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Teleworking: role of psychological Teleworking

well-being and technostress

in the relationship between trust
in management and 49
employee performance Received 1 April 2022
Revised 22 June 2022
10 August 2022
Akanksha Jaiswal Accepted 14 September 2022
Loyola Institute of Business Administration, Chennai, India
Santoshi Sengupta
Graphic Era Hill University, Bhimtal, India
Madhusmita Panda
University of the People, Pasadena, California, USA
Lopamudra Hati
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India
Verma Prikshat
Cardiff Metropolitan University–Llandaff Campus, Cardiff, UK, and
Parth Patel and Syed Mohyuddin
Department of Human Resource Management and Strategic Management,
Australian Institute of Business, Adelaide, Australia

Abstract
Purpose – The COVID-19 pandemic and technological advancements have enabled employees to telework.
Referring to this emerging phenomenon, the authors aim to examine how employees’ levels of trust in
management mediated by psychological well-being impact their performance as they telework. Deploying the
theoretical lens of person-environment misfit, the authors also explore the role of technostress in the
trust-wellbeing-performance relationship.
Design/methodology/approach – The data was collected from 511 full-time service sector employees across
Indian organizations through a structured survey questionnaire. The proposed moderation-mediation model
for this study was tested using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping method.
Findings – Structural equation modeling results indicate that trust in management significantly impacts
employee performance while teleworking. While psychological well-being was observed as a significant
mediator, technostress played the moderator role in the trust-performance relationship. The moderated-
mediation effect of psychological well-being in the trust-performance relationship was stronger when
technostress was low and weaker when technostress was high.
Research limitations/implications – The authors extend the person-environment misfit theory in the
context of telework, highlighting the role of technostress that may impact the trust-wellbeing- performance
relationship in such work settings.
Practical implications – The study informs leaders and managers on balancing delicate aspects such as
employee trust and well-being that significantly impact performance as they telework. The authors also
highlight the critical role of managers in respecting employees’ personal and professional boundaries to
alleviate technostress.
Originality/value – The authors make a novel theoretical contribution to the emerging literature on
teleworking by examining the trust-psychological wellbeing-performance link and the role of technostress in International Journal of Manpower
this relationship. Vol. 45 No. 1, 2024
pp. 49-71
Keywords Telework, Well-being, Technostress, Trust, Performance © Emerald Publishing Limited
0143-7720
Paper type Research paper DOI 10.1108/IJM-04-2022-0149
IJM Introduction
45,1 The COVID-19 pandemic has been a catalyst in encouraging employers and employees to
work remotely (Choudhary et al., 2021; Lim, 2021; Ollo-L
opez et al., 2021). Information and
Communication Technologies (ICTs) such as high-speed Internet, high-performance
computing, artificial intelligence, internet-of-things and reconfigured telecommunication
networks, have played a central role in facilitating this transition (Jaiswal et al., 2021; Ollo-
L
opez et al., 2021; Sako, 2021). The practicality of conducting remote work operations enabled
50 by ICT and a strong inkling that telework will be the new normal have forced leaders of many
large multinational organizations (such as Meta, Box, Google and Tata Consultancy Services)
to actively contemplate policies to scale up telework, including a more sustainable telework
model (Choudhary et al., 2021). The key difference between work-from-home and telework is
that employees working from home are constrained by time/space, whereas the telework
flexibility is “disembedded” from the confines of time and geographical locations (Chetty and
Motala, 2021; Ollo-L
opez et al., 2021; Tietze and Musson, 2005). We define telework as a virtual
workspace that relies upon ICT wherein all interactions between employers and employees are
free from space and time constraints. This boundaryless work setup allows employees to
work from anywhere and at any time. ICTs take a central role in this new conceptualization,
where employees are no longer required to be physically present at the corporate office.
Instead, they perform their jobs from remote locations such as home, car, hotel, satellite office,
customer sites or any other place that is different from the traditional office (Belzunegui-
Eraso and Erro-Garc
es, 2020; Liaw et al., 2007).
Extant research on concepts similar to telework, such as “work-from-home” and
“telecommuting” has observed individual, organizational and societal-level benefits of remote
work (i.e. work-life balance, improved work efficiency, greater work control, increased
motivation and satisfaction, reduction of environmental damage, decrease in traffic congestion),
as well as its perceived disadvantages (i.e. inadequate tools, home-office constraints, impaired
belongingness, feelings of isolation, work and home boundary-spanning issues) (Bellman and
Hubler, 2020; Harpaz, 2002; Ipsen et al., 2021; Ollo-L
opez et al., 2021). However, more empirical
research is warranted in this domain due to the increased teleworking during the pandemic and
its assumed significance in future work scenarios. More specifically, research is needed from
employees’ perspectives as they need to acclimatize to the new telework norm. Though there is
evidence of recent research in the context of teleworking during the pandemic (see Belzunegui-
Eraso and Erro-Garc
es, 2020; Choudhary et al., 2021; Fischer et al., 2021; Sako, 2021), there are a
plethora of issues that need to be examined to develop a well-informed telework ecosystem.
Thus, the present study examines the impact of employees’ perceptions of trust in management
on their performance mediated by psychological well-being as they telework against the
backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, given the increasing reportage of technostress
among employees while teleworking during the pandemic (Boyer-Davis, 2020; Camacho and
Barrios, 2022; Spagnoli et al., 2020; Taser et al., 2022), we examine the role of technostress in the
trust-psychological wellbeing-performance from the theoretical perspective of person-
environment misfit theory.
The rationale for focusing on employee trust in management, employee performance,
psychological well-being and technostress is that teleworking constitutes a work environment
that is invisible and is characterized by temporal and spatial flexibility. Lack of personal
connection and symbolic organizational cues may induce issues of employee trust in
management and its unintended consequences on their performance and well-being. The
assumption that teleworking may impact trust in management of employees gains credence,
given that previous research has observed that employees’ trust in management is best achieved
through consultation, participation and empowerment (Morgan and Zeffane, 2003). However, in
the context of ICT-induced telework, employees may work in an invisible/hidden scenario,
consequently having a depleted sense of involvement, thus, adversely impacting their trust Teleworking
levels in the management. Therefore, based on the above rationale, it is imperative to explore the
teleworking concept by investigating the mechanisms involving these selected variables. The
operational definitions of the chosen variables, i.e. trust in management, psychological well-
being, employee performance and technostress are given in Table 1.
Given the above discussion and evidence of linkage between employee trust in
management and performance (Kelloway et al., 2012; Mayer and Gavin, 2005), the negative
ramifications of ICT in the form of technostress (Ayyagari et al., 2011) and the impact of 51
technostress on well-being and performance (Adisa et al., 2017), our key research questions
are how does employee trust in management impact their performance as they telework? What
are the underlying mechanisms and contextual factors affecting the trust-performance
relationship? To address these research questions, we set the following four objectives for our
study: (1) To examine the relationship between employee trust in management and employee
performance, (2) To investigate the underlying mechanism of psychological well-being in the
trust-performance relationship, (3) To explore the moderating role of technostress in the trust-
performance relationship and (4) To delve into the moderated-mediation role of technostress
in the trust-psychological wellbeing-performance relationship.
This research contributes to the emerging teleworking literature in two ways. First, as the
COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated telework, it has also increased the vulnerability of employees.
In this context, our study takes forward past research (e.g. Mayer and Gavin, 2005; Sharkie, 2009)
in establishing that employees’ trust in management significantly influences performance. Second,
to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that has examined the moderating role
of technostress in the mediating relationship between trust-wellbeing-performance in the context
of telework. Thus, we make a novel theoretical contribution to the emerging literature on
teleworking as our findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the trust-performance
relationship in the context of teleworking in the post-pandemic era.

Theory and hypotheses

Person-environment misfit theory
Individuals form evaluations based on how well they match against their relevant norms and
consequently build the perceptions of fit and misfit (Schneider, 1987; Schneider et al., 1995).
Perceived fit is thus a socially constructed phenomenon which uses a normative reference and
acknowledges the social nature of these evaluations (Edwards et al., 2006). In addition to the
high claims for person-environment fit, wherein employees tend to perform better, stay
longer, and are healthier and happier when they work in environments in which they fit
(Kristof-Brown et al., 2005), literature also talks about the misfit in an environment which
poses organizational challenges and individual challenges such as discomfort,
incompatibility and stress (Follmer et al., 2018; Williamson and Perumal, 2021).

Variable Operational definition

Trust in management the degree of trust an employee has in the management in terms of treating them
honestly and fairly (Wang et al., 2018)
Psychological well- the essential aspect of human functioning such as feeling capable, having meaningful
being and purposeful life, and good relationships with others (Diener et al., 2009)
Employee an individual’s work achievement after expending the required efforts on the job
performance (Pradhan and Jena, 2017)
Technostress the stress created by the penetration of ICT into the personal lives of employees Table 1.
(Tarafdar et al., 2007) Operational definitions
IJM Person-environment misfit denotes a lack of fit in which the person does not match or is not
45,1 equal to that of the environment (Edwards and Shipp, 2007). It is the negative end of the fit
continuum, an unwanted, unpleasant and undesirable condition which is both incapacitating
and detrimental to the organization (Vleugels et al., 2019). Moreover, research on person-
environment misfit identifies socio-demographic factors, structural job factors and social
factors that can be attributed to misfits (Chan, 1996; Cooper-Thomas and Wright, 2013;
Jansen and Kristof-Brown, 2005; Lovelace and Rosen, 1996).
52 Extant literature suggests three types of misfits (Cooper-Thomas and Wright, 2013;
Wheeler et al., 2007). The first type of misfit is construed when there is a greater or lesser
amount of a specific element in an individual relative to others in the organization.
For instance, Chan (1996) demonstrated cognitive misfit wherein predominantly employees
had an adaptive cognitive style, thus rendering employees with an innovative cognitive style
as “misfit”. The second type of misfit occurs when employees have either more or less than the
ideal amount of some attribute such as some employees work at a faster or slower pace than
the social norm (Jansen and Kristof-Brown, 2005). Finally, the last type of misfit relates to
qualitative dimensions such as an employee may experience ethical misfit when an
organizational promise to a customer is not kept (Lovelace and Rosen, 1996).
Deploying the first type of misfit as the theoretical lens, we suggest that telework employees are
simultaneously nested in multiple dimensions of technology-assisted work environment. On the
one hand, employees working remotely need to adapt to changed work processes facilitated by
technological platforms, high-speed Internet, technological equipment and virtual environmental
settings, on the other hand, they need to adhere to the organizational norms, compliances and
standards of task accomplishments such as meeting the deadlines, responding to queries and
addressing the concerns of team members/supervisors (Edwards et al., 2006; Jansen and Kristof-
Brown, 2005). This may amount to the psychological reaction of technostress primarily because of
the misfit between individuals who telework and their new work environment. In other words, we
theorize that teleworking amounts to a person-environment misfit, and this misfit may trigger
technostress, decrease individuals’ well-being and hamper their performance.

Trust in management and employee performance

In their seminal work, Mayer et al. (1995) defined trust as “the willingness of a party to be
vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform
a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control
that other party”. For any organization to flourish concerning performance and productivity,
employees must trust the organization. An important outcome of trust is that it leads to more
risk-taking behaviors among the employees in both in-role responsibilities and extra-role
responsibilities (Mayer et al., 1995). As people become a part of the organization, they enter
into a psychological contract with the employer, wherein they show trust in management
which subsequently impacts their performance (Argyris, 1964; Mayer and Gavin, 2005).
Recent empirical evidence underscores a positive relationship between trust and employee
performance (Audenaert et al., 2016; Kloutsiniotis and Mihail, 2018; Lee et al., 2020).
While the thrust on trust is not new and its link with performance is well established, we are
retesting this hypothesis in current times because as employees telework, their trust in
management must replace all physical supervision mechanisms. Men et al. (2021) found that the
organizational leaders’ motivating language strongly impacted the employees’ trust during the
COVID-19 pandemic. Besides the leader’s motivating language, demonstration of concern,
empathy, care and appreciation resulted in employees’ reporting higher levels of trust in the
organization. While employees worked remotely during the pandemic, they were
psychologically impacted due to several factors such as the fear of sickness/death caused by
the COVID-19 virus, anxiety caused by the news of the loss of jobs, insomnia, work-related
anxiety, intrusive thoughts and nightmares (Al-Abrrow et al., 2021). Fear, anxiety, depression Teleworking
and irritability caused due to the pandemic led to difficulty in concentration in work and
negatively impacted employee performance (Sahoo et al., 2022). In addition, Sutarto et al. (2022)
found that work-home interference, lack of dedicated workspace and inadequate ICT support,
impacted employees’ performance. In such testing times, employee trust in management played
a pivotal role for them to overcome the fear of the COVID-19 virus and threats of uncertainty (He
et al., 2021). When employees feel that the organization cares for them, their trust in the
organization will grow manifold, leading to enhanced performance. As traditional 53
organizational structures pave the way for telework, trust becomes an even more important
antecedent for a high-performance workforce. Thus, we posit that:
H1. Trust in management positively influences employee performance while teleworking.

The mediating role of psychological well-being in employee trust-performance relationship

While past research has established the impact of employee trust on performance, the means
through which trust impacts performance is less clear (Mayer and Gavin, 2005). We believe
that psychological well-being explains the underlying mechanism in the trust-performance
relationship. Well-being is an overall positive state of an individual with regard to their
subjective cognitive and affective evaluation of life (Diener et al., 2009; Jaiswal and Dyaram,
2020). It reflects essential states of human functioning ranging from feeling capable, having
good relationships with others and leading a meaningful and purposeful life.
The well-being of people in the work context has gained significant attention in the past
decades (Kalliath et al., 2017). Moreover, during the pandemic, as employees worked remotely,
their psychological well-being became a matter of priority and grave concern for employers
(Hoff, 2021; Pradhan et al., 2021). While an inclusive leadership style, open behavior, helping
relationships and transparent organizational culture are deemed to promote psychological
safety among teleworking employees, some studies found that a lack of perceived support
from the management led to a decrease in their professional quality of life (Ahmed et al., 2021;
Jaiswal and Dyaram, 2020; Ness et al., 2021). Past research has highlighted the critical role of
trust in management in contributing to the well-being of employees (Clark and Payne, 1997;
Morgan and Zeffane, 2003). For instance, Helliwell and Huang (2011) found a significant
increase in the well-being of employees with a higher trust in management compared to
employees with low levels of trust. Inceoglu et al. (2018) note that trust in leadership reflects
the employees’ comfort in communicating openly without fearing the negative repercussions,
which contributes to their well-being.
Further, the extant literature provides evidence of better performance of employees who
report high levels of well-being (Kalliath et al., 2017). For instance, Hosie and Sevastos (2009)
and Taris and Schreurs (2009) found organizational and job performance to significantly
improve with high levels of well-being. In a recent study, Mello and Tomei (2021) found that
organizational support towards enhancing employees’ work-life harmony as they adjusted to
the teleworking environment resulted in improved employee performance. Based on these
conjectures, we believe that as employees telework, their psychological well-being will
mediate the relationship between trust in management and employee performance.
Consequently, we hypothesize that:
H2. Psychological well-being mediates the relationship between trust in management
and employee performance while teleworking.

The moderating role of technostress in employee trust-performance relationship

Referring to the person-environment misfit theory and past research highlighting that
technostress does not arise from either the person or the environment alone but from the
IJM interaction of both person and their environment (Ayyagari et al., 2011; Chuang et al., 2016), we
45,1 believe that telework may contribute to technostress. Technostress is a psychological reaction to
the misfit between employees and their new tech-enabled work environment (Kruse et al., 2014).
Technostress has been reported by individuals who extensively use technology for their work,
such as mobile computing devices (Qi, 2019), corporate management systems (Tu et al., 2008),
social media (Brooks and Califf, 2017) and collaborative tools (Jena, 2015).
The negative impact of technostress on employee performance is caused due to increasing
54 techno-invasion, techno-complexity, techno-insecurity, techno-overload and techno-
uncertainty (Tarafdar et al., 2007, 2015). In order to perform well, people need adequate
breaks. However, technology and mobile devices have permeated all the boundaries between
work and personal lives. People report “being on” or connected always as mobile information
technology devices have inadvertently lengthened their working hours (Adisa et al., 2017;
Mellner, 2016). Tarafdar et al. (2015) found that technostress negatively impacted sales
professionals’ performance. In a recent study, Rodriguez and Choudrie (2021) found that low
levels of trust in organizations intensified employees’ technostress and reduced engagement,
satisfaction and job performance. In contrast, trust in management may counterbalance the
negative impact of technostress, thus allowing the employees to retain their performance in a
time of crisis (Richter and Naswall, 2019). Given the prior findings of technostress on
performance, we cognize that technostress will moderate the relationship between trust in
management and performance as employees telework. Thus, we hypothesize that:
H3. Technostress moderates the relationship between trust in management and
employee performance while teleworking such that when technostress is high the
trust-performance relationship weakens.

Moderated-mediation role of technostress

Prior literature suggests that extreme technostress could negatively affect physical health,
psychological well-being and hamper social and family relationships (Adisa et al., 2017; Al-
Fudail and Mellar, 2008; Salanova et al., 2014). Technostress also leads to disorders such as
lack of concentration, sleep and identity issues (Nimrod, 2018; Pirkkalainen and Salo, 2016).
Technostress is negatively related to happiness, causes a threat to the general well-being of
an individual (Brooks, 2015; Salanova et al., 2013), increases employee exhaustion and
negatively impacts psychological and physical outcomes such as job commitment and job
satisfaction (Tarafdar et al., 2015).
Technostress is a modern disease resulting from an individual’s inability to handle ICTs in
a healthy manner (Brod, 1982; Malik et al., 2021) and leads to the loss of personal resources.
Personal resources are aspects of the self that refer to an individual’s sense of ability to
control and impact their environment. Teleworking by being connected to technology all the
time leads to significant levels of stress which adversely affects the cognitive and social
resources of employees. Further, work-home conflict, job insecurity, information overload
and professional isolation can lead to exhaustion and burnout among teleworking employees
(Ayyagari et al., 2011; Golden et al., 2008). While trust in management enables employees to
focus on value-producing activities and increase their multifaceted performance (Mayer and
Gavin, 2005), technostress hinders their performance (Tams et al., 2018). Thus, we propose
that when teleworking employees experience higher levels of technostress, it has a more
substantial negative impact on the trust-performance relationship mediated by well-being as
compared to when they experience lower levels of technostress. Thus, we hypothesize that:
H4. Technostress moderates the indirect relationship between trust in management and
employee performance such that the indirect effect via psychological well-being is
 more substantial when technostress is low whereas it is weaker when technostress Teleworking
is high.
Figure 1 summarizes the hypothesized relationships.

Method
Research setting 55
In line with our research questions and objectives, we collected data from employees who
were teleworking during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected from Indian service
industries such as information technology, banking, retail and telecom sectors in India. The
work location of participants spanned major cities of India such as Bangalore, Chennai,
Hyderabad, New Delhi, Mumbai, Noida, Gurgaon, Bhubaneswar, Pune and Kolkata. Table 2
summarizes the sample characteristics as per the industry and location.

Sample and data collection procedure

The data for the present study were collected through the online mode using purposive
sampling. Purposive sampling is used in order to better match the sample to the aims and

Figure 1.
Summary of
hypothesized
relationships

Diversity characteristic Categories No. % (N 5 511)

Gender Women 148 29%

Men 363 71%
Age (in years) ≤35.85 394 77%
>35.85 117 23%
Educational qualification Diploma 107 21%
Bachelors 271 53%
Masters 133 26%
Work experience Less than 5 years 201 39%
5–10 years 109 21%
10–15 years 123 24%
More than 15 years 78 16%
Job type Technical 328 64%
Managerial 183 36%
Industry Information Technology 257 50%
Banking 112 22%
Retail 89 17.5%
Telecom 53 10.5%
Location North India 323 63% Table 2.
South India 188 37% Sample characteristics
IJM objectives of the research. Purposive sampling is known to improve the study rigor and enhance
45,1 the trustworthiness of the data and results thereof (Campbell et al., 2020). Thus, the inclusion
criteria for the study mandated that the participants have at least one year of experience in the
service industry and should be proficient in the English language. Nonservice industry
professionals, new joiners and trainees were excluded from the study. Due care was taken to
choose those respondents who had to work remotely since the onslaught of the pandemic in
order to understand the nuances and demands of the telework context.
56 Due to the ongoing pandemic, we contacted the potential respondents over the telephone. We
briefed the respondents about the purpose of the research study, i.e. the impact of their trust in
management on their performance as they teleworked and factors affecting this relationship.
During the telephonic briefing, participants were assured of the confidentiality of their
responses. 723 teleworking employees consented to participate in the study. The study
questionnaire was created using Google survey forms. The online link was shared via email with
those employees who gave their consent to participate in the survey-based study. Besides
confidentiality, providing their names while responding to the survey was optional in order to
maintain the anonymity of responses. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the
personal and professional lives of the interested participants, some could not revert with the
filled questionnaire. Each respondent who had provided consent was contacted twice to respond
to the survey – the first reminder was telephonic and the second one was via email. Despite their
interest in the study, they could not participate eventually, and we empathized with their
situation. Out of the interested participants, 511 participants completed the survey, thus,
yielding a response rate of 70.67%.

Measures
The survey questionnaire included five sections. The first section sought demographic
information from the respondents. The subsequent sections comprised items from the below
scales to collect data on trust in management, employee performance, psychological well-
being and technostress, and as employees teleworked. All the measurements were done on a
five-point Likert agreement scale (1 – Strongly disagree and 5 – Strongly agree).
Appendix provides details of the measures (i.e. items) used in the present study.
Trust in management. Wang et al. (2018) three-item scale was used to measure employees’
level of trust in management in the context of telework. Sample item includes “the degree to
which management can be relied upon to keep their promises.”
Employee performance. To assess participants’ perceptions regarding their own performance
in the context of telework, we used the scale developed by Pradhan and Jena (2017). The scale has
three dimensions: contextual performance, task performance and adaptive performance. The scale
comprises twenty-three items such as “I am very passionate about my work”.
Psychological well-being. We used the flourishing scale developed by Diener et al. (2009) in
the context of telework. The scale consists of eight items to measure the level of psychological
well-being such as “I am a good person and live a good life”.
Technostress. The scale developed by Tarafdar et al. (2007) was used to measure
technostress. Three items from the techno-invasion dimension were used to understand the
perceptions of technostress level of employees in the context of telework. Sample item
includes “I feel my personal life is being invaded by this technology”.

Results
Profile of participants
The respondents of this study were employees from different departments and project teams
working at various technical and managerial positions including human resources, business
analyst, testing, and software engineers. Participants’ mean age was 35.85 years with a Teleworking
standard deviation (SD) of 4.5 years 71% of the participants were male with an average age of
33.01 years (SD 5 2.67) whereas the remaining were female with an average age of
30.07 years (SD 5 2.01). Participants’ demographics related to gender, age, educational
qualification, work experience and job type, are summarized in Table 2.

Preliminary analysis 57
Descriptive statistics (means, SDs, and correlations) of all four study variables (trust in
management, employee performance, psychological well-being and technostress) are
presented in Table 3.

Confirmatory factor analysis

Measurement model. The measurement model was used to analyze the relationships between
each latent variable and its associated indicators. The result of measurement model
[χ 2 5 1679.76, χ 2/df 5 2.02, p 5 0.001, Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) 5 0.94, Comparative Fit
Index (CFI) 5 0.96, Tucker-Lewis Index (TFI) 5 0.92, Root Mean Square Error of
Approximation (RMSEA) 5 0.06] indicates a good model fit for the empirical data.
Construct validity was established by assessing the constructs’ convergent and
discriminant validity (Hair et al., 2019). Convergent validity was assessed by the
standardized estimates, composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted (AVE)
values (Hair et al., 2017). Table 4 shows that the CR values are greater than 0.70, and AVE
values are above 0.50, indicating a satisfactory convergent validity for the present study.
Further, discriminant validity was reported using the Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratio
(Henseler et al., 2016). Table 4 shows that the HTMT value is less than 0.85 (Franke and
Sarstedt, 2019), confirming that discriminant validity was achieved.
Common method bias. Self-report measures used in our study may lead to Common Method
Bias (CMB). Hence, we employed procedural remedies recommended by Podsakoff et al. (2012) to
contain the possibility of CMB, such as the consent letter assuring the respondents of anonymity
and confidentiality. Further, we deployed the common latent factor method to detect CMB. We

Cronbach’s Standard
Variables Mean alpha deviation TIM EP PWB TS

Trust in management 3.69 0.92 0.86 1

(TIM)
Employee Performance 4.05 0.92 2.91 0.46** 1
(EP)
Psychological Well-being 4.34 0.88 1.22 0.28* 0.39* 1 Table 3.
(PWB) Means, standard
Technostress (TS) 3.55 0.85 0.73
0.14**
0.18*
0.24* 1 deviations and
Note(s): n 5 511, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01 correlations of variable

HTMT ratio
Construct CR AVE 1 2 3 4

1. Trust in management 0.91 0.54 –

2. Technostress 0.92 0.55 0.37 Table 4.
3. Psychological well-being 0.89 0.57 0.49 0.71 Convergent and
4. Employee performance 0.91 0.61 0.41 0.75 0.81 discriminant validity
IJM found that the common latent factor had a measurement factor loading of 0.48 i.e. the common
45,1 factor accounted for 23.04% of the variance among the measures. This value is below the
suggested threshold of 50% (Podsakoff et al., 2012), thus, indicating that the data is free from the
possible biases of social desirability or shared variance among the measured variables.

Hypotheses testing
58 After obtaining an acceptable full measurement model, path analysis was conducted to test the
hypothesized model. The structural model was prepared with trust in management as the
independent variable, employee performance as the dependent variable, psychological well-
being as the mediating variable and technostress as the moderator variable. The results showed
that an acceptable model fit was achieved for the structural model (χ 2 5 361.59, χ 2/df 5 1.01,
GFI 5 0.96, TLI 5 0.94, CFI 5 0.95, RMSEA 5 0.05).
Hypothesis 1. Bootstrapping technique was used to test the proposed hypotheses with
bootstrapping sample size of 2000. Further, the t-value, p-value, and confidence interval bias-
corrected were considered for testing the hypotheses. We found that trust in management was
positively related to employee performance (β 5 0.59, t 5 6.016, p < 0.01). Hence, Hypothesis 1 was
supported.
Hypothesis 2. Trust in management and psychological well-being were found to be positively
and significantly related (β 5 0.61, t 5 8.013, p < 0.001). Psychological well-being and employee
performance were also found to be positively related (β 5 0.58, t 5 4.612, p < 0.001). The result of
mediation analysis, as shown in Table 5 reveals that psychological well-being mediated the
relationship between trust in management and employee performance [β 5 0.49, t 5 4.013: lower
limit confidence interval (LLCI) 5 0.319, upper limit confidence interval (ULCI) 5 0.627, p < 0.01].
Hence, Hypothesis 2 was supported.
Hypothesis 3. The results also revealed that the moderation effect of technostress was
significant (β 5
0.19, t 5 4.008: LLCI 5
0.191, ULCI 5
0.521, p < 0.01), thus, Hypothesis
3 was also supported. As shown in Figure 2, the effect of trust in management on employee
performance is stronger when technostress is low and weaker when technostress is high.
Thus, supporting Hypothesis 3, the relationship between trust in management and employee
performance is significantly moderated by technostress.
Hypothesis 4. Hypothesis 4 stated that the relationship between trust in management and
employee performance via psychological well-being was moderated by technostress; the
effect was stronger when technostress was high. As shown in Table 5, the interaction effect
was found to be significant and negative (β 5
0.49, SE 5 0.02, p < 0.01, LLCI 5
0.45,
ULCI 5
0.26), thus supporting the Hypothesis 4.

Path Hypothesis β SE t-stat p-values LLCI ULCI Decision

Direct effect: Trust in H1 0.61 0.09 8.013 0.001 0.761 0.971 Supported
management→Employee
performance
Mediation effect: Trust in H2 0.49 0.02 4.013 0.001 0.319 0.627 Supported
management→Psychological
well-being→Employee
performance
Moderation effect: Employee H3
0.19 0.06 4.008 0.001
0.191
0.521 Supported
performance ←Trust in
Table 5. management, Technostress as a
Summary of direct moderator
effect, mediation effect Note(s): n 5 511; Bootstrap sample size 5 2,000; BC 95% CI 5 Bias-corrected 95% Confidence Interval;
and moderation effect LLCI 5 Lower limit of confidence interval; ULCI 5 Upper limit of confidence interval
 Teleworking

59

Figure 2.
Interaction between
trust in management
and technostress
predicting employee
performance

The result of the PROCESS macro (Model 8) interprets the moderated-mediation relationship.
The strength of the relationship between trust in management and employee performance
through psychological well-being is conditional on the value of technostress. Moderated-
mediation effect is proven when the magnitude of the conditional indirect effect of trust in
management on employee performance via psychological well-being is significant and is
different at high versus low levels of technostress. We operationalized high and low technostress
as (þ1) and (
1) SD from the mean score. Table 5 presents the bootstrapping results that, when
technostress was higher (þ1 SD), the indirect effects of trust in management on employee
performance via psychological well-being were stronger in a negative way (B 5
0.56,
SE 5 0.02, 95% CI: 0.61,
0.31). The indirect effects became weaker (B 5
0.27, SE 5 0.05, 95%
CI: 0.11,
0.16) when technostress was lower (
1 SD). As shown in Figure 3, the indirect effect of
trust in management on employee performance via psychological well-being is stronger when
technostress is low and weaker when it is high. Thus, supporting hypothesis 4, that technostress
moderates the mediated relationship between trust in management and employee performance
through psychological well-being (Table 6).

Discussion
We set out to examine the impact of trust in management on employee performance as they
telework. We also aimed to investigate the mediating role of psychological well-being and the
moderating role of technostress on the aforementioned relationship. Our result of hypothesis
1 indicates that as people telework, their trust in management significantly impacts their
performance. To support this finding, we would like to invoke Kanfer and Ackerman’s (1989)
theory of information-processing that gives us key insights into the trust-performance
IJM
45,1

60

Figure 3.
Moderated-mediation
plot between trust in
management and
technostress predicting
employee performance
via psychological
well-being

Hypothesized path β SE t p LLCI ULCI Decision

Moderated mediation effect

H4: Trust in Management→Psychological
0.49 0.02 6.01 0.001
0.45 0.26 Supported
well-being→Employee performance;
Table 6.
technostress as moderator
Process macro
moderated mediated High: þ1 SD
0.56 0.03 5.83 0.001
0.61
0.31 Significant
result for trust in Moderate: mean
0.51 0.07 4.91 0.001
0.26
0.19 Significant
management on Low:
1SD
0.27 0.03 2.07 0.001 0.31
0.13 Significant
employee performance Note(s): n 5 511, β 5 standardized regression weights. Level of significance is at p < 0.001

relationship in the context of teleworking. This theory endorses our finding as it highlights
that the human brain’s capability to process information is limited. Cognitive or attentional
resources are limited, and “off-task thoughts” can reduce task performance. When employees
work from the traditional office setup, several verbal and nonverbal cues are exchanged
among the organizational members. Physical presence and face-to-face communication often
build trust and contribute to performance. However, as employees work remotely, their
managers do not directly see them, and there is reduced formal and informal communication.
Thus, employees’ level of trust in management may reduce. In the present context of telework,
if employees have low levels of trust in the management, it will divert their attention from the
task to issues related to mistrust (or lack of trust) that will consume a significant part of their
finite processing capacity, thus, hampering performance. In an uncertain and turbulent
business environment, good performance requires more of a person’s cognitive resources.
Employee trust in management will help channel their focus and efforts to the task at hand, Teleworking
thereby, improving performance (Mayer and Gavin, 2005).
Psychological well-being was found to be a significant mediator in the trust-performance
relationship as proposed in hypothesis 2. As mentioned before, psychological well-being of
employees was prioritized by many organizations during the pandemic of COVID-19 (Hoff,
2021; Pradhan et al., 2021), in which several organizations demonstrated their sincere
commitment toward employee well-being (that included component of their psychological
well-being) by establishing regular interactions, providing moral and financial support and 61
healthcare benefits for employees as well as for their family members, and reassuring
employees of their job security. Organizational support and supervisor accessibility affirmed
to the employees that the support was not just “perceived” but was a “reality” (Mihalache and
Mihalache, 2021). Positive managerial actions reinforced employee trust in the organization
and led to enhanced levels of psychological well-being. Our findings concur with past
research that highlights when employees feel psychologically connected to the organization;
they have a heightened sense of obligation and commitment to the organization. Thus, they
reciprocate by expending more efforts leading to enhanced productivity and performance
(Golden and Veiga, 2008; Varma et al., 2022).
Our results are in line with several prior studies which have found the adverse effect of
technostress on performance (Cooper et al., 2001; Tarafdar et al., 2007, 2015). We contribute to
the existing literature by extending the person-environment misfit theory in the context of
teleworking. Person-environment misfit theory provides us a theoretical rationale to
understand that when employees telework, they get nested in multiple dimensions of a
technology-assisted work environment simultaneously. Study findings underscore that
technology had invaded the personal space of the respondents. As employees worked
remotely, they realized the fluidity of personal and professional boundaries. Due to
technology, the permeability of boundaries between work and family had increased such that
the spillover of work beyond the traditional work hours was prevalent and inevitable. This
blurring of boundaries removed the temporal-spatial gaps that are necessary for adequate
performance. Thus, technostress significantly moderated the trust-performance relationship.
Prior stress-wellbeing literature highlights issues such as self-identity crisis, sleep disorders,
problems in concentration and inability to maintain cordial relationships (Cooper et al., 2001;
Greubel and Kecklund, 2011; Thoits, 2013). Further, literature on the stress-performance
relationship highlights the negative impact of stress on performance (Jamal, 1984, 2007). More
specifically, we contribute to the growing literature on technostress, especially in the context of
telework, and we found that trust in management had a positive impact on employee well-being
as well as performance; however, technostress moderated this mediation relationship. The
moderated-mediation effect of psychological well-being in the trust-performance relationship
was stronger when technostress was low and weaker when technostress was high. In the event
of telework becoming a future work norm, the employee’s trust in management will positively
impact their psychological well-being and performance, however, the positive impact may
diminish considerably given the technostress faced by employees due to excessive reliance on
ICTs. The study results suggested that higher levels of technostress lead to a stronger negative
impact and the negative impact was weak when the observed technostress level was low. It is
noteworthy that when technostress was low, the impact remained negative although it was
weak. This highlights the critical role of technostress on well-being and performance in the
teleworking context. While technology has facilitated work from anywhere and at any time, it
has also infringed the boundaries that people create to differentiate between their personal and
professional lives. In a traditional office setup, employees focus on work during office hours, and
once they reach home, they focus on their personal lives. However, due to tech-enabled mobile
devices, work invades people’s lives throughout the day and during weekends, leaves or
vacations. Managers expect employees to respond to queries via instant messages and/or emails
IJM beyond office hours or during employees’ off-periods. This minor yet constant intrusion through
45,1 technology causes tremendous stress on people as they have finite cognitive and affective
capacities. Lack of adequate breaks from work leads to the depletion of cognitive and affective
resources, consequently reducing employees’ psychological well-being and performance.

Theoretical implications
62 Deploying the person-environment misfit theory as the framework of our study, we highlight
two theoretical implications. First, people have an innate need to match their environments
and their own characteristics as they prefer consistency, reduce uncertainty, have more
control over their lives, have a need to belong and want happiness and life satisfaction (Yu,
2013). This theory stipulates three key principles: “(a) the person and the environment
together predict human behaviour better than each of them separately; (b) outcomes are most
optimal when personal attributes (e.g. needs, values) and environmental attributes (e.g.
supplies) are compatible, irrespective of whether these attributes are rated as low, medium
and high; and (c) the direction of misfit between the person and environment does not matter”
(Van Vianen, 2018, pg. 75). Our findings support the abovementioned principles of this theory
as both, the individual factors (i.e. psychological well-being, trust in management) and
environmental factors (i.e. technostress) were found to be important predictors in determining
employee performance when teleworking while the compatibility of these factors influenced
the trust-performance relationship.
Second, our results provide interesting insights into the explanatory power of fit. We find
the most optimal outcomes when employees report a fit on the aspects they rate as the highest
and lowest outcomes when the same aspects result in negative consequences. More
specifically, psychological well-being in the trust-performance relationship is found to be
stronger when technostress is low and weaker when technostress is high. These findings
indicate that when it comes to telework, employees experience more challenges in adapting
when their individual attributes do not align with the new work environment, thus, leading to
suboptimal outcomes such as reduced well-being and performance.

Practical implications
Our study findings have key implications for managers and leaders. First, since employees
tend to perform better when they perceive trust in the management, organizations must value
their employees and ensure effective communication as it generates a process of sharing, and
allows the teleworking employees to experience positive emotions. When employees receive
constructive and positive communication from their managers and leaders, their trust in the
management gets strengthened. They feel the leadership treats them fairly and consequently,
they uphold the psychological contract and perform to the best of their potential.
Second, besides trust, leadership must ensure ways to alleviate employee stress and
enhance a good sense of psychological well-being as they telework. The nature of work that is
entrusted to employees as they telework should be engaging, must leverage their
competencies and provide them with a sense of meaning and purpose. Further,
teleworking must nurture support, respect and collaboration. This will ensure trust in
management and foster psychological well-being, leading to enhanced employee
performance. Thus, it is crucial for leaders and managers to be the torchbearers for
enhancing the trust of employees in the telework context so that employees sustain their
psychological well-being in order to churn out their best performance.
Third key implication pivots around technostress, an inevitable component of the
telework phenomenon. Given the excessive reliance of telework on ICTs, the study’s results
can help managers understand the impact of technostress on all the chosen variables and help
them formulate strategies to reduce the adverse effects of ICTs on workers in this telework Teleworking
environment. We invoke the boundary theory (Nippert-Eng, 1996) to highlight that people
differ in the level of permeability in personal and professional boundaries. While technology
facilitates smooth work functioning, it often infringes on employees’ personal space and time,
causing overall stress. While some individuals prefer the segmentation of work-family
domains, others prefer integration (Derks et al., 2016). Managers must understand employees’
preferences in boundary management and that people need spatial-temporal distance to work
efficiently. Thus, establishing a good boundary management process is critical for managers 63
to ensure that their employees can manage technostress and have higher levels of
psychological well-being while they telework.

Limitations and future research

While the strength of our study lies in examining employees’ perception of both tangible and
intangible outcomes, i.e. performance, and psychological well-being, respectively, there are a
few limitations too. The first limitation is the research design, wherein we used structural
equation modeling to analyze the hypothesized relationships in a cross-sectional sample. This
opens an interesting avenue for future research where researchers can conduct a longitudinal
study and delve deeper into the long-term effects of telework. The second limitation is around
the selection of variables where we have focused on only the inter-relationships among four
main variables for moderation-mediation analysis. We refrained from using all the possible
predictors of our dependent variable stemming from teleworking (i.e. employee
characteristics, urban-rural divide, temporal or spatial distance) and their relationship with
other chosen variables (i.e. psychological well-being and technostress) to rule out bias that
could have influenced our estimates around the results of the four-prong moderation-
mediation model. Future studies can use the results of this study to further test the mediating
or moderating role of the above-mentioned variables to further extend this research.
Third, the sample size may be considered small in consideration of the possible great
variability that the phenomenon of teleworking can show among different employees. For
instance, are psychological well-being and technostress different for those employees living in
rural and urban areas? How does the distance of respondents’ home from the office affect the
study variables? Thus, future studies could measure these aspects using a larger sample size.
Fourth, our study sample comprised industries in the service sector wherein predominantly
teleworking was possible. However, some jobs and roles in manufacturing sectors can be
performed remotely too. Future studies can explore how the study variables and relationships
may unfold in varied sectors. Our sample comprised employees working in India. When we
explore telework, geographical boundaries become irrelevant. In this connection, future work
can examine our hypotheses with geographically dispersed employees to understand the role of
trust and technostress on employee psychological well-being and performance. Finally, the
unique lessons and implications of our study conducted in the COVID-19 context can be
extrapolated by future researchers by exploring other significant externalities such as the
Ukraine–Russia conflict. While war is a widely studied topic in history, it is relatively
understudied in business (Lim et al., 2022). Our study variables could also be explored in crises
contexts as people in such difficult situations are more likely to engage in telework and the
nature of their trust, well-being, technostress and performance are likely to be different from
employees outside these countries given that their lives and livelihoods are at stake.

Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic and advances in ICTs have facilitated teleworking that is quite
different from the traditional face-to-face office environment. In this study, we examined how
IJM the novel context of teleworking during the pandemic influenced some key aspects related to
45,1 employees. Our findings highlight the critical role of trust in management and its impact on
employee performance during telework. Psychological well-being mediated the trust-
performance relationship while technostress moderated the trust-wellbeing-performance link
as employees teleworked. We highlight the pivotal role of managers in building and
nurturing trust to alleviate technostress and enhance psychological well-being, thereby,
boosting employee performance. Our study underscores the crucial role of leaders in the
64 employment relationship which may soon undergo a profound change as most employees
may telework beyond the organizational spatial and temporal boundaries.

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(The Appendix follows overleaf)

IJM Appendix
Please respond to the following statements considering the “telework” context and put a tick (U) in the
45,1 box, which seems most appropriate. There are no right or wrong answers.

70
Sl.
No. Items

agree nor

Disagree
Strongly

Strongly
disagree

disagree
Neither
Agree
agree
Trust in management in telework context
Source(s): Wang, Mather, and Seifert (2018)
TIM1 The degree to which management can be relied
upon to keep their promises.

TIM2 The degree to which management can be relied

upon to deal with employees honestly.

TIM3 The degree to which management can be relied

upon to treat employees fairly.

Employee performance in telework context

Source(s): Pradhan and Jena (2016)
EP1 I use to maintain high standard of work.

EP2 I am capable of handling my assignments without

much supervision.
EP3 I am very passionate about my work.

EP4 I know I can handle multiple assignments for

achieving organizational goals.
EP5 I use to complete my assignments on time.

EP6 My colleagues believe I am a high performer in my

organization.
EP7 I use to perform well to mobilize collective
intelligence for effective team work.
EP8 I could manage change in my job very well
whenever the situation demands.
EP9 I can handle effectively my work team in the face
of change
EP10 I always believe that mutual understanding can
lead to a viable solution in organization.
EP11 I use to lose my temper when faced with criticism
from my team members (R).
EP12 I am very comfortable with job flexibility.

EP13 I use to cope well with organizational changes

from time to time.
EP14 I used to extend help to my co-workers when asked
or needed.
EP15 I love to handle extra responsibilities.

EP16 I extend my sympathy and empathy to my co-

workers when they are in trouble.
EP17 I actively participate in group discussions and work
meetings.
EP18 I use to praise my co-workers for their good work.
 Teleworking
EP19 I derive lot of satisfaction nurturing others in
organization.
EP20 I use to share knowledge and ideas among my team
members.
EP21 I use to maintain good coordination among fellow
workers.
EP22 I use to guide new colleagues beyond my job 71
purview.
EP23 I communicate effectively with my colleagues for
problem solving and decision making.
Psychological well-being in telework context
Source(s): Diener et al.(2009)
PWB1 I lead a purposeful and meaningful life.

PWB2 My social relationships are supportive and

rewarding.
PWB3 I am engaged and interested in my daily activities.

PWB4 I actively contribute to the happiness and well-

being of others.
PWB5 I am competent and capable in the activities that
are important to me.
PWB6 I am a good person and live a good life.

PWB7 I am optimistic about my future.

PWB8 People respect me.

Technostress in telework context

Source(s): Tarafdar, Ragu-Nathan, and Ragu-Nathan (2007)
TS1 I spend less time with my family due to this
technology.
TS2 I have to be in touch with my work even during my
vacation due to this technology.
TS3 I feel my personal life is being invaded by this
technology.

Corresponding author
Akanksha Jaiswal can be contacted at: akanksha.jaiswal@liba.edu

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