Teachers’ Digital Competencies as a Resource in the Job Demands-Resources Model

Against the backdrop of substantial transformations in the education system, including digitalization and increasing societal pluralization, there is growing attention paid to teachers’ digital competencies and their role within broader school well-being processes in digitally transforming educational environments. This paper adopts digital competencies as a novel domain-specific personal resource within the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) framework to examine how both individual and organizational resources shape teachers’ professional motivation and organizational commitment. The analysis draws on data from the ‘Deisel’ project, comprising 550 teachers in Germany. Within this empirical context, this study reveals considerable variation in both teachers’ digital competencies and the organizational conditions of schools. In particular, differences in leadership support and collegial collaboration influence whether digital transformation is experienced as an additional burden or as a meaningful resource for professional development. The findings indicate a small but statistically significant indirect association between digital competencies and organizational commitment, operating primarily through reduced psychological strain rather than increased motivation. Prior evidence emphasizing the relevance of school management support and self-efficacy was replicated. These results demonstrate that digital competencies function as a personal resource within the JD-R framework, reducing perceived strain and indirectly strengthening organizational commitment. This study contributes to JD-R research by showing that digital competencies appear to function less as direct motivational drivers and more as domain-specific personal resources that may mitigate the strain associated with technology-related demands in digitally transforming schools.