Does Techno-invasion Trigger Job Anxiety? Moderating Effects of Computer Self-efficacy and Perceived Organizational Support

Although information and communication technologies is beneficial for improving employee performance, frequently learning new technologies or extensively using technologies to work in non-working hours may lead to an increase of employee’s techno-invasion. However, little is known whether techno-invasion, a technostressor, causes employee job anxiety. Also, it remains unclear “when” techno-invasion is particularly or less correlated to employee negative emotion (job anxiety in this study). Based on the stress, appraisal and coping theory and the theory of conservation of resources, we examined whether techno-invasion increases employee job anxiety, and whether computer self-efficacy and perceived organizational support can buffer this effect of techno-invasion. After testing our hypotheses using 374 samples from China's manufacturing and IT industries, the results show that employee techno-invasion positively predicts job anxiety, while both employee computer self-efficacy and perceived organizational support can significantly weaken this association. More importantly, we find a larger moderating effect of computer self-efficacy when employee perceived a low level of perceived organizational support, indicating a jointly moderating effect of computer self-efficacy and perceived organizational support.