Technostress in entrepreneurship: focus on entrepreneurs in the developing world

Simba, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0276-8211, Tajeddin, M, Jones, P and Rambe, P, 2025. Technostress in entrepreneurship: focus on entrepreneurs in the developing world. Information Technology and People. ISSN 0959-3845

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Abstract

Purpose – This study analyzes technostress in African entrepreneurship. It advances contextualized theoretical explanations of technostress depicting its impact on entrepreneurs who excessively consume digital technology in Africa. The study also describes how research linking transactional benefits to digital technology has created an imbalanced literature that ignores technostress and well–being in African entrepreneurship.

Design/methodology/approach – Considering the study’s theoretical explanations derived at the technostress–entrepreneurship–wellbeing nexus, structural equation modeling (SEM) was deemed appropriate. Unlike qualitative–based methods, SEM experiments on 643 observations of early–stage African entrepreneurs in South Africa enabled robust statistical interpretations of their social settings. Thus, strengthening our analysis and focus on the interplay between the variables of technostress, including overload, invasion, complexity, and uncertainty, and their impact on entrepreneurship intentions defined through perceived behavior control, entrepreneurship passion, and digital self–efficacy.

Findings – SEM experiments on these African entrepreneurs revealed technostress dimensions of overload, invasion, complexity, and uncertainty as moderators of their entrepreneurial actions encompassing perceived behaviour control and entrepreneurship passion in connection with their entrepreneurial intentions. The results also suggested that perceived behaviour control, entrepreneurship passion, and the digital self–efficacy of these entrepreneurs influenced their entrepreneurial intentions.

Originality/Novelty – The novelty of this study lies in its theoretical explanations derived at the technostress–entrepreneurship–wellbeing nexus. This conceptual overlay elevates the interpretations of the findings of this study beyond the averages in entrepreneurship and information technology (IT) research. Specifically, it increases their inferential value by revealing subtle and hard to dictate social interactions inherent in how African entrepreneurs consume and are impacted by technology as they pursue their entrepreneurial endeavors.

Research implications – Besides inspiring more studies on technostress and well–being in varied entrepreneurial contexts, this research also initiates debate on policy and social reforms geared toward entrepreneurs considered vulnerable to excessive digital technology consumption.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Information Technology and People
Creators:	Simba, A., Tajeddin, M., Jones, P. and Rambe, P.
Publisher:	Emerald
Date:	8 January 2025
ISSN:	0959-3845
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1108/ITP-01-2024-0073 DOI 2337261 Other
Rights:	© 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited. This AAM is provided for your own personal use only. It may not be used for resale, reprinting, systematic distribution, emailing, or for any other commercial purpose without the permission of the publisher
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Laura Borcherds
Date Added:	09 Jan 2025 11:39
Last Modified:	09 Jan 2025 11:39
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/52828

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