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. ### Competing Interest Statement PW is a director and shareholder of CareLoop Health Ltd, a for-profit company that develops and markets digital therapeutics for mental health conditions; and a director of Prism Life Ltd, a small research and consultancy company. ### Funding Statement The project is funded by the MRC Public Health Intervention Development Scheme (PHIND). Grant Ref: MR/T027215/1. CA is supported by the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre and NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: The University Research Ethics Committee at University of Manchester, Ref: 2021-8761-18609 and Ethics Review Committee at the Beijing Normal University, Ref: 20200113011 gave ethical approval for this work. I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors