From Stress to Strength: Configurations of Techno-eustress in Generative AI

Generative AI (GenAI) is reshaping creative work, shifting the focus from manual execution to high-level orchestration. While prior research has examined the negative impacts of technology use (techno-distress), this thesis investigates the positive, motivating effects, techno-eustress, in the context of AI-assisted creative work. Through a mixed-methods design comprising qualitative interviews with 23 creative professionals (Paper 1) and a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) of 113 practitioners (Paper 2), I identify a novel techno-eustressor, techno-polychronicity, and map the complex configurations of techno-eustress creators that lead to high strategic decision speed and comprehensiveness. We further examine the boundary conditions (i.e. youth advantage and business acumen) in the configuration. Our findings reveal that high decision-making performance is not additive but configurational, relying on specific recipes of techno-mastery, techno-polychronicity, and techno-autonomy that differ significantly between young and senior creative professionals. This thesis expands the theoretical scope of technostress in three key areas. First, it introduces techno-polychronicity as a novel fifth dimension of techno-eustress, distinguishing it from the traditional creators of mastery, autonomy, enrichment, and relatedness. Second, it abandons traditional linear modeling in favor of configurational dynamics, adopting a complexity-grounded approach similar to recent studies on techno-distress. Finally, by incorporating the boundary conditions of youth advantage and business acumen, this study proposes a contingent theory that explains how distinct segments of the creative workforce utilize these configurations to enhance strategic decision speed and comprehensiveness.