The Workaholism-Technostress Interplay: Initial Evidence on Their Mutual Relationship

Abstract

During the pandemic, the occurrence of extreme working conditions (e.g., the sudden shift to remote work, isolation, and the slowdown of the work processes) exacerbated several phenomena, such as increased workaholism and stress due to technological devices; that is, technostress. Literature on the onset of these phenomena during the pandemic highlighted a possible interplay among them; however, there is still a dearth of knowledge about the direction of the relationship between workaholism and technostress. The present study assessed the relationship between workaholism and technostress through a two-wave cross-lagged study using path analysis in SEM (Structural Equation Modeling). The study was conducted in Italy during the pandemic, and a total of 113 Italian employees completed the online survey at each wave. Results showed that workaholism at Time 1 was a significant predictor of technostress at Time 2 (β = 0.25, p = 0.049), while the reversed causation was not supported (β = 0.08, p = 0.22). These findings may help employees and organizations to better understand the phenomena of technostress and workaholism and develop strategies to prevent the consequences of excessive and compulsive work and to improve the balanced use of technology for their daily activities.

Keywords: COVID-19; cross-lagged panel study; technostress; work conditions; workaholism.

Figure 1

Model of cross-lagged associations between technostress and workaholism.

Figure 2

The tested models: Model 1: Autoregressive model; Model 2: cross-lagged pathway from workaholism at T1 to technostress at T2; Model 3: cross-lagged pathway from technostress at T1 to workaholism at T2; Model 4: cross-lagged associations between technostress and workaholism.