Understanding technostress and employee well-being in digital work: the roles of work exhaustion and workplace knowledge diversity

Purpose Technostress is becoming one of the main challenges among employees in the increasingly digital work context. Following the job demands-resources (JD-R) theory, this study aims to understand how technostress (e.g. techno-overload, techno-complexity, techno-insecurity and techno-uncertainty) decreases employees’ work well-being through exhausting one’s emotional and physical resources (i.e. work exhaustion), and to what extent workplace knowledge diversity could buffer this relationship. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected three-wave data of 235 employees from three manufacturing companies in China. They conducted a moderated mediation model to test their hypotheses. Findings The results showed that work exhaustion mediated the relationship between technostress and employee work well-being and that perceived workplace knowledge diversity buffered this indirect effect. Originality/value This study might be one of the first attempts using the JD-R theory together with a three-wave longitudinal survey design to empirically examine the mediating role of work exhaustion and the moderating role of workplace knowledge diversity. The authors contribute to the information and technology management literature by underscoring the importance of being aware of technostress and managing technology-induced work exhaustion. They highlight that a knowledge-diverse work environment is an essential context that can help employees to handle difficult and complex tasks presented by various technologies and alleviate experienced technostress.