering a self-report questionnaire filled by the employees within each unit. The data analysis phase was conducted by following the Multilevel Covariate Approach. We decomposed each variable into two latent uncorrelated variable parts instead of being treated as an observed variable as in conventional multilevel regression modelling. Finally, we examined the contextual effects of tech-related job resources and demands on work engagement and subjective stress, namely the difference between individual- and departmental-level effects. Findings: Consistent with the hypotheses, results showed that technological acceptance was positively related to work engagement and negatively associated with perceived stress at both levels of analysis, while higher levels of techno-overload were associated with higher subjective appraisals of stress (at both levels) and negatively associated with work engagement only at the departmental level. All contextual effects resulted significant (except for tech-acceptance on work engagement). Conclusions: Results suggested that the combination of individual tech-related resources and demands at the departmental level shed more light on motivational and well-being functioning than the mere sum of their individual appraisals of tech-related protective and risk factors. Organizations may implement group-level interventions to deal with techno-demands and to better deploy techno-resources.