Coping with Organizational Information Technology Events: A Perceived Organizational Support and Relationship-Focused Coping Perspective

Abstract

While in recent years there is an increasing interest in researching individual technology acceptance and use based on the stress-coping perspective, relatively little attention has been paid to social-contextual factors as the antecedents of individual coping strategies and coping outcomes. The research proposal is intended to address this limitation. Specifically, drawing on coping theory, organizational support theory, and research on organizational conflict management, a model on individual use of technology that incorporate perceived organizational support (POS) and positive/negative relationship-focused coping strategies is proposed. POS as a key coping resource during stress is expected to influence employees’ primary and secondary appraisals of an IT event, which in turn affect their choices of positive/negative relationship-focused coping strategies, and the resulting technology use or nonuse. By considering the social aspect of coping, the proposed research is expected to bring additional insights to researchers and practitioners.