Florkowski 2019

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ER
41,5 HR technologies and HR-staff
technostress: an unavoidable
or combatable effect?
1120 Gary Walter Florkowski
Katz Graduate School of Business,
Received 10 August 2018
Revised 25 March 2019 University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Accepted 28 March 2019
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 was less likely to increase when there was HR technology
(HRT) governance involvement and top management support for this class of technologies. 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 were high. Top management HRT support and an HR innovation climate
better enabled portfolios to enhance satisfaction. Moderating influences were detected as 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
Employee Relations: The
International Journal strategic initiatives as consultants and true business partners (Haines and Lafleur, 2008;
Vol. 41 No. 5, 2019
pp. 1120-1144
Hussain et al., 2006). This suggests an overall improvement in normal work content and
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
greater involvement in strategic decision making (Boudreau and Lawler, 2009; Gainey and
DOI 10.1108/ER-08-2018-0214 Klaas, 2008; Lawler and Boudreau, 2012, 2006; Marler and Parry, 2016). Relations with the
workforce may also improve, particularly with certain applications (Alleyne et al., 2007; HR
Bissola and Imperatori, 2014). All of these impacts would constitute enhancements of HR’s technologies
working environment. and HR-staff
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 technostress
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 1121
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. Like Ayyagari et al. (2011), the focus is on technology’s isolated impact 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-Nathan and 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 portfolio characteristics, thereby responding to calls for more 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
ER are largely ignored, a surprising oversight given professional articles with titles like,
41,5 “Why HR is a high-stress profession” (Scott, 2006) and “A stress survival guide for HR
professionals” (Gorkin, 2001). Commonly cited stressors include being the designated bearer
of bad news to organizational members (and thus absorbing the brunt of their blowback),
experiencing inherent role-overload from conflicting expectations, and facing intensified
demands for accessibility and multitasking in the face of declining resources. The ongoing
1122 shift to technology-based services may further contribute to stress, as it has become
increasingly common over the last decade for HR activities to be rooted in self-service, social
media and functional applications (cf. CedarCrestone, 2009, 2013, 2015). This suggests HR
staff often face the dual challenge of not only mastering and coping with IT interfaces (e.g.
prolonged learning curves, recurrent malfunctions), but also weathering new threats that
technology may foster (e.g. being overwhelmed by inquiries for data and services; reduced
power and social capital). Any of these developments would elevate job demands.
Technology-linked stress has been denoted as “technostress” (e.g. Tarafdar, Tu and
Ragu-Nathan., 2011), and while this construct has been investigated in several professions
(e.g. academics, sales people, mid-level managers) it is barely referenced in HR writings.
Passaro (2015) asserted that data mining and social media have induced HR role-changes
which are stressful in their own right, but neither mentioned this construct nor supported
the claim. Hadziroh and Yusliza (2015) were more explicit, proposing user-based factors for
HR-linked technostress. Again, though, no hypotheses were formally tested. Empirical
studies clearly are needed to establish the determinants of HR technostress and its wider
impact on HR-staff attitudes.
IS studies commonly identify four types of technostress “inhibitors”: involvement
facilitation, literacy facilitation, technical support and innovation support (e.g. Fuglseth and
Sørebø, 2014; Jena, 2015; Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008; Tarafdar, Tu and Ragu-Nathan, 2011, 2014).
At issue are the adequacy of mechanisms to foster system engagement, needed IT-
competencies, adequate resources for usage, and experimentation and learning. As firms grow
stronger in each of these areas, users should be better prepared for, and able to handle, their
HRT-system encounters. That should lower the prospects of role complications and ultimately
the stimulus for stress[2]. While previous IS studies support these relationships, it should be
noted that technostress scales have focused solely on individual perceptions (e.g. “I am,”,
“I feel,”), and that inhibitors were framed at the organizational level (e.g. firm policies and
practices across technologies and user-groups). Adjustments are needed in both types of
measures for intermediate units of analysis (i.e. departmental).
Finally, the attitudinal effects of experienced technostress have not been extensively
probed. Lower usage satisfaction has been reported (Chen and Muthitacharoen, 2016;
Fuglseth and Sørebø, 2014; Tarafdar, Tu and Ragu-Nathan, 2011), in addition to greater role
stress (Tarafdar et al., 2007, 2014; Wang and Shu, 2008). Others have suggested stress
begets strain, and that strain is reflected inversely in job satisfaction, making potential
changes in satisfaction from IT-usage an important outcome to monitor (Ragu-Nathan et al.,
2008, p. 423; Tarafdar et al., 2014, p. 55). This causal relationship has been tested and
supported for several occupation (Beam et al., 2003; Jena, 2015; Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008; Suh
and Lee, 2017). It has yet to be evaluated in an HR context. Discussion now shifts to the
present study.
Model and hypotheses

The model being tested appears in Figure 1. At the far left, one finds four HR context-specific,
technostress inhibitors: HRT governance involvement, HR IT-knowledge, top management
HRT support and HR innovation climate. Each is hypothesized to negatively affect the work
stress from HRTs. Technology-spawned feelings of job insecurity (i.e. techno-insecurity) are
presented as a fifth antecedent. This variable should have the opposite effect of the referenced
TECHNOSTRESS
INHIBITORS
HR
technologies
HRT
Governance Involvement and HR-staff
H1
technostress
H7
HR IT-Knowledge
H2
HRT Work Stress HRT Job Satisfaction
1123
Impact H8 Impact
H9
H3
H5
Top Management
HRT Support H4 H10
HR Innovation H6 HRT Job Insecurity Figure 1.

Climate Impact
Research model
inhibitors, elevating the level of technostress. Perceived techno-insecurity in turn should

respond to the HR innovation climate. As staff gain more flexibility regarding structuration,
there is a greater the likelihood they will protect their positions when developing system
routines. Looking to the right side of the model, the work stress triggered by a given portfolio
should influence its impact on job satisfaction. An inverse relationship is expected. Three
additional factors should help shape that impact. Top management HRT support signals that
HRT usage, is an organizational priority potentially raising staff perceptions of task
significance. Such backing may also be seen as formal recognition of what staff have
accomplished – and their potential to do more – in delivering value to the firm. HR innovation
climate should promote the same outcome by making it easier to learn, adjust to and
effectively integrate system requirements with other responsibilities. HR techno-insecurity
should operate differently. To the extent HR technologies invoke fears of job loss, they should
detract from functionalities that are otherwise favorable, impairing the ability to foster job
satisfaction. Literature supporting these relationships is detailed below.
There are several reasons to believe that user involvement in planning and governance
will counteract HRT work-stress. To begin with, users perceiving decisional-control over the
apps that they deal with are less likely to experience computer anxiety (Mikkelsen et al.,
2002). Involvement should also accelerate familiarity with system features, increase the
predictability of internal deployment, better align functionalities with actual needs and
foster social capital with critical stakeholders (e.g. IS staff ) (Tarafdar, Tu and Ragu-Nathan,
2011). The benefits for HR staff would be more timely information about system decisions,
more accessible and user-friendly technology features, and a reduction in the occurrence of
deployment conflicts; developments which undercut stress. Consequently, one expects that:
H1. HRT governance involvement will have a negative effect on HRT work-stress impact.
Stress levels should also vary with a department’s technology literacy. One anticipates less
emotionally taxing system-interfaces when technology proficiency is widely distributed.
This reasoning is consistent with Shah et al.’s (2012) finding that computer skills had a
strong, negative effect on computer anxiety. Strong IT-competencies may also foster
computer self-efficacy (i.e. the belief that one can broadly apply computers skills in an
effective manner). As computer self-efficacy increases, individuals tend to have a more
ER positive affect toward computer usage (Compeau and Higgins, 1995), and reduced
41,5 vulnerability to feelings of technostress (Shu et al., 2011). Ragu-Nathan et al. (2008) likewise
reported that persons confident in their IT abilities experienced lower technostress. These
studies suggest that:
H2. HR IT-Knowledge will have a negative effect on HRT work-stress impact.
1124 Another germane factor is system support. Pursuant to the job demands-resources model,
job stress arises whenever workplace demands cannot be satisfied with available resources
(Demerouti et al., 2001; Bakker and Demerouti, 2007). This suggests that HRTs are less
likely to cause stress into daily routines if there is adequate backing to support their usage
(e.g. consistent, high-quality training and tech support; sufficient funding for rollouts). Top
management is uniquely situated to ensure this occurs. Its ongoing commitment and
involvement should increase the probability of appropriate resourcing and needed
collaboration among internal stakeholders (e.g. required knowledge exchanges, effective
conflict resolution) (Ha and Ahn, 2014). Accordingly, it is projected that:
H3. Top management HRT support will have a negative effect on HRT work-stress
impact.
HRT stress levels should also be affected by the internal climate. Innovation climates
should be most impactful, since experimentation is promoted, information flows freely and
management is supportive of appropriate risk-taking (Chan et al., 2014; Weiss et al., 2011).
Limited evidence does indicate that new HR practices are more likely to be accepted when
the innovation climate is strong (Stirpe et al., 2015). This would be particularly beneficial
when IT is involved because it carries the dual challenge of mastering the requirements of
new functionalities while accepting large changes in tasks and routines (Tarafdar, Tu,
Ragu-Nathan and Ragu-Nathan, 2011). The implication for HRTs is that there should be
less apprehension and accelerated learning when an innovation climate is present. Beyond
that, more opportunities should exist for remedial structuration[3]. Staffers who might
otherwise feel stressed by HRT demands have more opportunities to limit their effects
through socio-political processes. The only study on point found that innovation climate
had a direct, negative effect on technostress (Koo and Wati, 2011). Others have suggested
that “readiness for change” – an attribute maximally developed in this kind of climate –
would be a key inhibitor of HR-staff technostress (Hadziroh and Yusliza, 2015). This leads
to a prediction that:
H4. HR innovation climate will have a negative effect on HRT work-stress impact.
In contrast, involuntary-separation concerns should deplete one’s resources (e.g. focus,
enthusiasm, perceived energy) for ongoing job demands, inducing feelings of work stress.
Previous studies support this relationship (Bernhard-Oettle et al., 2005; Parker et al., 2002).
By extension, one would expect that when HR technologie spur fears of job loss, there
should be a concomitant increase in technostress. This has not been directly tested in IS
research, since techno-insecurity tends to be embedded in a “technostress creators” scale
(Fuglseth and Sørebø, 2014; Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008; Tarafdar, Tu, Ragu-Nathan and Ragu-
Nathan, 2011; Tarafdar, Tu and Ragu-Nathan, 2011). Given that their substantive foci are
meaningfully different (i.e. perceived risk of employment termination vs resource sufficiency
to satisfy job demands), a decision was made to evaluate their connection as independent
constructs[4]. The ensuing expectation becomes:
H5. HRT job-insecurity impact will have a positive effect on HRT work-stress impact.
That being said, job insecurity should be less likely to arise when an innovation climate
exists. More positive sensemaking is expected to occur because change and realignment
play out regularly as part of the “way of doing things” (Stirpe et al., 2015). In this HR
environment, HRTs should take on the trappings of role evolution, not a harbinger of technologies
impending job cuts. One can further argue that higher-order skills for consulting activities and HR-staff
(e.g. change management and analytic competencies) are more likely to develop in this type
of setting, smoothing the transition to strategic responsibilities. Finally, the emphasis placed technostress
on experimentation and adaption could stimulate co-option efforts. Self-interested
structuration could impose norms, routines or patterns of usage that entrench HR staff 1125
as indispensable gatekeepers. For all of these reasons, one should observe that:
H6. HR innovation climate will have a negative effect on HRT job-insecurity impact.
Job satisfaction has been defined as a positive emotional state that results from the
favorable appraisa1 of employment experiences (Locke, 1976). In this light, HRTs
should have a more difficult time enhancing satisfaction if they are concurrently elevating
work stress. By analogy, ERP-system users reported being overtaxed by new role
requirements, having valued discretionary behaviors foreclosed, and receiving primary
feedback from automated reports at the expense of personalized contact (Morris and
Venkatesh, 2010). Each was considered a significant stressor that could arise with HRTs.
Management studies have consistently documented an inverse relationship between
work stress and job satisfaction (Guinot et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2014). IS research is even
more on point, tying higher technostress to lower satisfaction (Beam et al., 2003;
Jena, 2015; Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008; Suh and Lee, 2017). Drawing on these works, it is
proposed that:
H7. HRT work-stress impact will have a negative effect on HRT job-satisfaction impact.
Top management support for HR technologies should strengthen their ability to raise
satisfaction. Explicit backing from this powerful subgroup should raise staff perceptions
of task significance, upgrading their job characteristics. Technology resourcing should
benefit as well to demonstrate alignment with executive priorities. More generous funding
limits the likelihood of inadequate rollouts, recurrent malfunctions and inadequate
reengineering of surrounding work processes, better positioning portfolios to act as job
resources. Greater motivation and engagement would likely ensue (Bakker and
Demerouti, 2007; Day et al., 2010), along with improvements in job satisfaction (Choi
et al., 2012; Kalleberg, 1977). Clear support from the top may also be interpreted as
recognizing HR’s technology-accomplishments (e.g. service improvements, more strategic
behaviors). Receiving recognition has long been acknowledged to positively impact job
satisfaction (e.g. Locke, 1976). Niehoff et al. (1990) similarly found that job satisfaction
tended to be higher when employees felt appreciated and supported by top-level
managers. The predicted effect is that:
H8. Top management HRT Support will have a positive effect on HRT job-satisfaction
impact.
The prospect of improving satisfaction should also be greater where climates embrace
innovation (Lee et al., 2011; Ubius et al., 2013). This expectation is rooted in the job
characteristics model, which argues that intrinsic motivation and satisfaction both become
stronger as task identity, task significance, skill variety, autonomy and post-execution
feedback improve (Hackman and Oldham, 1976). The normative emphasis in innovation
climates is favorable for all five dimensions. Access to more detailed and diversified
shared-information should enhance task identity, task significance, and feedback quality. Skill
variety and autonomy should also increase through the encouragement of bounded risk-
taking. In HRT settings, these forces should accelerate mastery and widespread usage,
improving the nature of HR work. Green et al. (2006) similarly reported that HR professionals
ER had higher job satisfaction in settings where HR practices were horizontally integrated and
41,5 vertically aligned, a development they attributed to the presence of more intrinsically
motivating, job characteristics. Climates fostering the same improvements via HRTs should
produce a comparable result. Consequently, one anticipates that:
H9. HR innovation climate will have a positive effect on HRT job-satisfaction impact.
Finally, perceived uncertainty about the continuance of employment should detract from
1126 job satisfaction. Numerous studies have reported a sizable, negative relationship between
these two constructs (e.g. Bernhard-Oettel et al., 2011; Reisel et al., 2007, 2010; Sverke et al.,
2002), suggesting the effect a practice will have on the latter is tempered by its impact on
the former. Staff afflicted with techno-insecurity should be less enamored with HRT
aspects that would otherwise facilitate positive experiences. The net effect would be
to lessen the perceived contributions associated with technology, constraining its ability
to improve satisfaction. This leads one to believe that:
H10. HRT job-insecurity impact will have a negative effect on to HRT job-satisfaction
impact.
Method
Sample and procedure
Invitations letters were sent to 767 North American firms requesting participation in an
online, HRT study. HR executives were the designated recipients using contact information
from professional databases. Their targeting reflects a “key informant” methodology
(Kumar et al., 1993; Parry, 2011), which seeks to parsimoniously access detailed knowledge
not widely disbursed in the firm – here, department-wide reactions to HR technologies. A
multi-stage protocol guided all contacts (see Dillman, 2000). Responses were obtained from
177 companies; however, eight organizations had no HRTs and were subsequently dropped
from the study. This yielded an adjusted response rate of 22 percent. The sample’s key
features appear in Table I.
A majority of respondents were in nonmanufacturing, and worked for larger
employers (x~ ¼ 2,700 employees). HR staff ratios diverged considerably. There was also
wide variation in assimilated technologies with the typical portfolio containing four
HRTs. Apps normally supported at least three HR areas, signaling aggressive use of
available functionalities. Still, portfolios, on average, were relatively young with average
app-age being less than five years in nearly 60 percent of the firms. Finally, an argument
can be made that the volume of work a portfolio automates conveys technology’s
centrality in service delivery. There is little doubt here of technology’s significance, as
average automated-transactions across HR areas almost always exceeded 20 percent
(x~ ¼ 34 percent).
As intended, senior HR leaders furnished most of the data. Forty-four percent of
respondents were either the HR executive or a direct report, another 24 percent were one
level below them. As such, they held pivotal positions in the chain of command, and
should have the needed professional expertise to readily recognize signs of work stress,
job insecurity and job satisfaction. Given their hierarchical placement, they should also be
intimately familiar with the resources and practices being tested as technostress
inhibitors. Added to this is their lengthy experience. A total of 87 percent had been with
the firm for three years or more, 40 percent over ten years. This creates a strong inference
they had witnessed or tracked HR-staff attitudes since HRTs were implemented. These
facts corroborate their status as key informants.
Safeguards embedded in the survey’s design minimized priming and item-embeddedness.
First, there were counterbalanced listings of predictor and criterion measures across three
n % n %
HR
technologies
Industry Number of appsa and HR-staff
Manufacturing 48 28 1–2 43 25
Nonmanufacturing 101 60 3–4 46 27 technostress
Unspecified 20 12 5–6 41 24
7–8 39 23
Firm size 1127
⩽1,000 36 21 Average app ageb
1,001–2,000 21 12 ⩽1 year 7 4
2,001–5,000 34 20 1–3 years 59 35
5,001–10,000 24 14 3–5 years 34 20
W10,000 32 19 W5 years 22 13
Unspecified 22 13 Unspecified 47 28
HR Staff Ratio Average Number of Assisted Areasc
⩽1:100 FTEs 61 36 1–2 per app 43 25
1:100–2:100 FTEs 54 32 3–4 per app 80 47
W2:100 FTEs 25 15 W4 per app 9 5
Respondent position Average % of Transactions Automatedd
Top HR executive 33 19 1–20 21 12
HR senior manager 43 25 21–40 50 30
HR middle manager 39 23 41–60 31 18
HR generalist/specialist 14 8 W60 8 5
Notes: aFramed as HR functional applications, HR integrated suites, HR interactive voice response (IVR)
systems, HR intranets, employee self-service (ESS) apps, managerial self-service (MSS) apps, HR extranets
and HR portals; bComputed by subtracting acquisition year from the survey year for each kind of software
and dividing the total by the number of apps; cFramed as recruitment, selection, training and development,
compensation, benefits administration, performance management, career management and compliance
management; dComputed by summing the percentage reported for each HR area and dividing by the Table I.
number of areas Sample characteristics
distinct webpages, and the scales were nested in far-reaching questions about HR operations
and the outside labor market. Next, the study was only vaguely described in the letter and
website, avoiding any reference to investigating attitudes. Finally, there was a uniform
promise of strict confidentiality to encourage accurate disclosures. Podsakoff et al. (2003)
recommended such tactics to counteract the influence of common method bias.
Two potential issues with the data were assessed and rejected prior to testing the
model. Informant bias was a possible concern with respondents from several levels.
However, non-C-level actors completing the survey had been delegated that task by the
HR executive, suggesting everything disclosed coincided with the views of the latter. To
test this, answer were compared based on position, and no significant differences were
found. Nonresponse bias was considered as well. Following standard practice, checks
were performed for systemic variations between early and late respondents (Armstrong
and Overton, 1977). The absence of differences between these subgroups dismissed this
threat to the findings.
Measures
Technostress inhibitors. There is no shortage of approaches in IS studies to capture specific
inhibitors (see Day et al., 2012; Koo and Wati, 2011; Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008; Tarafdar, Tu,
Ragu-Nathan and Ragu-Nathan, 2011; Tarafdar, Tu and Ragu-Nathan, 2011). Unfortunately,
the scales they utilize share little in common, and many of the items seem facially redundant.
ER This prompted a broader search for informative sources. Unless otherwise noted, all
41,5 items in this study were rated on a seven-point Likert scale (i.e. “strongly disagree” to
“strongly agree”).
HRT governance involvement. The following two items were taken from Olivas-Luján
and Florkowski’s (2010) locus-of-responsibility measure: “Primary responsibility for the
operation and maintenance of HR technologies resides with,” and “Development activities
1128 for new HR technologies are performed by.” They cover the major stages of technology
decision-making, determining the scope of IT-requirements in HR work. Possible responses
included the activities being performed/led by IS alone, a joint IS-HR committee, or HR alone.
In contrast, Ragu-Nathan et al.’s (2008) involvement-facilitation scale simply asked whether
end-users were “consulted” or “involved” before implementation.
HR-IT knowledge. A four-item scale assessed the knowledge possessed (Boynton et al.,
1994) and first-hand experience (Sambamurthy and Zmud, 1999) that HR can draw on to
cope with technology. A sample item was “Collectively, HR professionals in this firm have
sufficient IT competencies to independently implement telephony- and web-based
applications for the HR department.” The intent was to evaluate HR’s prowess in
technology matters. This capacity should lower the incidence of: techno-complexity and
techno-insecurity, prominent technostress creators.
Top management HRT support. Executive backing for HRTs was measured with a
four-item scale as well. The index was adapted from Teo et al. (2007), documenting how
strongly top management supports, prioritizes and tends to keep abreast of efforts to
enhance HRTs. Two sample items are “The utilization of IT in our HR operations is
regarded as a high priority by top management” and “Top management maintains regular
contact with the sponsor(s) of IT use in our HR operations.” IS scales for senior
management support have delved into similar content (e.g. Byrd and Davidson, 2003;
Lee and Kim, 1992; Rai and Bajwa, 1997).
HR innovation climate. Having set this construct at the department level, an indicator
was needed for internal subgroups. This prompted the creation of a six-item scale based on
Anderson and West (1998), Bock et al. (2005) and Tannenbaum and Dupuree-Bruno (1994).
Examples included “In this company, HR recognizes and rewards new ideas from HR staff,”
“HR and its staff display a willingness to take risks” and “The HR department is always
moving toward the development of new answers.” In its entirety, the scale touches every
core aspect of an innovation climate.
These scales initially were subjected to exploratory factory analysis (EFA) to evaluate
their EFA structural properties (see Table II). The data were suitable for testing
(KMO-value ¼ 0.83), and exhibited patterned relationships. The latter is evident in
Barlett’s test of sphericity ( χ2 ¼ 979.26, df ¼ 105) and diagonal values in the
anti-correlation matrix that uniformly exceeded 0.50. Principal components analysis was
the chosen extraction method using Varimax with Kaiser Normalization as the rotation
technique. A four-component solution emerged accounting for 67 percent of the total
variance. Every item loaded as expected. Assessing internal consistency was the final
step. Each Cronbach’s α was deemed acceptable being ⩾ 0.70 (Nunnally, 1978).
Work attitudes. Each work attitude was captured with a single-item scale. This
measurement approach is particularly appropriate where the underlying intent is to obtain a
general, rather than facet-based, understanding of the construct; existing scales have a high
proportion of semantically identical items that oversample key aspects of the content
domain; and the small volume of respondents targeted for sampling has a demonstrated
propensity for low response rates (e.g. managers and executives) (Fuchs and
Diamantopoulos, 2009). It is also supported where the focal object of study, and its
attribute-of-interest, are “concrete” in nature (Bergkvist and Rossiter, 2007; Rossiter, 2002).
Component Extraction
HR
Items loadings communalities Cronbach’s α technologies
and HR-staff
Factor 1 (HR IT-knowledge) 0.78
Senior HR executives have a long history of interacting 0.75 0.60 technostress
directly with the IS department in this firm
Senior HR executives possess considerable first-hand 0.79 0.67
experience working on IT projects 1129
Senior HR executives and HR managers have sufficient IT 0.78 0.72
awareness to recognize available telephony and web-based
applications that could benefit the HR department
Collectively, HR professionals in this firm have sufficient IT 0.58 0.48
competencies to independently implement telephony- and
web-based applications for the HR department
Factor 2 (Top management HRT support) 0.82
Top management maintains regular contact with the 0.69 0.65
sponsor(s) of IT use in our HR operations
Resource support is high for the adoption and utilization of 0.81 0.68
IT in our HR operations
It is important for top management that our HR operations 0.71 0.59
utilize ITs
The utilization of IT in our HR operations is regarded as a 0.87 0.77
high priority by top management
Factor 3 (HR innovation climate) 0.88
In this company, HR recognizes and rewards new ideas 0.60 0.56
from HR staff
The HR department and its staff display flexibility and 0.83 0.73
adaptability
HR and its staff display a willingness to take risks 0.80 0.75
The HR department and its staff display tolerance of failure 0.90 0.82
of new ideas
The HR department is always moving toward the 0.81 0.70
development of new answers
Factor 4 (HRT governance involvement) 0.70
Primary responsibility for the operation and maintenance of 0.86 0.75
HR technologies resides with
Development activities for new HR-technologies are 0.71 0.57
performed by
Extraction sums of squared loadings Total 1.09
% of 66.86
variance
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test of sampling adequacy 0.83
Barlett’s test of sphericity Approx. χ2 979.26
df 105 Table II.
Sig. 0.00 Factor analysis results
Arguing that there is unlikely to be within-person variation in the ability to evaluate this
type of phenomenon, Rossiter goes on to say that “[…] [f]or completely concrete constructs,
one concrete item is all that is necessary” (p. 321).
Job satisfaction is particularly well suited for single-item measures (Scarpello and
Campbell, 1983). The “object” here would be HR staff-members, a designation key
informants should universally recognize includes everyone in the HR department. The
attribute-of-interest is their change in satisfaction; being concrete in the sense that raters
should be singularly focused on what to assess (i.e. the directional shift in an established
attitude stemming from HRTs). This measurement strategy resonates with Wanous
et al.’s (1997) independent contention that single-items scales would be an appropriate
ER gauge of satisfaction changes. The same logic applies to job insecurity and work stress.
41,5 Interest in their relationships continues to be general, not dimensional, with parallel
clarity in what should be rated. Moreover, one finds single-item measures for both of these
constructs in previous investigations (e.g. Chen and Chan, 2008; Fullerton and Wallace,
2007; Guinot et al., 2014).
Accordingly, respondents were presented with a multi-part question asking, “To what
1130 extent has the use of IT in the HR department affected the following for HR staff-members:
work stress; job security; and job satisfaction.” Answers could range from “very negatively”
to “very positively” on a five-point Likert scale. Replies to the first two items were reverse
coded and labeled HRT Work-Stress Impact and HRT Job-Insecurity Impact, respectively.
The remaining item, HRT Job-Satisfaction Impact, was left in its original form.
Other psychometric considerations support these choices. First, there is mounting
evidence that single-item scales perform acceptably not only in term of reliability, but also
with respect to predictive validity (Bergkvist and Rossiter, 2007; Dolbier et al., 2005; Fuchs
and Diamantopoulos, 2009; Gardner et al., 1998; Wanous et al., 1997). Second, the fact that
the same semantic-differential format was used should not unduly bias evaluations of their
inter-relationships despite being posited as predictor and criterion variables (Bergkvist and
Rossiter, 2007). Finally, measurement error can be readily redressed as detailed in a later
section. Discussion now turns to our findings.
Results
Table III presents the sample means, standard deviations and Pearson correlations.
As expected, department technostress was negatively related to governance involvement,
top management support and HR innovation climate ( po0.05), while being positively
related to insecurity ( p o0.01). to HRT job-satisfaction impact, in turn, had a negative
association with technostress and techno-insecurity ( p o0.01). The opposite held true for
executive support and innovation climate ( p o0.01). Lastly, techno-insecurity was inversely
related to HR innovation climate ( p o0.01). Thus, all but one of the relationships contained
in the model were significant and had the right signs.
Structural equation modeling nevertheless was the primary approach to hypothesis
testing. IBM SPSS AMOS 23 (Arbuckle, 2014) generated all of the ensuing analyses.
Measurement model and confirmatory factor analysis

The full model required a single refinement prior to testing. Following Hayduk’s (1996)
recommendation, technostress, techno-insecurity and job-satisfaction impact were treated
as single-indicator latent variables. This necessitated fixing their structural coefficients on
the latents at 1, and computing construct-specific error variances. The latter was done
using Petrescu’s (2013) suggested formula (i.e. sample variance of the indicator multiplied
by (1 – scale reliability estimate from prior research)). Mean reliability estimates for work
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. HRT Governance Involvement 1.16 0.81 –

2. HR IT-Knowledge 4.34 1.34 0.04 –
3. Top Management HRT Support 4.36 1.40 −0.14 0.44** –
4. HR Innovation Climate 5.27 0.98 0.25** 0.51** 0.31** –
Table III. 5. HRT Work-Stress Impact 2.88 0.79 −0.20* 0.02 −0.26** −0.16* –
Means, standard 6. HRT Job-Insecurity Impact 2.80 0.69 −0.23** −0.13 −0.12 −0.38** 0.35** –
deviations and 7. HRT Job-Satisfaction Impact 3.63 0.72 0.11 0.18* 0.32** 0.36** −0.40** −0.38** –
correlations Notes: *po 0.05 (two-tailed); **po 0.01 (two-tailed)
stress (0.81) and job insecurity (0.77) were provided by two meta-analyses (Chen and Chan, HR
2008; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990), while Wanous et al.’s (1997) minimum reliability level for technologies
single-item, global job satisfaction measures (0.67) was chosen for the satisfaction and HR-staff
variable. These adjustments should redress concerns about reliability and measurement
error in this segment of the model. technostress
Model fit was evaluated with the χ2 statistic, Normed Fit Index (NFI), Tucker-Lewis
Index (TLI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation 1131
(RMSEA). Cutoffs for the NFI, TLI and CFI were set at good (⩾0.95), acceptable (⩾0.90
buto0.95), marginal (⩾ 0.80 but o0.90) and poor (o 0.80) (Hooper et al., 2008). RMSEA
was interpreted in a similar manner (i.e. good (⩽0.06), acceptable ( W 0.06 but ⩽0.08),
marginal (W 0.08 but ⩽0.10) and poor (W 0.10) fit). The final reduced model appears in
Figure 2, displaying cumulative evidence of moderate fit ( χ2 (129) ¼ 287.98, po 0.000;
relative χ2 ¼ 2.23; NFI ¼ 0.76; TLI ¼ 0.80; CFI ¼ 0.85; RMSEA ¼ 0.08). It differs from
the full model in only one aspect – the deletion of a nonsignificant path between innovation
climate and work-stress impact.
Seeking a more definitive assessment of common method bias, a post hoc assessment was
performed. A first-order factor was added to the model treating every scale item as an
indicator. Each of these pathways was equally weighted with variances set equal to 1. After
rerunning the analysis, comparisons were made of the standardized βs in the presence and
absence of the common latent factor. All deltas were less than 0.007, well below the
recommended threshold (0.20) for imputing adjusted composites (Gaskin, 2012). When
combined with no observed changes in any of the fit indices (see Table IV ), the evidence
indicates that common method bias was not a threat.
Structural model
While meaningful variance was explained in both dependent variables, one finds mixed
results for the set of inhibitors (see Table V ). HRT governance involvement ( p o0.10) and
top management support ( p o0.01) had significant, negative betas. H1 and H3 are thereby
supported. While β was also significant for IT-knowledge ( p o0.01), the positive sign calls
for a rejection of H2. Seemingly counterintuitive, it may be that as IT-knowledge grows,
e1 x1 HRT
Governance
e2 x2 Involvement
–0.26
e3 x3
e4 x4 HR IT-Knowledge
e19 e21
e5 x5 0.25
e6 x6
0.41
0.49
HRT Work Stress –0.32
e16 x16 HRT Job Satisfaction
Impact x18 e18
Impact
0.25
e7 x7 –0.38 0.23
e8 x8
Top Management 0.37 –0.27
e9 x9 HRT Support
e10 x10
0.20
e11 x11
HRT Job Insecurity x17 e17
e12 x12
–0.45 Impact
Figure 2.
HR Innovation
e13 x13 Climate Final reduced model
e14 x14 e20
with standardized
regression estimates
e15 x15
ER there are heightened pressures to maximize value from whatever technologies are in place.
41,5 H4 is rejected as well, given that the nonsignificant path for innovation climate was deleted
in the measurement model stage. It may be that learning is not accelerated enough to alter
job demands even where this climate is strong. There may be analogous limitations on
structuration efforts, in that the adaptation and problem solving these climates engender
may not be sufficiently specialized to mitigate technostress. Techno-insecurity, the final
1132 antecedent, had a significant, positive β ( p o0.01). This outcome is consistent with H5.
Comparing these coefficients, an argument can be made that executive support and techno-
insecurity had the strongest influences on work-stress impact.
H6 stated that techno-insecurity would be noticeably lower as the innovation climate
became stronger. The large, negative association between these two constructs
(β ¼ −0.45, p o 0.01) supports this prediction. In the process, climate operates as an
indirect technostress inhibitor. It may be that structuration is better suited to preserving
relevance in automated workflows than it is to directly negating technology stressors.
Whether portfolio characteristics (e.g. age, scope) affect this relationship will be examined
in the following section. The predictors of job-satisfaction impact were also confirmed in
line with H7 through H10. As anticipated, job satisfaction was less likely to be bolstered
when HRTs elevated work stress and job insecurity (β ¼ −0.32 and −0.27, respectively,
p o 0.01). The remaining predictors had positive influences. Finding that improvements in
satisfaction were more likely to occur when there was an overarching, innovation climate
Final reduced model

Without common latent fact With common latent factor
χ2 287.98 287.51
df 129 128
Probability level 0.000 0.000
NFI 0.76 0.76
TLI 0.80 0.80
Table IV. CFI 0.85 0.85
Fit Indices of the RMSEA 0.08 0.08
tested models Hoelter’s CN (0.01) 99 99
Hypothesis Hypothesis
supported rejected
Parameters
HRT Governance Involvement → HRT Work Stress Impact −0.26*** H1
HR IT-Knowledge → HRT Work-Stress Impact 0.25** H2
Top Management HRT Support → HRT Work-Stress Impact −0.38** H3
HRT Job-Insecurity Impact → HRT Work-Stress Impact 0.37** H5
HR Innovation Climate → HRT Job-Insecurity Impact −0.45** H6
HRT Work-Stress Impact → HRT Job-Satisfaction Impact −0.32** H7
Top Management HRT Support → HRT Job-Satisfaction Impact 0.25** H8
HR Innovation Climate → HRT Job-Satisfaction Impact 0.23** H9
HRT Job-Insecurity Impact → HRT Job-Satisfaction Impact −0.27** H10
Explained variance
HRT Work-Stress Impact 0.41
Table V.
Standardized HRT Job-Insecurity Impact 0.20
estimates of the final HRT Job-Satisfaction Impact 0.49
reduced model Notes: *po 0.05; **p o0.01; ***p o0.10
(β ¼ 0.23, p o 0.01) lends credence to the argument that job-characteristic enhancements HR
are more likely to occur here, increasing the prospects for favorable job outcomes. technologies
Executive HRT support strengthened the chances of heightening satisfaction as well and HR-staff
(β ¼ 0.25, p o 0.01).
Thus, all but two of the hypotheses advanced by the model were found to have merit. The technostress
results also suggest that managing technology’s downsides (technostress, techno-insecurity)
is just as important as structuring facilitating circumstances (adequate resource support, 1133
innovation outlook). While differing in signs, their magnitudes of influence were comparable.
Additional hypothesis testing

As Table I showed, firms vary widely in the types of apps present, activities supported
and length of usage. These realities called for two adjustments in the initial design. The
first addressed concerns that HRT attitudes and their inter-relationships may vary with
time. For example, two studies reported that HRIS-satisfaction was inversely related to the
period a system was in place (IES/IPD, 1998; Wickramasinghe, 2010). Beyond that, certain
relationships may be slow to develop. Early on, staff have little to go on to judge HRTs
beyond their technical characteristics and prescribed modes of usage. However,
structurational opportunities should proliferate with time, especially in an innovation
climate. The longer portfolio apps are in place, the greater the opportunities to creatively
modify them to preserve staff involvement in HR workflows. One therefore expects a
stronger relationship between innovation climate and techno-insecurity where portfolios
have been functioning for extended periods. This constitutes an extension of H6.
The opposite is predicted for the relationship between techno-insecurity and
job-satisfaction impact – an extension of H10. Here, the former’s influence should be
weaker with older portfolios. Quality-of-work-life improvements should materialize slowly as
HRTs move from the point of adoption to being used with proficiency to finally becoming
fully institutionalized. This means fewer benefits are available with younger portfolios to
offset any feelings of job insecurity. As more favorable job outcomes come into being, staff
have more effects to consider when deciding on job satisfaction.
Returning to H6, it is also predicted that innovation climate will have a stronger impact
on techno-insecurity where portfolios are larger and deployed more expansively. In these
settings, staff have greater opportunities to neutralize job threats through concerted
structuration efforts.
Two new measures were constructed to test these hypotheses. Portfolio Age reflected the
average length of time that HRTs were owned. Organizations were classified into three
distinct subgroups: ⩽24 months, 24–48 months, and W 48 months. CedarCrestone (2013)
reported that full HRIS implementation normally takes up to 18 months depending on the
strategy to source it. The gap between initial enactment and widespread usage can be even
larger – up to three years as observed in one study (Ruël et al., 2004). Given these reference
points, the cutoff for “early stage” usage was 24 months. Firms in this subgroup should be
mired in the process of introducing technologies, or have only recently succeeded in doing
so. Over the next 24 months, there is “maturing” usage. Here, sufficient time has elapsed for
most apps to function as intended and end-users to see them as viable support-tools.
Anything beyond that is considered “institutionalized” use. After 48 months, they should be
fully integrated into HR workflows.
Portfolio Scope encompassed both area support and stage of assimilation across HRTs.
Respondents had specified not only the HR areas each app-type supported (e.g. recruitment,
compensation), but also its stage of deployment on a five-point scale patterned on Fichman
and Kemerer (1999). These two numbers were multiplied and summed across HRTs to
generate an aggregate score[5]. The sample again was stratified into three major subgroups.
ER Portfolios with a “limited” scope had three apps or less, most making little headway beyond
41,5 being purchased. Those with a “moderate” scope were better endowed (i.e. four to five
HRTs), although none had advanced beyond limited deployment. “Extensive” scope firms
had five apps or more that typically were widely deployed.
The chosen analytic technique was moderated regression using standardized values
for all of the variables (Baron and Kenny, 1986). Adding the predictors and moderators in
1134 sequential stages produced the anticipated results. While the former exhibited significant
βs, the latter did not, ruling them out as stand-alone predictors. Turning to the interaction
terms, one finds mixed support for the supplemental hypotheses. The first proposed that
innovation climate would have a stronger negative effect on techno-insecurity as portfolios
grew in maturity. This hypothesis is rejected since neither the β nor incremental R2 was
statistically significant. Our second hypothesis predicted that techno-insecurity would have
a stronger negative influence on job-satisfaction impact for younger portfolios. This
relationship is supported. The interaction term was statistically significant (β ¼ 0.17,
p o0.05), and it accounted for notable additional variance (ΔR2 ¼ 0.03, ΔF (1, 118) ¼ 4.36,
p o0.05). The effect is illustrated in Figure 3(a). The third hypothesis proposed that climate
would have a weaker relationship with techno-insecurity where portfolios were limited
in scope. The results substantiate this dynamic (β ¼ −0.22, p o0.01; ΔR2 ¼ 0.05,
ΔF (1, 144) ¼ 8.71, p o0.01). Figure 3(b) highlights the contrasts in slopes between
limited and more extensive portfolios.
Discussion
This study advances our knowledge on several fronts. It is the first investigation assessing
technology’s influence on general work attitudes with in the HR department. Rather than
idealizing the operation of HRTs, it embraced the possibility of workflow disruptions and
looming concerns about job loss or influence. These and other prospects could elevate work
stress, negating opportunities to enhance satisfaction. Second, the unit of analysis is the
overall department, rather than examining the impact on particular persons. Virtually all of
past research on HRT attitudes has been conducted at the individual level (see Florkowski,
2018). Third, it identifies and leverages an IS nexus by adopting and testing the technostress
construct. While IS concepts and models appear in some writings, it has not been the norm
in HRT studies. The more we seek synergies in integrating these disciplines, the greater the
likelihood the models we construct will capture all relevant influences.
Implications for future research

We begin with needed improvements in the inhibitor measures. HRT governance
involvement limited its focus to structural access to decision making. Whether the function
capitalized on such access in an inclusive manner was not considered. It can be argued that
HR staff may feel no more empowered in HRT matters when an HR executive acts
unilaterally than when decisions are controlled by line management. A better indicator may
be the level of staff-input into technology decisions. HR IT-knowledge was similarly skewed
toward the attributes of HR leadership. Detailing the knowledge and experiences diffused
among staff may be a preferable strategy.
The drivers of particular relationships must be clarified as well. For example, the
possibility that the net effect of IT-savvy is to elevate job demands rather than expand job
resources raises an interesting question. Is this phenomenon being driven by HR
leadership (“push” forces) or by executives outside the function (“pull” forces)? Starting
with HR, function heads may be pressuring staff for maximal usage to marshal more
evidence of value added. The more documentation that exists of system contributions, the
stronger the case they can make for return on investment. Alternatively, there may be a
significant skewing of IT knowledge in the HR hierarchy. If so, then HR executives may be
(a) HR
5.00 technologies
and HR-staff
technostress
4.00
Portfolio Age
1135
Job Satisfaction Impact
Average App Age-2 years
Average App Age 2 – 4 years

3.00
Average App Age > 4 years
2.00
1.00
1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00
Job Insecurity Impact
(b)
5.00
4.00
Job Insecurity Impact
Portfolio Scope
3.00 Limited
Moderate
Extensive
2.00
1.00 Figure 3.
Work-attitude
2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00
interaction effects
HR Innovative Climate
overestimating the capabilities of lower-level staff who find themselves encumbered

by technology tools. If non-HR actors instead are the culprit, it may stem from a mistaken
sense of staff capabilities, or from more intensive and demanding service consumption
to fully exploit the system. Knowing which of these scenarios explains what was
found would help us establish what needs to be done to better position portfolios to act as
net resources.
Other enhancements are recommended for study designs. Department-wide surveys
would be a valuable complement to key-informant data. This would enable a more detailed
mapping of technostress variables across levels and functional sub-structures. One could
also examine the contributing roles of personality (Srivastava et al., 2015) and user
ER demographics. Collecting and then aggregating HR-staff responses would have the added
41,5 benefit of being able to explore the predictive relevance of collective efficacy, group potency
and group locus-of-control. Longitudinal designs are encouraged as well. Pre-post
implementation data would be more likely to capture true attitudinal changes. If collected
early enough in the “shakedown” phase (Morris and Venkatesh, 2010), this might also
pinpoint the swiftness of impact. Finally, one could determine whether the changes
1136 observed are durable or fleeting through periodic measures from closely matched samples
(e.g. Griffin, 1991).
Implications for practice

The discovery that HRTs are not necessarily an attitudinal boon suggests employers must
be thorough and holistic in managing their lifecycles. Besides soliciting staff input in
portfolio design, firms would be well served effectively managing expectations once it is
running. Inflated or otherwise distorted claims about capabilities, ease-of-use, or
implementation shocks make it more difficult to sustain user buy-in. By analogy, Glover
and Butler (2012) discussed how the lives of HR staff were complicated by an over-promised,
high-performance work system, placing them on the receiving end of constant line criticism
because the latter were disappointed in the benefits being “realized.” Oversold HRTs create
the same risk.
Accurately “selling” these initiatives is just part of the challenge. There is also a need
to cultivate a climate receptive to change. Climates emphasizing flexibility, risk-taking
and evidence-based experimentation should reduce apprehensions about HRT
systems. This last point coincides with Shrivastava and Shaw’s (2003) assertion that
HRTs are not likely to be institutionalized unless there is support for innovation in the
underlying climate.
For all of its benefits, empowering staff with HR technologies is not without pitfalls.
Employers typically do so hoping to increase the efficiency and quality of transactional
workflows and encourage more strategic initiatives. It is hard to imagine that happening,
though, if practitioners are stressed by, or dissatisfied with, technology’s impact on the
nature of work. Therefore, clarifying the complex forces that shape their reactions should be
a higher research priority. This study represents a step toward that end, and it is hoped that
others will follow.
Notes
1. While Maier et al. (2013) reported a post-intervention link between e-recruitment system
satisfaction and job satisfaction, neither pre-post measures nor change-oriented scaling was part of
their design.
2. Consistent with the Job Demands-Resources Model (Demerouti et al., 2001; Bakker and Demerouti,
2007; Day et al., 2010), an argument also can be made these mechanisms better enable a system’s
inherent value-enhancing functionalities to be properly appropriated, and with that increase the
probability they will expand job resources rather than present as additional demands.
3. Structurational models of technology posit that IT systems are ultimately defined by the
confluence of hardware, software and interpretive schema of usage (Orlikowski, 2000;
Bondarouk, 2011).
4. Moreover, Cronbach’s α was unacceptably low (0.51) when these items were treated as a
single scale.
5. An assumption was made that complementarity, not redundancy, explained instances where the
same activity was listed for multiple technologies (i.e. that more of an HR area was being assisted
rather there being duplicate means of completing tasks).
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Further reading
Bondarouk, T. and Ruël, H. (2013), “The strategic value of e-HRM: results from an exploratory study in
a governmental organization”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 24
No. 2, pp. 391-414.
Bondarouk, T., Ruël, H. and van der Heijden, B. (2009), “E-HRM effectiveness in a public sector
organization: a multi-stakeholder perspective”, International Journal of Human Resource
Boudreau, J. and Lawler, E.E. III (2014), “Stubborn traditionalism in HRM: causes and consequences”,
Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 232-244.
Florkowski, G.W. and Olivas-Luján, M. (2006), “The diffusion of human-resource information
technology innovations in US and non-US firms”, Personnel Review, Vol. 35 No. 6, pp. 684-710.
Corresponding author
Gary Walter Florkowski can be contacted at: gwf@katz.pitt.edu
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Model and hypotheses

HR Innovation H6 HRT Job Insecurity Figure 1.

inhibitors, elevating the level of technostress. Perceived techno-insecurity in turn should

Measurement model and confirmatory factor analysis

1. HRT Governance Involvement 1.16 0.81 –

Final reduced model

Additional hypothesis testing

Implications for future research

Average App Age-2 years

Average App Age 2 – 4 years

1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00

Job Insecurity Impact

overestimating the capabilities of lower-level staff who find themselves encumbered

Implications for practice

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