Defensive routines as coping mechanisms against technostress: roles of digital leadership and employee goal orientation

In today's workplace, the proliferation of digital technologies has transformed work tasks but also led to technostress. This stress, associated with technology use, negatively impacts employees' behavioral outcomes and performance. Despite these effects, research on coping strategies for technostress and mitigation methods for individuals and organizations remains limited. This study utilizes the transactional theory of stress and coping to analyze the process of technostress, specifically focusing on defensive routines as a coping mechanism and technology-enabled performance as an outcome. Additionally, the study draws on Job-Demand Resource model to examine two critical moderators: employees' goal orientations and digital leadership. To gather data, we collected multisource data from 221 salespeople and their line managers in Pakistan. The results demonstrate that defensive routines act as a mediator between technostress creators and technology-enabled performance. Furthermore, we found that digital leadership plays a buffering role, alleviating the negative impact of technostress creators on technology-enabled performance. This research significantly contributes to the existing theories on technostress and routine dynamics. • Defensive Routines help salespeople cope with technostress but limit growth. • Digital leadership mitigates technostress impacts on organizations. • Defensive routines obstruct workplace technology adoption efforts.