Twin Threats in Digital Workplace: Technostress and Work Intensification in a Dual-Path Moderated Mediation Model of Employee Health

Jan. 2026

Muhammad Jawwad Nasir Malik, Mubashar Ali, Asad Malik, Shamir Malik

Highlights

Public Health Relevance: How does this work relate to a public health issue?

• The study examines how technostress and work intensification, two growing psychosocial hazards in digitalized workplaces, contribute to employee health harm within manufacturing sector.

• By identifying psychological strain mechanisms/pathways (IT strain and exhaustion), the study highlights emerging occupational health risks that directly affect workers’ mental, emotional, and physiological well-being.

Public Health Significance: Why is this work significant to public health?

• The findings demonstrate that digital and organizational stressors lead to harmful health outcomes such as burnout, anxiety, fatigue, and sleep disruption, underscoring the need for public health interventions to digital-era workplace risks.

• The study provides evidence-based insights for workforce sustainability initiatives that support national goals of creating healthier, psychologically safer workplaces during technological transformation.

Public Health Implications: Key implications for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers.

• Practitioners can reduce health risks by calibrating workloads, strengthening organizational support systems, and designing user-friendly digital tools that mitigate and minimize strain and exhaustion.

• Policymakers and researchers may use the findings to integrate psychological safety into workplace practices, establish digital well-being standards, and develop occupational stress mitigation guidelines. These insights enable researchers to advance further inquiry into psychosocial risks and support policymakers in introducing evidence-based regulations for technology-intensive sectors.

 

Abstract

This study investigates how technostress and work intensification jointly influence employee health harm through two distinct stressor-strain pathways within Pakistan’s manufacturing sector. The proposed model specifies two mechanisms, (1) technostress induces IT strain that contributes to health harm, moderated by user satisfaction; and (2) work intensification heightens emotional exhaustion that similarly leads to health harm, moderated by perceived organizational support. Grounded in Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, the framework explains how cumulative digital and organizational demands deplete employee resources, amplifying both psychological and physical harm. A cross-sectional quantitative design was employed, utilizing a structured self-administered questionnaire administered to mid and senior-level employees across manufacturing firms. A total of 252 valid responses were analyzed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) using Smart PLS 4. Results revealed that both IT strain and emotional exhaustion significantly mediated the effects of technostress and work intensification, respectively, on health harm. Moreover, user satisfaction significantly moderated the IT strain-health harm relationship, indicating that higher satisfaction with digital tools mitigates the adverse impact of technological stress. Similarly, organizational support weakened the association between emotional exhaustion and health harm, underscoring its protective role in high-pressure work settings. This study offers theoretical advancement by integrating fragmented stressor-strain models and offers practical recommendations to foster digital well-being and supportive organizational work cultures in evolving industrial contexts.

Keywords:

technostress; work intensification; IT strain; emotional exhaustion; health harm; user satisfaction; organizational support and digital well-being

CITE

Malik, M. J. N., Ali, M., Malik, A., & Malik, S. (2025). Twin Threats in Digital Workplace: Technostress and Work Intensification in a Dual-Path Moderated Mediation Model of Employee Health. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 22(12), 1856. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph22121856