Thriving or surviving? Unveiling the dual faces of technostress in the digital work era: A quest for creativity and empowerment

In a digital workplace, employees face increasing technostress, which can either hinder or stimulate creativity. However, the mechanisms through which technostress shapes employee creativity remain unclear. Drawing on the job demands–resources model, this study examines the dual pathways of job-demand depletion and job-resource gain to explain how technostress influences employee creativity. We tested the proposed model with regression and bootstrapping analyses using 462 valid responses collected across three time waves. These results indicate that technostress undermines employee creativity indirectly through job burnout and enhances employee creativity indirectly through thriving at work. Moreover, psychological empowerment significantly moderates the effects of technostress on job burnout and thriving at work. This study advances our understanding of the dual faces of technostress and highlights how psychological empowerment enables employees to transform digital pressure into creative potential.