When Modern Technologies Meet Ageing Workforces: Older Workers are more affected by Demands from Mobile Interruptions than their Younger Counterparts

Tams, Stefan; Grover, Varun; Thatcher, Jason Bennett

doi:10.24251/hicss.2017.685

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…When attended to, demand appraisals have been explained primarily through one of three theoretical lenses (transactional theory of stress, P-E fit theory and cybernetic theory), in which individuals perform a subjective evaluation of their environment in terms of opportunity or threat (D'Arcy et al, 2014(D'Arcy et al, , 2018Galluch et al, 2015;Liang et al, 2019), (mis)fit (Ayyagari et al, 2011;Stich et al, 2019b;Chilton et al, 2005), or (in) equilibrium (Stich et al, 2019a) However, what has lacked the most attention is the explanation of the factors that may influence the demand appraisal process for cybersecurity professionals and how certain factors are more influential than others, creating a challenge or hindrance perception of demand. Some early research suggests that age, gender and personality differences can play an influential role in the stress process, but we have an underdeveloped understanding of how these differences affect cybersecurity professionals' appraisal of demands (Ragu-Nathan et al, 2008;Tams et al, 2017;Srivastava et al, 2015;Maier et al, 2019;Hwang and Cha, 2018;Lazarus and Folkman, 1987). Most research that has considered individual differences has shown how these differences affect the overall experience of stress but not the influence on the appraisal process itself, but cybersecurity professionals are a unique breed of IT professional (Cobb, 2016;Bashir et al, 2017) (Tarafdar et al, 2019).…”

Section: Future Research Opportunitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stress in the cybersecurity profession: a systematic review of related literature and opportunities for future research

Singh

Johnston²,

D’Arcy³

et al. 2023

OCJ

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PurposeThe impact of stress on personal and work-related outcomes has been studied in the information systems (IS) literature across several professions. However, the cybersecurity profession has received little attention despite numerous reports suggesting stress is a leading cause of various adverse professional outcomes. Cybersecurity professionals work in a constantly changing adversarial threat landscape, are focused on enforcement rather than compliance, and are required to adhere to ever-changing industry mandates – a work environment that is stressful and has been likened to a war zone. Hence, this literature review aims to reveal gaps and trends in the current extant general workplace and IS-specific stress literature and illuminate potentially fruitful paths for future research focused on stress among cybersecurity professionals.Design/methodology/approachUsing the systematic literature review process (Okoli and Schabram, 2010), the authors examined the current IS research that studies stress in organizations. A disciplinary corpus was generated from IS journals and conferences encompassing 30 years. The authors analyzed 293 articles from 21 journals and six conferences to retain 77 articles and four conference proceedings for literature review.FindingsThe findings reveal four key research opportunities. First, the demands experienced by cybersecurity professionals are distinct from the demands experienced by regular information technology (IT) professionals. Second, it is crucial to identify the appraisal process that cybersecurity professionals follow in assessing security demands. Third, there are many stress responses from cybersecurity professionals, not just negative responses. Fourth, future research should focus on stress-related outcomes such as employee productivity, job satisfaction, job turnover, etc., and not only security compliance among cybersecurity professionals.Originality/valueThis study is the first to provide a systematic synthesis of the IS stress literature to reveal gaps, trends and opportunities for future research focused on stress among cybersecurity professionals. The study presents several novel trends and research opportunities. It contends that the demands experienced by cybersecurity professionals are distinct from those experienced by regular IT professionals and scholars should seek to identify the key characteristics of these demands that influence their appraisal process. Also, there are many stress responses, not just negative responses, deserving increased attention and future research should focus on unexplored stress-related outcomes for cybersecurity professionals.

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