Understanding technostress in the gig economy -- A Job Demands-Resources analysis of Chinese couriers

The COVID-19 pandemic has given the global e-commerce market a strong boost and concerns have been raised about intensified work stress and its consequences on health and safety. China has soon become the market leader and the rapid adoption of last-mile technology and app-based work models means that work stress associated with the use of technology (“technostress”) is under-researched. This study set out to explore what work stressors couriers in China experience and how techno-stressors interacted with other work stressors, following the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) framework. We conducted 14 semi-structured interviews with frontline couriers in May-June 2021 in China. Five major themes were identified: general (working conditions), algorithmic management, customer sovereignty, economic precarity and networked support. A novel contribution of the study is the identification of a new stressor: techno-dominance that we define as technology-induced worker vulnerability when labour relations and managerial functions traditionally fulfilled by humans are replaced by technology systems. It can be characterised as algorithmic controls, opaque system logic, extended social controls and lack of organizational (human) support. Technology associated benefits were categorised as techno-resource, including flexible hours, intelligent systems and app-based information & trainings. Some benefits were conditional, e.g. gamification where participants became motivated or frustrated depending on their job skills, suggesting potential moderators for the demands-stress relationship. Interactions between techno-stressors and other working conditions were also found, as techno-overload, techno-invasion, techno-complexity and techno-dominance intensified work stress.