A systematic analysis of how to improve productivity from employees’ gamification usage remains absent. This study builds on the transaction theory of stress (TTS) to consider how techno-stress is influenced by employees’ appraisals toward environmental demands and affects productivity. These appraisals are conceptualized as IT mindfulness and communication overload, which exert impact on coping responses. IT mindfulness refers to individuals’ overarching way of thinking based on contextual awareness and openness to information technology(IT)-enabled value creation. IT mindfulness represents appraisals based on internal demands, and communication overload based on external demands from environments caused by nonwork-related interruptions. We theorize coping responses from techno-stress as both problem-focused response and emotion-focused response, which represent challenge response and threat response respectively. Techno-stress emphasizes the negative aspect of IT usage and is caused by failure to appropriately regulate one’s use of IT. Examples include engagement in non-work-related social activities or overload during the use of gamification. Results of our empirical investigation from 403 respondents show that IT mindfulness exerts negative impact on both communication overload and emotion-focused response, while its impact on problem-focused response is positive. Emotion-focused response exerts a negative influence on productivity, whereas the impact of problem-focused response is insignificant. We contribute to the literature on gamification by deepening our understanding about the nature of appraisals towards demands and by exploring the management of the influence of these demands on employees’ productivity.

Authors:
Shih-Wei Chou, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Taiwan

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Shih-Wei Chou is currently a professor in the department of MIS (management of information systems) at National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

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