Does Techno-invasion Lead to Employees' Deviant Behaviors?

• Published in: Journal of management information systems 2022-04, Vol.39 (2), p.454-482
• Main Authors: Chen, Yang, Wang, Xin, Benitez, Jose, Luo, Xin (Robert), Li, Dechao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Behavior; Boundary conditions; Customer services; Deviance; deviant behavior; Employees; Impairment; Information technology; IT mindfulness; Mindfulness; Norms; online deviance; organizational norms; Psychological processes; Quality of service; Regulation theory; Self regulation; self-regulation impairment; team mentality; Teams; Techno-invasion; Technology utilization; work boundaries; work-life balance
• ISSN: 0742-1222; 1557-928X
• DOI: 10.1080/07421222.2022.2063557

Techno-invasion refers to constant connectivity of being "always exposed" that blurs desired boundaries between work and personal life and represents an emerging phenomenon of scholarly investigation. As work-related use of information technology (IT) during non-work time leads to techno-invasion, a minimal amount is known about whether techno-invasion may engender employees' deviant behaviors, a behavior that violates organizational norms and may be intended to harm the organization, its members, or both. Drawn upon the self-regulation theory, this study examines this relationship by focusing on psychological processes. Based on time-lagged survey data collected from customer service teams from two financial service companies in China, our results show that (1) techno-invasion is associated with self-regulation impairment (i.e., the reduction of one's self-regulatory resources needed to control undesirable impulses), which in turn provokes employee's deviant behavior; (2) perceived team bottom-line mentality (i.e., mindset to prioritize the team bottom-line outcomes) reinforces the relationship between techno-invasion and self-regulation impairment; and (3) IT mindfulness (i.e., employees' focus in being creative using IT, and learning and discovering new and more efficient ways of using IT) negatively moderates the relationship between techno-invasion and self-regulation impairment, thus serving as a remedy to alleviate or prevent self-regulation impairment and employee's deviant behavior. We explain theoretically and test empirically the impact of techno-invasion on employees' deviant behavior, emphasizing the intermediate psychological processes and the boundary conditions that affect this relationship.