How to mitigate technostress while implementing new digital technologies to benefit sales

Abstract

This master’s thesis builds a deeper understanding of the role of technology on daily routines and operations as well as the impact the implementation of new systems has on the impacted users. The study follows the socio-technical perspective observing both the instrumental and humanistic aspects equally and viewing the outcomes as interaction between the two.

This thesis was conducted by a series of semi-structured qualitative interviews with sales professionals within the case organization who were subject to a technology implementation in the form of a new CRM. Data was collected both before and after the pilot phase of the new system, and the collected data was analyzed with thematic analysis to identify the most prominent challenges and stressors associated with the change based on the literature reviewed.

The results of the study suggest that the outcomes of technology implementations are deeply tied to both instrumental as well as humanistic aspects, and both need to be addressed for successful implementations. Technological improvements were shown to act as a buffer mitigating the experienced emotional strain, and personal coping methods as well as social learning inhibited the strain from technological limitations, highlighting how outcomes are created from the interaction between humanistic and instrumental aspects. Also, the primary data shows that technology acceptance decisions are impacted by several social and emotional factors in addition to instrumental aspects of the technology itself. In addition, the influence of managerial actions and transparent communication was demonstrated as an effective technostress mitigating factor managers can utilize to develop more well-being and productive organizations.