Community, Work & Family

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Technostress and work-family interface in the face

of COVID-19-related remote work: the moderator
role of goals setting and prioritization skills

Fortuna Procentese, Flora Gatti & Emiliano Ceglie

To cite this article: Fortuna Procentese, Flora Gatti & Emiliano Ceglie (18 Aug 2023):
Technostress and work-family interface in the face of COVID-19-related remote work: the
moderator role of goals setting and prioritization skills, Community, Work & Family, DOI:
10.1080/13668803.2023.2247147

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2023.2247147

Published online: 18 Aug 2023.

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COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY
https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2023.2247147

Technostress and work-family interface in the face of COVID-

19-related remote work: the moderator role of goals setting
and prioritization skills
Fortuna Procentese , Flora Gatti and Emiliano Ceglie
Department of Humanities, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, in Italy, a Received 6 October 2022
nationwide lockdown required a massive shift to remote work – that Accepted 7 August 2023
is, from workers’ houses. The risk of conflict between work and
KEYWORDS
family domains increased due to the collapse of both into private Technostress; remote work;
houses and may have been further burdened due to no training work-to-family conflict;
being issued to help workers adjust to these changes in their work family-to-work conflict; goal
activities, producing higher rates of technostress. This study deepens setting skills; COVID-19;
the impact of technostress creators on the conflicts between work lockdown
and family domains and the role of workers’ goal setting and
prioritization skills as moderators easing these relationships. Data
were gathered from 375 remote workers during the Italian
nationwide lockdown using an online questionnaire. Results show
that higher scores in technostress creators positively associate with
both work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts and the former
relationship becomes stronger as workers’ planning skills increase.
They highlight the need to consider the pitfalls of remote work, as it
can also have detrimental effects on workers’ family and relational
life, and to find a better balance between work and family domains
from a systemic perspective.

Introduction
In Italy, in the first months of 2020, all the organizations that were not considered produ-
cers of essential goods had to shift to remote work procedures because of the nationwide
lockdown – which was issued in the first days of March 2020 and lasted up to the first days
of May 2020. This required them to rely on information and communication technologies
(ICTs) not to stop providing their services (Molino et al., 2020; Rigotti et al., 2020). Indeed,
these unprecedented stay-at-home orders required a broad reorganization of activities
and habits for individuals as well as for organizations and communities, with work,
study, and leisure activities and routines being suddenly moved online (e.g. Aresi et al.,
2022; Brooks et al., 2020; Gatti & Procentese, 2021; Horton, 2020; Killgore et al., 2020; Pro-
centese et al., 2021; Salari et al., 2020; Tzankova et al., 2022; Vindegaard & Benros, 2020).
Since remote work procedures were only slightly adopted in Italy before COVID-19 out-
break (Molino et al., 2020), the need to quickly adapt to remotely deliver work activities by

CONTACT Fortuna Procentese fortuna.procentese@unina.it Department of Humanities, University of Naples

Federico II, via Porta di Massa 1, Naples (NA) 80133, Italy
© 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 F. PROCENTESE ET AL.

developing adequate digital skills, learning how to use new software and platforms, and
reshaping work procedures according to them (Rapaccini et al., 2020) exposed workers to
broader workloads and higher rates of anxiety, stress, and technostress (Faraj et al., 2021; Klap-
proth et al., 2020; Molino et al., 2020; Procentese et al., 2022b; Qasem et al., 2020). The latter
refers to ‘the stress that users experience as a result of application multitasking, constant con-
nectivity, information overload, frequent system upgrades and consequent uncertainty, con-
tinual relearning and consequent job-related insecurities, and technical problems associated
with the organizational use of ICT’ (Tarafdar et al., 2010, pp. 304–305).
Specifically, the higher rates of technostress increased workers’ experience of work-to-
family conflict (Molino et al., 2020) – that is, the conflict happening when work-related
roles and requests generate cross-domain pressure due to incompatibilities, conflicts,
or overlaps with family-related ones (Voydanoff, 2002). Indeed, consistently with the Con-
servation of Resource (CoR) Theory (Hobfoll, 1989, 2002), the need to manage higher rates
of technostress could have resulted in the loss of resources needed to simultaneously
manage work and family roles (Grandey & Cropanzano, 1999).
Conversely, to authors’ best knowledge, no study has deepened the relationship between
technostress creators and family-to-work conflict – that is, the conflict happening when
family-related roles and requests generate cross-domain pressure due to incompatibilities,
conflicts, or overlaps with work-related ones (Voydanoff, 2002). However, based on the
peculiarities of lockdown experience such relationship may be hypothesized too. Indeed,
inter-domains conflict can represent the result of the strain deriving from playing different
roles and of the inability to gather adequate resources to sustain the expectations and
demands related to all of them (Voydanoff, 2002). Thus, the greater ease with which family
members could reach workers and place family and domestic demands on them during
their working hours due to them working from home (Carvalho et al., 2021; Oakman et al.,
2020; Rudolph et al., 2021; Sinclair et al., 2020) may have represented a source for it, increasing
the feeling that family domain was invading work one too. That is, the need to meet the
increased family-related requests, responsibilities, and demands during the lockdown may
have affected the available resources to meet work-related ones, producing role strain and
family-to-work conflict. Based on this, the first aim of the present study is to extend previous
results about the relationship between technostress creators and work-to-family conflict
during Italian nationwide lockdown (Molino et al., 2020; Vaziri et al., 2020) by testing
whether a similar relationship existed with family-to-work conflict too. Such aim stands con-
sistent with the need to specifically address both the directions of the interferences when
deepening work-family interface (e.g. Burke, 1989; Voydanoff, 1988).
Furthermore, role theories have not specifically addressed moderating variables which
might represent resources buffering the impact of work – and family – related stressors
(Grandey & Cropanzano, 1999) and recent literature has not fully addressed the factors
and processes which may mitigate the negative impact of technostress yet (Tams,
2015; Yener et al., 2020). Thus, to better understand how workers experienced remote
work during Italian nationwide lockdown the present study also takes a closer look into
the role of workers’ goal setting and prioritizing skills (Macan, 1994; Macan et al., 1990).
Such skills consist of setting goals and priorities, planning how to use the available
resources to meet them, and organizing tasks in a given time (Macan, 1994, 1996);
through them, individuals gain a sense of mastery as to time and resources allocation
as well as to the management of the tasks they need to accomplish (Claessens et al.,
 COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY 3

2007; Häfner & Stock, 2010; Macan, 1994; Sabelis, 2001). Thus, these skills may have
influenced the impact of technostress creators over both work-to-family and family-to-
work conflicts: indeed, since being able to properly address challenging circumstances
results in increased resources to be used to face cross-domains conflicts (Hobfoll, 1989,
2002), feeling to own and be effective in using these skills may have representeds a pro-
tective factor (Yener et al., 2020) as well as a coping strategy (Ayyagari et al., 2011) mod-
erating the relationships of technostressors with both work-to-family and family-to-work
conflicts. This would also be consistent with recent findings about workers’ self-efficacy as
to the management of tasks and duties to be accomplished reducing the negative impact
of technostress experiences (Kim & Lee, 2021) and enhancing their feelings of being able
to control the stressors (Yener et al., 2020).
To sum up, the present study addresses two main research questions with reference to
Italian workers’ remote work experiences: (1) whether the higher rates of technostress
also associated with higher family-to-work conflict; (2) whether the feeling to own and
effectively use goal setting and prioritizing skills may have buffered the relationships of
technostress with both family-to-work and work-to-family conflicts. Further, workers’
gender and age will be taken into account as control variables, as they represent socio-
demographic characteristics which may impact workers’ experiences with work – and
family-related demands, tasks, and roles (e.g. Blair-Loy et al., 2015) as well as their adjust-
ment to technology uses (e.g. Dimock, 2019).

Technostress
Technostress is a negative psychological state deriving from the perception of the need to
embed new technologies into one’s working activities; it also refers to the consequences
this brings about (e.g. the need to develop specific skills, keep updated about ICTs use, be
quick and multitasking enough) as a threat to one’s routines, which can produce anxiety,
mental fatigue, higher rates of stress, and lack of self-efficacy and job-satisfaction (Brivio
et al., 2018; Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008; Salanova et al., 2007, 2013; Vergine et al., 2022).
Technostress creators have been grouped into five macro-categories (Ragu-Nathan
et al., 2008; Tarafdar et al., 2010). First, ICTs use in one’s work activities can produce com-
munication and information overload (that is, techno-overload) exposing individuals to
more information than they can efficiently handle and effectively use. Moreover, the per-
manent connectivity ICTs bring about can blur the boundaries between work and other
life domains (that is, techno-invasion), producing invasive experiences for workers. That is,
using ICTs for work activities and communications implies expectations about workers
being operative and connected all day long (Ayyagari et al., 2011; Fonner & Roloff,
2012; Leonardi et al., 2010; Molino et al., 2019) and workers may comply with such expec-
tations (Blair-Loy, 2003). Another stressor refers to work-related ICTs being complex and
constantly updated (that is, techno-complexity), which means they require specific skills to
be appropriately used; in this vein, workers not being adequately trained to adjust to
these changes may experience higher rates of technostress (Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008).
Further, due to themselves becoming not adequately skilled as to the needed technol-
ogies (Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008), they may experience uncertainty with reference to
both using such technologies (that is, techno-uncertainty) and risking losing their job in
favor of younger and more techno-aware workers (that is, techno-insecurity).
4 F. PROCENTESE ET AL.

Altogether, these factors can contribute to blurring the boundaries between work and
other domains (e.g. checking work-related e-mails out of the working hours), allowing
work-related tasks and demands to invade private and family domains, producing
higher rates of work-family conflict (Butts et al., 2015; Chen & Karahanna, 2018; Leung
& Zhang, 2017; Molino et al., 2020; Vaziri et al., 2020).

Work-Family interface and remote work experiences

The sudden and unprepared shift to ICTs for work activities put work-family interface –
that is, the combination of work and family characteristics and requirements
(Voydanoff, 2002) – at higher risk of conflict (Schieman et al., 2021; Vaziri et al., 2020)
since the compulsory management of workspace with family space exposed workers to
more interruptions in both directions (that is, work-to-family and family-to-work; Ander-
son & Kelliher, 2020; Rudolph et al., 2021). Indeed, according to the CoR Theory (Hobfoll,
1989, 2002), the conflict between these two domains can stem from the tension gener-
ated in one domain influencing the available energies to actively take part in the other,
as well as from context-related behaviors in one domain conflicting with the social expec-
tations coming from people in the other (Carlson et al., 2000). With specific reference to
remote work experiences, the demands from both work and family domains not only
increased (Carvalho et al., 2021; Rudolph et al., 2021; Sinclair et al., 2020) but also col-
lapsed into a unique environment, blurring the boundaries between the two domains
due to the absence of mobility (Carvalho et al., 2021; Eckart et al., 2021; Fisher et al., 2020).
On the one hand, work invaded family life (Carvalho et al., 2021; Sinclair et al., 2020).
Indeed, remote work procedures required workers to quickly develop adequate skills,
adapt to the new procedures without a proper training, and manage broader amounts
of information using unfamiliar technologies (Barbuto et al., 2020; Carillo et al., 2021;
Kramer & Kramer, 2020; Vaziri et al., 2020), resulting in more working hours than before
and higher rates of technostress, and making them feel that despite their efforts they
did not have enough time to answer all the work-related demands and to process all
the needed information (Ghislieri et al., 2017; Molino et al., 2020; Qasem et al.,
2020; Tarafdar et al., 2010; Yun et al., 2012). Further, using ICTs as the main work
channel often implies expectations about workers being operative and connected all
day long (that is, the connectivity paradox; Ayyagari et al., 2011; Fonner & Roloff, 2012;
Leonardi et al., 2010; Molino et al., 2019). During the lockdown, these expectations
may have been even amplified by the fact that workers were expected to stay at
home all the time due to stay-at-home orders – which allowed them to leave only for
necessities.
Overall, experiencing higher rates of technostress and attempting to meet the
increased requirements, demands, and expectations related to remote work procedures
increased work-to-family conflicts under lockdown (Molino et al., 2020), with the use
work-related ICTs contributing to further blur the boundaries between these two life
domains and to favor cross-domain boundary violations (Carvalho et al., 2021; Horvath
et al., 2021). Indeed – consistently with the CoR Theory (Hobfoll, 1989, 2002) – the
more work-related activities and demands invade individuals’ private and family life
because of the pervasiveness of work-related ICTs and of the lack of steady boundaries
between these two life domains, the less workers have time and energies left to meet
 COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY 5

family-related demands, tasks, and responsibilities (Gaudioso et al., 2017). Thus, this first
hypothesis follows:
H1a: technostress creators positively associate to work-to-family conflict.

On the other hand, following similar principles, family-related demands may have
invaded the work domain during remote work experiences, as the collapse of family
and work domains into workers’ houses produced cross-domain interferences in both
directions (Anderson & Kelliher, 2020; Rudolph et al., 2021). Indeed, family members
were more easily able to reach workers and place family and domestic demands on
them, forcibly catching their attention during their working hours, because of the coex-
istence in the same physical space (Carvalho et al., 2021; Oakman et al., 2020; Rudolph
et al., 2021; Sinclair et al., 2020). Building on this, and similarly to the previous argument
(Gaudioso et al., 2017; Hobfoll, 1989, 2002), it is here hypothesized that during the months
of lockdown the more workers found themselves involved into family-related tasks, activi-
ties, and responsibilities during their working hours, the less they felt they had time and
energies left for work-related ones. That is, this hypothesis is added to the previous one:
H1b: technostress creators positively associate to family-to-work conflict.

The role of goal setting and prioritizing skills

Since ‘personal characteristics are resources which buffer one against stress’ (Grandey &
Cropanzano, 1999, p. 352) according to their levels, workers’ feeling to own and be
effective in using goal setting and prioritizing skills may have lightened the relationships
between technostress creators and the two work-family conflicts. Indeed, such skills can
facilitate the distribution of the available resources and time across life domains, helping
workers managing the stressors coming from both domains (Ayyagari et al., 2011;
Lapierre & Allen, 2012). That is, feeling effective with reference to these skills allows
workers to better distribute their efforts and energies as well as to pose more steady
boundaries among different domains (Claessens et al., 2004; King et al., 1986; Macan,
1994), making them feel more confident in taking decisions and managing tasks with
positive results (Hackman & Oldham, 1975) and more effective in reducing domain-
related overloads (Ennis, 2005). In this vein, individuals with better goal setting and prior-
itizing skills may be more able to manage the negative impact of technostress creators on
their work-family interface, avoiding cross-domain interferences (Grandey & Cropanzano,
1999; Hobfoll, 1989, 2002). Thus, the following hypothesis is added to the previous ones:
H2: workers’ beliefs to be able to effectively use their goal setting and prioritizing skills mod-
erates the relationships of technostress creators with both work-to-family conflict (H2a) and
family-to-work conflict (H2b), so that the more workers feel they own and effectively use such
skills the weaker both the hypothesized positive relationships become.

Methods
Procedures
Data were collected during the Italian nationwide lockdown (that is, between March and
April 2020), when remote work was needed to comply with stay-at-home orders because
6 F. PROCENTESE ET AL.

of health and safety reasons. In compliance with such orders, an online questionnaire was
used. It was introduced by an explanation about confidentiality issues, where the partici-
pants had to express their informed consent to take part in the study by ticking a box;
then, a pool of already validated measures were included in the survey. The measures
were aimed at detecting the relevant constructs consistently with the aims of the
study. No IP addresses or other identifying data were retained when administering the
questionnaire.
Participants were recruited through two main strategies. First, they were contacted via
the organizations they worked for: two main organizations – a private company and some
local offices of a nationwide public institution (the Istituto Nazionale della Previdenza
Sociale, INPS, that is the main social security institution of the Italian public pension
system) – were reached by the authors to ask to send the invitation to take part in this
study to their employees via email. Second, along with this invitation workers were
also asked to forward it to more remote dependent workers should they know any –
that is, world of mouth was used too, to achieve a more heterogeneous sample, which
was not limited to the two organizations contacted by the authors.

Measures
The questionnaire included a socio-demographic section, followed by specific measures.

Goal setting and prioritizing skills

Macan and colleagues’ (1990) goal setting and prioritizing dimension (10 items, sample
items: ‘‘I set myself short-term goals’, ‘I finish top-priority tasks before going on to less
important ones’) from the time management behavior scale was used to detect
workers’ feelings of owning and effectively use such skills. Respondents were asked to
rate their agreement with each item on a 7-points Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree; 7
= Strongly agree).

Work-to-Family and family-to-Work conflict

The Multidimensional Measure of Work-Family Conflict (Carlson et al., 2000) was used to
detect both work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts. For each kind of conflict, it
detects the time-based (3 items, work-to-family sample item: ‘My work keeps me from
my family activities more than I would like’, family-to-work sample item: ‘The time I
spend on family responsibilities often interfere with my work responsibilities’), strain-
based (3 items, work-to-family sample item: ‘When I get home from work I am often
too frazzled to participate in family activities/responsibilities’, family-to-work sample
item: ‘Because I am often stressed from family responsibilities, I have a hard time concen-
trating on my work’), and behavior-based (3 items, work-to-family sample item: ‘The
problem-solving behaviors I use in my job are not effective in resolving problems at
home’, family-to-work sample item: ‘Behavior that is effective and necessary for me at
home would be counterproductive at work’) interferences. The two overall dimensions
of work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts (9 items each) were used as separate –
even though related – consistently with the specific aims of the study. Respondents
were asked to rate their agreement with each item on a 5-points Likert scale (1 = Strongly
disagree; 5 = Strongly agree).
 COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY 7

Technostress creators
The Italian version (Turel & Gaudioso, 2018) of Ragu-Nathan and colleagues’ (2008) items
about technostress creators was used to detect the five categories of technostress crea-
tors: techno-overload (5 items, sample item: ‘I am forced by technologies to do more work
than I can handle’), techno-invasion (4 items, sample item: ‘I have to be in touch with my
work even during my vacation due to technologies’), techno-complexity (5 items, sample
item: ‘I do not know enough about technologies to handle my job satisfactorily’), techno-
insecurity (5 items, sample item: ‘I feel constant threat to my job security due to new tech-
nologies’), techno-uncertainty (4 items, sample item: ‘There are always new developments
I the technologies we use in our organization’). Respondents were asked to rate their
agreement with each item on a 7-points Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree; 7 = Strongly
agree). The measure was used as an overall dimension of technostress creators, consist-
ently with the aims of the study.

Data analysis
Preliminary analyses
Previously to hypotheses testing, Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) were run with
Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to test the factor structure for each measure. To
evaluate the model fit, the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI),
the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) and its 90% confidence interval
(CI), and the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) were observed
(MacCallum & Austin, 2000). For CFI and TLI, values equal to or greater than .90 e
.95 respectively reflect good or excellent fit indices; for SRMR and RMSEA, values
equal to or smaller than .06 e .08 respectively reflect good or reasonable fit indices
(Hu & Bentler, 1999). The reliability was checked using Cronbach alpha (α). Further, a
measurement model was tested to ensure that respondents discriminated among
the different constructs involved in the study. The same indices of model fit were
observed.

Hypotheses testing
To address all the hypotheses, a moderation model was performed using the Ordinary
Least Squares (OLS) path analysis: an overall measure of technostress creators was
included as the independent variable, individuals’ perceived goal setting and prioritiz-
ing skills as the moderator, and work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts as the two
dependent variables. Age and gender (0 = male; 1 = female) were included in the
model as control variables. The independent and moderator variables were centered
before entering them in the model, since they were continuous. Before testing the
hypotheses, the absence of outliers and influential cases which could affect the ana-
lyses was checked using the leverage value and Cook’s D (Cousineau & Chartier,
2010). To witness the absence of such values, leverage values should always be
lower than 0.2 and Cook’s D always lower than 1. The significance of the results
was tested using a bootstrap estimation approach (Hayes, 2018) with 10,000
samples, and the bias-corrected 95% CI was computed by determining the effects
at the 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles; the effects are significant when 0 is not included
in the CI.
8 F. PROCENTESE ET AL.

When the interaction between independent variable and moderator showed a signifi-
cant effect on a dependent variable, a simple slope analysis was conducted to show the
effects of technostress creators for different levels of workers’ goal setting and prioritizing
skills. To facilitate the interpretation of the results (Preacher et al., 2006), the significant
interactions were plotted to show the relationship between technostress creators and
the considered outcome for low (i.e. one standard deviation below the mean), medium,
or high (i.e. one standard deviation above the mean) levels of workers’ perceived goal
setting and prioritizing skills.

Results
Participants
Overall, 375 Italian dependent workers took part in the study. Respondents (52% female)
were aged between 24 and 66 (M = 51.50; SD = 11.27). 14.4% were unmarried and 67.7%
were married or cohabitant, while 2.7% were in a couple relationship but did not live with
their partner, and only 8% and 1.9% were respectively separated or divorced and
widower; 5.3% did not provide this information. Most of the participants (69.1%) had chil-
dren; 5.3% did not provide this information too.
Most of them worked in a public company (88%) and had a full-time con-
tract (92%). 5.9% worked in a private company while the remaining did not
provide this information. Of the remaining, 1.3% had a part-time contract, 2.7%
a telework contract, 3.5% a project work contract, and 0.5% a commission-
based employment contract. Most of them had never worked remotely before
COVID-19 outbreak (68.5%) and were doing so due to the pandemic (51.5%).
Others were working in presence (17.3%) or in a mixed mode (that is, some
days they worked remotely and some days in presence; 24.5%), or they took
advantage of co-working spaces (6.4%). One respondent did not provide this
information.

Preliminary results
Indices of reliability and model fit, descriptive statistics, and correlations are in Table 1 for
all the measures. The overall measurement model showed a good fit, CFI = .91, TLI = .90,
RMSEA = .05, 90% CI [.05, .06], SRMR = .08.
Both leverage value and Cook’s D were lower than 0.05, indicating there were no sig-
nificant values affecting the analyses.

Hypotheses testing
The model only partially confirmed the hypotheses (see Table 2). As to the first aim of the
study, technostress creators showed a positive effect on both work-to-family and family-
to-work conflicts – fully supporting H1. However, when it came to the second aim, the
interaction of technostress creators and goal setting and prioritizing skills showed a sig-
nificant effect only on work-to-family conflict. Both gender and age showed no significant
effect on the two dependent variables. All the unstandardized effects (B), their standard
 COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY 9

Table 1. Summary of model fit and reliability indices, descriptive statistics, and correlations for all the
measures.
RMSEA
Variables α CFI TLI RMSEA 90% CI SRMR M SD 1 2 3
1. Goal Setting and .91 .98 .96 .06 [.05, .08] .03 5.40 1.04 -
a
Prioritizing Skills
2. Work-to-Family Conflict .91 .98 .97 .07 [.05, .09] .04 2.42 0.91 -.007 -
b

3. Family-to-Work Conflict .90 .99 .99 .03 [.001, .06] .02 2.16 0.83 -.111 .593 -
b
* ***
4. Technostress Creators .93 .93 .92 .07 [.07, .08] .06 2.84 1.11 -.052 .556 .518
a
*** ***
Note. n = 375
a
1–7 range scale.
b
1–5 range scale.
***p < .001 (2-tailed); * p < .05 (2-tailed).
α = Cronbach alpha; CFI = Comparative Fit Index; TLI = Tucker-Lewis Index; RMSEA = Root Mean Square Error of Approxi-
mation; CI = confidence interval; SRMR = Standardized Root Mean square Residual; M = mean; SD = standard deviation.

errors (S.E.), their 95% CI, and the percentage of variance explained by the model are in
Table 2.
As to the significant interaction, the simple slope analysis showed that the more
workers felt able to set goals and prioritize tasks the stronger the relationship
between technostress creators and work-to-family conflict (see Figure 1): for low
levels of goal setting and prioritizing skills, B = 0.74, SE = 0.14, p < .001, 95% CI
[0.44, 1.00]; for medium levels of goal setting and prioritizing skills, B = 0.80, SE =
0.17, p < .001, 95% CI [0.45, 1.13]; for high levels of goal setting and prioritizing
skills, B = 0.87, SE = 0.20, p < .001, 95% CI [0.45, 1.25]. That is, differently from what
was hypothesized in H2a, feeling able to properly manage the goals to be achieved
and the tasks to be completed did not help workers relieving the impact of technos-
tress experience on work-to-family conflict, but rather enhanced it. Overall, H2 was
fully mismatched.

Table 2. Conditional effects.

Dependent variables
Work-to-Family Conflict Family-to-Work Conflict
Predictors B (S.E.) 95% CI B (S.E.) 95% CI
Control variables
Age 0.001 (0.004) [−0.01, −0.001 (0.003) [−0.01,
0.01] 0.005]
Gender 0.19 (0.08) [−0.03, −0.06 (0.08) [−0.21, 0.07]
0.27]
Conditional effects
Technostress Creators 0.46 *** (0.03) [0.39, 0.52] 0.38 *** (0.04) [0.31, 0.45]
Goal Setting and Prioritizing Skills 0.02 (0.04) [−0.06, −0.06 (0.04) [−0.14, 0.01]
0.10]
Technostress Creators x Goal Setting and Prioritizing 0.06 * (0.03) [0.001, 0.12] 0.06 (0.03) [−0.01, 0.12]
Skills
Variance explained (%) 32.2 28.4
Note. n = 375.
***p < .001 (2-tailed); *p < .05 (2-tailed).
B = unstandardized effects; S.E. = Standard Error; CI = Confidence Interval.
The predictor and the moderator are centered.
10 F. PROCENTESE ET AL.

Figure 1. Interaction effect of Technostress Creators and Goal Setting and Prioritizing Skills on Work-
to-Family Conflict. Note. n = 375. The predictor and the moderator are centered.

Discussion
This study deepened the implications of remote work experiences in terms of work-family
interface during Italian nationwide lockdown – that is, when individuals were forced to
work from their house for health reasons, with the subsequent collapse of family-
related and work-related tasks and demands into the same environment and timing. It
specifically addressed two issues: first, whether a positive relationship exists between
technostress creators and both the directions of the conflicts between work and family
domains (H1); second, the role of workers’ feeling to own and be able to effectively use
goal setting and prioritizing skills as a protective factor lightening the two above-men-
tioned relationships (H2). The results fully supported H1, but totally mismatched H2.
Indeed, even though a moderation effect emerged on the relationship between technos-
tress creators and work-to-family conflict, such positive relationship became stronger –
and not weaker, as hypothesized in H2a – as workers’ feeling to own and be able to effec-
tively use goal setting and prioritization skills increased.
The first result stands consistent with the peculiarities characterizing lockdown and
sudden remote work experiences (e.g. unsteady boundaries between family and work
domains, increases of demands from both, cross-domain interferences; Carvalho et al.,
2021; Eckart et al., 2021; Fisher et al., 2020; Rudolph et al., 2021; Sinclair et al., 2020).
Indeed, the sudden and unprepared shift to remote work to comply with stay-at-home
orders forced workers to adjust to new work procedures without proper training, increas-
ing the need for them to devote more time and energies to developing proper skills to
meet such requirements (Barbuto et al., 2020; Carillo et al., 2021; Qasem et al., 2020;
Vaziri et al., 2020). Further, the blurring of the concrete boundaries between work and
family domains (e.g. separated times and spaces, Carvalho et al., 2021; Eckart et al.,
2021; Fisher et al., 2020) as well as the expectations about workers being operative and
connected all day long (Ayyagari et al., 2011; Fonner & Roloff, 2012; Leonardi et al.,
2010) may have concurred to resource depletion, engaging workers in technology-
 COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY 11

assisted supplemental work (Fenner & Renn, 2009). Indeed, according to the connectivity
paradox, increased workloads, impediments of a realistic planning, and fragmented
workflow concur in consuming psychological resources (Fenner & Renn, 2009; Fonner &
Roloff, 2012). That is – consistently with the CoR theory (Hobfoll, 1989, 2002;
Voydanoff, 2002) – due to the time and energies required to adjust to these new ICT-
related work procedures and dynamics, the still available resources to meet other
demands from both work and family domains – which increased too (Carvalho et al.,
2021; Rudolph et al., 2021; Sinclair et al., 2020) – may have decreased, resulting in
higher rates of technostress absorbing more resources and thus being associated with
stronger conflicts between the two domains.
As to the moderation results, the only significant effect shows that workers’ feeling to
have and be able to effectively use their goal setting and prioritization skills sharpened
the relationship between technostress creators and work-to-family conflict. This suggests
that feeling able to plan one’s activities by setting goals and prioritizing commitments
could rather add further strain and deplete further resources instead of helping to
manage the requests and needs from work and family domains – differently from what
was hypothesized based on the established literature. This stands consistent with the
autonomy paradox, which assumes that the greater flexibility and autonomy workers
gain with remote work procedures may rather foster the tendency to work more and
feel more controlled (Mazmanian et al., 2013; Putnam et al., 2014).
Nevertheless, it is also to mention that the established literature does not refer to
unprepared shifts due to worldwide sudden emergencies. In the specific case of lockdown
experience, workers may have also felt more responsible for their transition and adequate
adjustment to remote work procedures since such shift happened in an unexpected and
unprepared way (Barbuto et al., 2020; Carillo et al., 2021; Vaziri et al., 2020), and this may
have unbalanced their efforts and goal setting and prioritization attitudes towards work
activities. In this vein, this uneven focus may have fostered an unbalanced distribution of
the available resources by destining them to developing the skills needed to adjust to
remote work procedures and to meet work-related needs, requests, and expectations
at the detriment of family ones – that is, strengthening work-to-family conflict when
further resources have already been depleted by technostress creators.
Differently, feeling to have and be able to effectively use goal setting and prioritization
skills does not imply increases in family-to-work conflict when further resources have
already been involved in other tasks, such as facing higher rates of technostress. Taken
together, this may depend on work-related tasks and requests being perceived as
more clear, manageable, and organizable than family-related ones, as well as on individ-
uals feeling more responsible for the former than for the latter. That is, the non-significant
result may depend on the overall complexity of workplaces compared to family environ-
ments and on the different nature of relationships, tasks, and needs within these domains,
which may make planning skills less important in the second context than they are in the
first one (Lapierre & Allen, 2012) – unless families have to deal with illness or disabilities
(Maybery et al., 2013). Indeed, while family-related tasks were still the same as before
COVID-19 outbreak, work-related ones had changed due to the shift to remote work pro-
cedures, requiring workers to individually adjust to the use of technologies in their work
activities (Barbuto et al., 2020; Carillo et al., 2021; Vaziri et al., 2020). Taken together, this
suggests that goal setting and prioritization skills may not represent ‘global’ skills, since
12 F. PROCENTESE ET AL.

their effect may differ according to the degree of control individuals have over the tasks
they need to accomplish, but also according to their familiarity with those tasks and to the
complexity of the latter.
Overall, while remote work was proposed as a solution aimed at improving the
quality of work and work-family balance (Perlow & Kelly, 2014; Putnam et al., 2014),
the findings from this study highlight the need to consider its pitfalls too – even
more when it is suddenly implemented under emergency circumstances. This echoes
previous results suggesting that it can also have detrimental effects as to workers’
well-being and performances, as well as to their family and relational life (e.g. Grant
et al., 2007; Moen et al., 2013; Molino et al., 2019, 2020; Parker, 2014; Tarafdar et al.,
2010), since the boundaries of the work domain are blurred by remote work pro-
cedures also regardless COVID-19-related protective measures (Schieman & Young,
2010). Based on this, there is a rising interest in finding a better balance between
work and family domains to allow workers to fully experience both (Basuil & Casper,
2012). Indeed, the implications stemming from the social and cultural changes in
work distribution as well as in family roles (Natale et al., 2016), and the blurring of
cross-domains boundaries due to ICT-related work, connectivity and autonomy para-
doxes (Fenner & Renn, 2009; Fonner & Roloff, 2012; Mazmanian et al., 2013; Putnam
et al., 2014), and the expectations deriving from the multiple social roles individuals
assume (e.g. familial and work roles; Voydanoff, 2002) highlight the need for a
balanced management of work-family interface as well as the relevance of cultural pro-
cesses and social dynamics in planning and managing tasks and activities.

Practical implications
The present results highlight the need to deepen how to promote the development of
soft skills among people adopting remote work procedures and including technologies
in their work activities, so that they can become able to manage the different tasks
work and family domains require them to face without increasing their rates of cross-
domains conflicts. Indeed – as it was previously discussed – using one’s goal setting
and prioritization skills may have represented a defensive strategy for workers to
manage the overload of requests during the needed lockdown by focusing on the
more controllable ones – that is, those related to the work domain and to the inclusion
of new technologies in it. This may have made individuals more effective in their work,
yet it may have also been detrimental to their involvement in family duties and tasks,
increasing their work-to-family conflict as long as they felt the need to improve their man-
agement of work-related technologies. Building on this, tools and strategies to increase
remote workers’ management of their family domain and of the related tasks, duties,
and requirements are needed in order to make them perceive it as manageable as the
work one. This could make them able to use their goal setting and prioritization skills
in both domains equally, reducing cross-domains conflicts. In this vein, organizations
should pay more attention to training their employees not only about their work-
related tasks but also about developing a different – and healthier – way of managing
their work-family interface when the two domains are set in the same environment or
the boundaries between them blur, as it was the case during the COVID-19-related
lockdown.
 COMMUNITY, WORK & FAMILY 13

Overall, this study dovetails with recent ones (e.g. Molino et al., 2019, 2020) in
suggesting the need for a cultural change in order for organizations to modify their
expectations about workers’ pace and performances – and make them more family-
friendly (Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008) – and for workers to become able to set adequate
boundaries between their working hours and activities and the other domains of their
life when it comes to remote work, allowing a satisfactory balance among diverse
social domains (Hill et al., 2008). Indeed, enabling workplace flexibility to pursue work-
life balance needs a critical assessment of the organizational needs and skills in a systemic
perspective. These results support the need for organizations to provide their workers
with additional resources (e.g. information about the changes in work practices and
tools, support, adequate training; Kniffin et al., 2021; Lautsch et al., 2009) which could
allow them to adjust to the additional demands brought about by remote work practices,
in order to reduce their rates of technostress and their impact on family and work
domains. Further, a strong community as well as open and supportive relationships
among colleagues may represent relevant and needed conditions for the introduction
of innovations and for a better management of the latter (McNally et al., 2009; Meirink
et al., 2010; Procentese et al., 2022a; Zwart et al., 2008), as they might allow workers to
meet and match about the innovations, changes, and troubles, to modify together
ineffective practices and other pitfalls (Admiraal & Lockhorst, 2012).

Limitations and future direction

Some limitations of the present study should be acknowledged. First, the findings are
based on self-reported data, thus memory bias and response fatigue – which may
become even more relevant when considering that respondents already spent long
time connected due to the need to work remotely – should be taken into account.
Further, the sample is not representative, which hinders broader discussions about
Italian remote workers at large during COVID-19-related lockdown.
Second, due to the cross-sectional design of the study, the described relationships
should be carefully considered; inferences about the direction of causality cannot
derive from them. For example, it may also be the case that individuals having more trou-
bles in managing work-family interface may perceive the potential causes of technostress
in their work as heavier.
Third, the present findings attain to specific circumstances – that is, an unexpected and
unprepared massive shift to remote work procedures due to COVID-19 outbreak. Consist-
ently, testing them again under different circumstances – e.g. when the shift to remote
work is rather foreseen and more adequately prepared – would be worthwhile to deter-
mine whether a training program for embedding ICTs in work activities could represent a
strategy to reduce the rates of technostress and their impact on work-family interface
despite the blurred boundaries remote work brings about.
Lastly, other variables could be taken into account in future studies to better under-
stand the unexpected results that emerged here. On the one hand, segmentation atti-
tudes (Nippert-Eng, 1996) may impact workers’ adjustment to the blurred boundaries
between family and work domains. Employees with lower segmentation preferences
(that is, those preferring weak boundaries between family and work) may be more
likely to adapt to such change with positive outcomes than those with higher
14 F. PROCENTESE ET AL.

segmentation preferences (that is, those preferring steadier boundaries between their
roles as to these two domains) (Vaziri et al., 2020). On the other hand, the level of
control workers have with reference to their work and family domains may play a role
in determining the effectiveness of their goal setting and prioritizing skills as a protective
factor for their work-family balance rather than as a threat to it (Ladge & Little, 2019;
Lapierre & Allen, 2012).

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon
request.

ORCID
Fortuna Procentese http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1617-0165
Flora Gatti http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2149-6570

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