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Cited by 82Technostress in Professional SettingsPersonal Information Management and User BehaviorStress and Burnout Research

Appraisal of Email Use as A Source of Workplace Stress: A Person-Environment Fit Approach

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ICN Business School, CEREFIGE, Stich, Jean-Francois, Tarafdar, Monideepa, Lancaster University, Stacey, Patrick, Loughborough University, Cooper, Sir Cary, Alliance Manchester Business School·2019·Journal of the Association for Information Systems
DOI 10.17705/1jais.00531
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Abstract

The paper develops and tests theory that explains under what conditions the extent of email use is appraised as a stressor. Integrating concepts from information acquisition and person-environment fit theories, we hypothesize that individuals appraise their extent of email use as stressful based on the mismatch between their current and desired extents of email use. We define the mismatch as email misfit and the match as email fit. We first develop a conceptual framework that associates email misfit with the individual’s experience of three key workplace stressors—work relationships stressor, job control stressor, and job conditions stressor. We then develop hypotheses framing the relationship between email fit and misfit, and these stressors. We test our hypotheses by applying quadratic polynomial regressions and surface-response analysis to survey data obtained from 118 working individuals. The paper makes three theoretical contributions. First, in reporting a theoretical and empirical construction of email fit and misfit and their relationship to workplace stressors, it shows that email misfit is appraised as stress-creating. That is, both too much email and too little, compared to what the individual desires, are associated with stressors. Secondly, it shows that IT use (in this case, email) is appraised as stressful both when it exceeds (i.e., associated with overload) and fails to meet (i.e., associated with underload), the user’s expectation and preference. Thirdly, this paper suggests the person-environment approach as a theoretically novel way to conceptualize the cognitive appraisal and judgement associated with information underacquisition and overacquisition and shows workplace stressors as potentially new effects associated with them.

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  • Employees whose desired extent of email use fits their actual email use report lower stressors (including critique by supervisors or feeling intimidated by supervisor) than employees reporting a misfit.

    “Employees whose desired extent of email use fits their actual email use report lower stressors (including critique by supervisors or feeling intimidated by supervisor) than employees reporting a misfit”

    From Leadership and technostress: A systematic literature review (2025) · cites this paper as Stich et al. (2019)

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Research works printed but not linked: 21

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Authors
ICN Business School, C., Stich, J.-F., Tarafdar, M., Lancaster University, Stacey, P., Loughborough University, Cooper, S. C., & Alliance Manchester Business School
Affiliations
  • Lancaster University (GB)
  • Loughborough University (GB)
ORCID
Venue
Journal of the Association for Information Systems
Publisher
Association for Information Systems
Published
2019-02
Volume
20
Issue
2
Pages
132-160
ISSN
1536-9323 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.17705/1jais.00531
OpenAlex
W2792627949
Cited by
82
References
61
Citations by year
2026: 7 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 4
FWCI
11.33
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of the Association for Information Systems (publishedVersion)
  • Lancaster EPrints (Lancaster University) (submittedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Journal of the Association for Information Systems (submittedVersion)
  • Loughborough University Institutional Repository (Loughborough University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Loughborough University Research Repository (Loughborough University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Technostress in Professional Settings
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Personal Information Management and User Behavior
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Stress and Burnout Research
Keywords
email use, occupational stress, person-environment fit, cognitive appraisal, information overload, information acquisition, information technology use

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