Leadership Amid Healthcare Digitalizing: Technostress and Innovation Management

Global healthcare organizations have been rapidly transitioning to digital use including electronic health records, telemedicine platforms, AI applications, and advanced digital communication technologies (Hanelt et al., 2021). While these new technology-driven approaches serve to both increase operational efficiency and clinical decision-making and improve patient outcomes, they generate technical demands driving technostress among healthcare providers (Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008; Tarafdar et al., 2007). Technostress has been correlated with reduced employee well-being, decreased performance and reduced innovative work behaviour (Ayyagari et al., 2011). In this regard, digital leadership is seen as a key organizational capability that can reduce this technological stress in the workers and enable innovation and adaptability of staff (Claassen et al., 2021; Cortellazzo et al., 2019). This article provides a conceptual synthesis on technostress, digital leadership, innovation climate and innovative work behaviour in a context of digitalization of healthcare. Based upon Job Demands–Resources theory (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017), Conservation of Resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989), Social Exchange Theory (Blau, 1964), and Organizational Climate Theory (Amabile, 1996; Hülsheger et al., 2009), the present study proposes that digital leadership mediates between technostress and innovative work behaviour and innovation climate moderates the effect. The paper informs practice by contributing theoretically to assimilation while offering implications for healthcare leadership in the field from which it can draw future empirical directions to research in such digitally transforming healthcare settings.