A cautionary tale: How co-constructed work obligations lead to ICT-related technostress

Technostress is a growing area of research and a concern for practitioners. So far, IS research on technostress has focused on either neurophysiological or psychological measurements. We argue for a sociological approach that allows us to reveal the socially co-created obligations around using ICTs (information and communication technologies). We ask, "What can the sociological analytical concept of obligation reveal about ICT related technostress in organizations?" To investigate this question, we use the sociological concept of obligation. We conduct interpretative research based on qualitative interviews. We contribute to IS technostress research by employing the analytical lens of obligation, which allows us to find that employees see technostress as their individual obligation and devise strategies to avoid it. These strategies add to their technostress and augment group obligations that can lead to technostress for the collective. Furthermore, we find that tensions between overlapping obligations that cannot be carried out simultaneously augment technostress.