Veröffentlichungen von Katharina Pflügner

Konferenz-Artikel (Peer Reviewed)

Pflügner, K., Maier, C., Lukic, Y.X., Teepe, G.W., and Kowatsch , T. (2022)
Mobile Stress Management Applications: An Affordance-Theoretic Perspective on the Adoption and Use
Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Copenhagen, Denmark
(Research in Progress)

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Chronic stress is a burden on mental and physical health. Despite the development and effectiveness of mobile stress management applications, their adoption and continued use remain low. Given that research revealed systematic differences in usage behavior among user types, we aim to investigate what drives these differences. We extend the affordance perspective and argue that accounting for psychological needs, actualized affordances, and actualization costs across different user types provides a deeper understanding of the factors driving the adoption and use of mobile stress management applications. The qualitative interview study of our mixed-methods study reveals eight affordances, eight actualization costs, and initial evidence for systematic differences among the user types. The quantitative questionnaire study will uncover the psychological needs, actualized affordances, and perceived actualization costs of the six user types. This work contributes a new theoretical perspective to overcome the gap in the adoption and usage of mobile stress management applications.

Valta, M., Menzel, J., Maier, C., Pflügner, K., Meier, M., and Weitzel, T. (2022)
Digital Nudging: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Directions
Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research, Atlanta (GA), United States
Best Paper Award

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Digital nudging is omnipresent in users’ daily lives and constantly influences decisions in digital choice environments that require users to make decisions such as web-based forms or mobile apps. It uses interface design elements and aims to guide users' behavior in specific directions. So far, there is quite a lot of research in that stream, whereby each article focuses on one specific context in which digital nudging is applied. To assist researchers and practitioners that aim to study or design information systems, we provide an overview of existent research in that stream. Following the groundedtheory method, we categorize 88 publications and reveal ten forms and five contexts of digital nudging. We also provide an overview of relationships between forms of digital nudging and their contexts. Our findings contribute to digital nudging research by offering an in-depth and structured overview of existing research and future research directions.

Pflügner, K. (2022)
Technostress Management at the Workplace: A Systematic Literature Review.
Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik, Nürnberg, Germany
Best Paper Nominee

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Technostress is a major problem for employees and organizations, as it impairs employee health and weakens organizational performance. Therefore, it is relevant to effectively manage technostress and reveal ways for mitigating the adverse consequences. Seeing that previous studies on technostress management have provided a foundation for review work, we conduct a systematic literature review and integrate the scholarly findings of 22 research articles of different disciplines on technostress management strategies at the workplace. Our work provides an overview of technostress management strategies highlighting that technostress management strategies address the user, the technological, organizational, or the social environment. Moreover, we shed light on discipline-specific investigations of technostress management and derive five distinct avenues for future research. Our work thereby guides researchers to fill the identified research gaps and extend the understanding of ways for mitigating technostress.

Pflügner, K., Maier, C., Hielscher, M., and Weitzel, T. (2021)
Online Stress Management Interventions: The Role of Application Features
Proceedings of the 42nd International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Austin, Texas, USA

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Online stress management applications have the potential to reduce chronic stress, depression, cardiovascular diseases, and other severe mental and physical health problems. Basing on the clinical effectiveness of these applications and the relevance of user satisfaction for the success of information systems, we take a user perspective and investigate the role of application features for the satisfaction of potential users with such applications. We identify that there are 44 application features and reveal that these can be classified into different categories, depending on how they bring about satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the application. We show how each application feature influences potential user satisfaction and highlight that the influence can be linear, but also asymmetrical and non-existent. Based on the results, we derive recommendations for the development of online stress management applications and contribute that the complex relationship between application features and user satisfaction requires a feature- and context-specific investigation.

Pflügner, K., Maier, C., and Weitzel, T. (2021)
Dyadic Technostress Coping: Theoretical Foundation and Empirical Evidence Complementing Individual Coping
Proceedings of the 42nd International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Austin, Texas, USA
(Research in Progress)

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Techno-stressors lead to detrimental consequences for employees, e.g. job burnout. To mitigate such consequences, it is essential to understand how employees cope with techno-stressors. We draw on the broader technostress literature and the concept of dyadic coping and theorize that employees also cope with techno-stressors together with another close person at work, e.g. a close colleague. We use two sequential studies. Study 1 uses interviews to identify for which techno-stressors dyadic technostress coping is most relevant. In the ongoing Study 2, we will conduct a survey to evaluate whether dyadic technostress coping reduces the effect of the techno-stressors identified in Study 1 on job burnout. Our findings demonstrate that dyadic technostress coping is not equally relevant for all techno-stressors. With our results, the study contributes to technostress coping literature by developing a theory-based understanding of coping behaviors going beyond individual coping and broadens the view on actors of coping.

Pflügner, K., Baumann, A., and Maier, C. (2021)
Managerial Technostress: A Qualitative Study on Causes and Consequences
Proceedings of the 21th ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research
Best Paper Award

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Technostress is widespread among employees in modern work life. While research has identified the causes and consequences of technostress for the general working population, insights into how managers perceive technostress, i.e. managerial technostress, remains scarce. However, these insights are relevant as there are indications that the causes and consequences of technostress for managers are different than for non-managerial employees, for instance because they perceive divergent demands and resources at work related to their hierarchical status. We conduct a qualitative interview study with 20 managers and examine the relevance of multiple techno-stressors for managers as well as their adverse psychological and physical consequences. The results indicate that techno-overload and techno-complexity are high among managers. Results also show that techno-overload and techno-invasion are specifically demanding for managers compared to non-managerial employees, while techno-insecurity is not an issue for managers. We contribute to technostress research by revealing that the techno-stressors are differently relevant for managers, by highlighting which techno-stressors need to be addressed for managers by mitigation strategies. We also show that there are short-term as well as long-term consequences of techno-stressors among managers which both should be considered.

Pflügner, K., Hrovat, F., and Maier, C. (2021)
Medical Teleconsulting Applications: An Empirical Study on Elderly Peoples’ Satisfaction
Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik, Essen, Germany

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Medical teleconsulting applications improve the accessibility, increase the quality and reduce the costs of healthcare services especially for elderly people. Despite these benefits, such applications are still at an early state of diffusion. As the intention to use teleconsulting applications depends on the users’ satisfaction, we aim to reveal the application features of teleconsulting applications that lead to user satisfaction. Based on the theory of attractive quality, we argue that application features can be classified into different categories, depending on how well they achieve user satisfaction. We identify 17 application features and conduct a quantitative study with 87 elderly people for categorization. The results show how each application feature affects elderly peoples’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction with teleconsulting applications, and we derive recommendations for future teleconsulting application development.

Valta, M., Pflügner, K., and Maier, C. (2021)
Guiding Companies to Reduce Technostress: A Mixed-Methods Study Deriving Practice-Oriented Recommendations
Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)

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Technostress is a major challenge for employees using information technology. Technostress research has revealed the causes, i.e. techno-stressors, and resulting adverse consequences for employees and companies. However, there is a lack of practical insights guiding companies on how to reduce technostress. To offer such practical insights, we follow a mixed-methods approach. The qualitative study bases on eleven expert interviews and reveals seven measures that reduce technostress. We then elaborate on these interview results with a quantitative study of 110 employees. The quantitative results reveal the degree to which the seven measures are useful to reduce specific techno-stressors. Our results show that although there are measures used in practice, none reduces all different techno-stressors. We complement existent theoretical technostress research by offering practice-oriented recommendations on how to reduce technostress. Based on the illustration of which measures are useful for which techno-stressors, practitioners can choose the measures that best fits their needs.

Weinert, C., Pflügner, K., and Maier, C. (2020)
Do users respond to challenging and hindering techno-stressors differently? A laboratory experiment
Proceedings of the 2020 NeuroIS Retreat, Vienna, Austria
(Research in Progress)

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Techno-stressors are typically hindering for users. These then cause adverse user responses, such as techno-exhaustion, which in turn result in reduced task performance. Latest technostress research adds two types of stressors: hindrance techno-stressors (HTS) and challenge techno-stressors (CTS). Using that knowledge, this research-in-progress paper develops a research model assuming that both types of techno-stressors lead to different user responses (e.g., motivation, techno-exhaustion, arousal) and, in turn, have a different impact on task performance. To validate that empirically, we propose a mixed-experimental research design following a pre-post approach with three different treatments (e.g., HTS, CTS, control) using among other different biomarkers (e.g., SC, sAA, cortisol) to measure arousal. The expected contributions and future steps are discussed.

Pflügner, K., Reis, L., Maier, C., and Weitzel, T. (2020)
Communication Measures to Reduce Techno-Invasion and Techno-Overload: A Qualitative Study Uncovering Positive and Adverse Effects
Proceedings of the 20th ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research, Nuremberg, Germany
Best Paper Award

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The perception of specific techno-stressors, such as techno- invasion or techno-overload, negatively influences employees' performance and organizations' profit. Therefore, it is imperative for organizations to implement specific, deliberate mitigation strategies. Among others, communication measures have the potential to reduce employees' perception of techno-invasion and techno-overload. Basing on 38 semi-structured interviews with working employees, this study identifies five communication measures and their positive and adverse effects in reducing techno-invasion and techno-overload from the perspective of employees. Enlarging related research on technostress mitigation, the results show that none of the analyzed communication measures is limitation-free. Therefore, we conclude that organizations need to introduce more elected and comprehensive communication measures, representing employees' individual needs and characteristics to reduce techno-invasion and techno-overload sustainably. Theoretically, our research enlarges prior findings on technostress and on mitigation of technostress presenting specific mitigation strategies for two specific techno-stressors as well as positive and adverse effects of these mitigation strategies.

Pflügner, K., Mattke, J., and Weitzel, T. (2019)
Which Combinations of Techno-Stressors Harm Users and Organizations: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis
Proceedings of the Special Interest Group on Adoption and Diffusion of Information Technology (DIGIT) (Pre-ICIS Workshop), Munich, Germany

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The purpose of the current study is to examine which combinations of techno-stressors lead users to be burned out or perform low due to their stressful use of information systems. Therefore, we take a configurational approach and investigate configurations of techno-stressors for job burnout and low job performance. We conduct a two-wave study, survey 166 employees and analyze the data by using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The results reveal four configurations leading to job burnout and one configuration leading to low job performance. The study contributes to technostress research by showing that techno-stressors need to be studied in configurations, by highlighting that job burnout and low job performance are caused by different configurations and by revealing that high as well as low levels of a techno-stressor can initiate the adverse reactions of users.

Pflügner, K. and Maier, C. (2019)
Mitigating Technostress: An Empirical Study of Mindfulness and Techno-Stressors
Proceedings of the 25th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), Cancún, Mexico

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The purpose of the current study is to examine ways for individuals to mitigate technostress. Practical observations indicate the importance of mindfulness for mitigating stress. Therefore, we study the effect of mindfulness on techno-stressors by relying on the theoretical model of mindfulness by Shapiro and colleagues. A self-rating questionnaire was distributed to employees of different companies, industries, business units, and hierarchical levels. The results of 134 responses reveal that mindfulness leads to lower levels of four out of five techno-stressors. The study contributes that mindfulness is a powerful resource in technologized work environments for the effective and healthy dealing with technologies as well as the mitigation of techno-stressors and that techno-stressors need to be investigated separately. Suggestions for the application of the research results and the development of preventive measures are provided.

Pflügner, K., Mattke, J., and Maier, C. (2019)
Who is Stressed by Using ICTs? A Qualitative Comparison Analysis with the Big Five Personality Traits to Understand Technostress
Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik, Siegen, Germany
Best Paper Award

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The purpose of the current study is to reveal personality profiles that predispose to the experience of techno-stressors within an organizational setting. These insights are useful because techno-stressors lead to considerable costs and adverse health effects. We use the theoretical lens of the transaction-based model of stress to study the effect of the Big Five personality traits on techno-stressors. We distributed a self-rating questionnaire among 221 individuals and analyzed data using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparison Analysis. The results reveal that six different personality profiles lead to the experience of techno-stressors. The study contributes to research by revealing that personality traits need to be investigated in profiles when studying their role in technostress and that different profiles of the Big Five predispose to techno-stressors. The results are useful for practitioners as they allow the prevention of techno-stressors and negative consequences by detecting users who are at risk at an early stage.

Pflügner, K. (2018)
Technostress: An Empirical Analysis for Investigating the Role of Mindfulness
Proceedings of the Special Interest Group on Adoption and Diffusion of Information Technology (DIGIT) (Pre-ICIS Workshop), San Francisco, CA, USA

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The purpose of the current study is to examine personal resources for the dealing with technostress and the alleviation of negative consequences arising from technostress. Based on practical observations indicating the importance of mindfulness, the theoretical lense of the job demands-resources model is used to study the effect of mindfulness on techno-stressors and emotional exhaustion. A self-rating questionnaire was distributed to employees of different companies, industries, business units, and hierarchical levels. The results of 134 responses reveal that mindfulness is associated with lower levels of techno-stressors and lower levels of emotional exhaustion. The study contributes that mindfulness is a powerful resource in technologized work environments for the effective and healthy dealing with technologies, the reduction of techno-stressors, and the prevention of adverse health outcomes. Suggestions for the application of the research results, the development of preventive measures, and the assessment of psychological risk factors are provided.