Thriving in a bruising job: How high achieving IT professionals can cope with occupational demands

Abstract

We report on a study of high performing IT professionals in a global IT services company, whose exceptional performance in a highly demanding work environment raises the question of how they cope with their occupational demands. While literature has focused primarily on technology‐induced stressors and associated coping behaviours of IT users, our study examines distinctive coping behaviours of IT professionals in response to diverse occupational demands. We combine qualitative interviews and heart rate variability data from an exemplar sample of 15 high performing IT professionals to provide insights into their psychological and physiological strain levels respectively. Our participants exhibit four strain levels, each related to a distinctive combination of coping behaviours, which we abductively theorise as coping portfolios. We find that high performing IT professionals with both a low psychological and physiological strain level apply a broad and varied portfolio of coping behaviours in response to diverse occupational demands. We contribute to IS research on IT professionals by studying the coping behaviours of an exemplar sample of high performing IT professionals in a leading IT firm. Theoretically, we complement the established concepts of coping flexibility and coping repertoires by introducing the notion of coping portfolios.

Full text

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Thriving in a bruising job: How high achieving IT
professionals can cope with occupational
demands
Jana Mattern
1
| Monideepa Tarafdar
2
| Stefan Klein
1
|
Stefan Schellhammer
1
1
Department of Information Systems, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
2
Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
Correspondence
Monideepa Tarafdar, Isenberg School of
Management, University of Massachusetts
Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA.
Email: mtarafdar@umass.edu
Abstract
We report on a study of high performing IT professionals in a
global IT services company, whose exceptional performance
in a highly demanding work environment raises the question
of how they cope with their occupational demands. While lit-
erature has focused primarily on technology-induced stressors
and associated coping behaviours of IT users, our study exam-
ines distinctive coping behaviours of IT professionals in
response to diverse occupational demands. We combine qual-
itative interviews and heart rate variability data from an exem-
plar sample of 15 high performing IT professionals to provide
insights into their psychological and physiological strain levels
respectively. Our participants exhibit four strain levels, each
related to a distinctive combination of coping behaviours,
which we abductively theorise as coping portfolios. We find
that high performing IT professionals with both a low psycho-
logical and physiological strain level apply a broad and varied
portfolio of coping behaviours in response to diverse occupa-
tional demands. We contribute to IS research on IT profes-
sionals by studying the coping behaviours of an exemplar
sample of high performing IT professionals in a leading IT firm.
Received: 16 February 2022 Revised: 8 February 2024 Accepted: 15 February 2024
DOI: 10.1111/isj.12513
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which
permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no
modifications or adaptations are made.
© 2024 The Authors. Information Systems Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
1902 Inf Syst J. 2024;34:1902–1934.
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/isj

Theoretically, we complement the established concepts of
coping flexibility and coping repertoires by introducing the
notion of coping portfolios.
KEYWORDS
abductive approach, coping portfolio, IT professionals, occupational
demands, physiological strain measurement, salutogenesis
1|INTRODUCTION
Eric is an IT professional, who works for a leading, globally operating tech company, Beta, that attracts highly tal-
ented individuals. Beta is renowned for its high-performance culture and leadership development. He works as tech-
nical expert in the software division. Serving his demanding clients requires an acute awareness of how latest
hardware and software can benefit their business needs.
Eric travels regularly to his clients and divides the remaining time between his office and working from home.
The pace of work is demanding. He is often firefighting and colleagues, managers, and clients regularly contact him
during off-work hours. Eric's performance is under close scrutiny to ascertain that quarterly targets will be met, as is
his colleagues.' Despite such extreme demands, Eric is thriving at work: doing intellectually challenging work at the
leading edge of technology and collaborating with highly talented colleagues. He has high autonomy and flexibility
and is encouraged to develop his own ideas that may turn into projects of their own.
Eric's outstanding performance as evidenced in his performance metrics and reviews by his manager has been
recognised and he has been invited to an internal leadership development program aimed at preparing him for his
future career and nurturing his talent.
Availability of advanced information and communication technology (ICT) combined with a management style that
focuses on outcomes (Major et al., 2007) affords employees in the IT services industry (hereafter called IT professionals)
with high levels of autonomy and flexibility regarding how, when, and where they work (Shih et al., 2011). However,
these often come at the price of a demanding work environment. For example, and as described in the vignette above,
IT professionals face occupational demands such as a high workload (Moore, 2000), projectification of their work, inter-
national travel, blurred work-life boundaries (Ahuja et al., 2007), and the need to constantly adapt to a fast-changing
environment (Gallivan et al., 2004). Furthermore, they often perceive that their efforts are not valued and are unsure if
their performance is recognised and rewarded (Harden et al., 2018). Yet, at the same time, there is interesting and persis-
tent evidence that some IT professionals perform well and thrive in the face of such demands (Armstrong et al., 2015;
Ghapanchi & Aurum, 2011; Moquin et al., 2019). This surprising observation poses the riddle of how high performing IT
professionals manage the high level of occupational demands. In line with an abductive approach, our research objective
is to develop novel and plausible explanations (Douven, 2018) for this surprising observation (Mabsout, 2015,p.494).
Our enquiry is motivated by the perspective of salutogenesis, which focuses on identifying factors that contribute to
individuals' thriving and well-being despite facing difficult demands (Bringsén et al., 2012).
As stress theory posits, such demands stimulate a stress process resulting in strain (Cooper et al., 2001). Strain is
understood as individuals' psychological, physiological, and behavioural responses to stressful demands (Pawlowski
et al., 2007). For instance, work exhaustion, that is, the emotional and physical experience of fatigue and being dra-
ined, is one symptom of strain among IT professionals (Kim & Wright, 2007). Individuals react to demands by coping
with them. IS literature has examined how IT users cope with respect to different types of technology related demands
(e.g., Beaudry & Pinsonneault, 2005; D'Arcy et al., 2018; Liang et al., 2019). Our focus is on how IT professionals cope
with the multitude of occupational demands. Our research question is thus: How do high performing IT professionals
cope with high occupational demands?
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We report on a unique sample of IT professionals working in a world-leading global IT services company (Beta),
1
operating in a dynamic and highly competitive market environment. Beta strives to set industry standards and
employs a performance-oriented workforce who enjoy rich career options both within and outside Beta. The IT pro-
fessionals in our sample, identified as “high performers”by their managers, have been invited and chosen to be part
of Beta's High Performer Program (HPP), a strategic organisational initiative to cultivate future leadership. They meet
and exceed performance expectations, while successfully coping with the demands of their jobs. This unique and rare
sample provides an appropriate empirical setting to study coping behaviours of high performing IT professionals. We
observe that, although all participants have been labelled as high performers based on the same performance met-
rics, their coping behaviours and strain levels vary, with some showing high and some low strain.
We draw from three theoretical perspectives. One, the law of requisite variety suggests that responding to vari-
ous demands requires a varied set of behaviours that appropriately match the environmental complexity (Gallagher
et al., 2010, p. 144). Two, the theory of coping flexibility states that individuals cope successfully when they can
choose their coping behaviour depending on the situation (Kato, 2012). Three, the notion of coping repertoire sug-
gests that individuals employ multiple coping behaviours in response to dynamic and situational demands
(Duhachek & Kelting, 2009). Contextualising these perspectives to the IT professionals' work environment, we sug-
gest that the variety of IT professionals' occupational demands requires them to engage in a variety of coping behav-
iours. We identify which coping behaviours IT professionals use in response to different demands, and explain how
these coping behaviours form portfolios that are associated with different strain levels. Specifically, we identify four
distinct portfolios of IT professionals' coping behaviours, corresponding to four different strain levels. Our data sug-
gests that sustainable high performance, that is, showing high work performance without wearing oneself out, is a
hard-won achievement. Participants who show a low strain level engage in multiple coping behaviours in response
to specific occupational demands. We assess IT professionals' strain by combining physiological measurements with
qualitative interviews.
The IS discipline has a robust stream of research on IT professionals, exemplifying their unique occupational role
in developing, implementing and maintaining IS (Tarafdar et al., 2022), that examines topics such as IT professionals'
distinctive occupational characteristics (e.g., Ahuja et al., 2007; Niederman et al., 2016), gender related equality and
inclusion (e.g., Trauth & Connolly, 2021), product innovation (Tarafdar & Tanriverdi, 2018) and turnover intentions
(Zaza et al., 2022). We contribute to this literature by investigating how IT professionals cope with their distinctive
occupational demands and in so doing, can show high levels of performance despite such demands.
Section 2presents a literature review on the occupational demands of IT professionals, their resulting strain, coping
behaviours they engage in and the concepts of coping flexibility and coping repertoire. In Section 3and 4,wedescribe
our research design and data analysis respectively. We report findings in Section 5, theorise from them in Section 6and
present boundary conditions and limitations in Section 7.Section8lays out contributions to research and practice.
2|LITERATURE REVIEW
This section provides an overview of occupational demands that IT professionals face, and their resulting strain and
coping behaviours. We also present the concepts of coping flexibility and coping repertoire.
2.1 |Occupational demands faced by IT professionals
The IS discipline has a strong tradition of research on IT professionals (Tarafdar et al., 2022) due to their unique
occupational role as IS developers, implementers, contributors to product innovation, and project managers
1
A pseudonym, to preserve anonymity.
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(Ahuja et al., 2007; Niederman et al., 2016; Tarafdar & Tanriverdi, 2018; Zaza et al., 2022). IT professionals execute
artefact related tasks, such as programming/development, implementation and application/hardware maintenance,
as well as process related tasks, such as consulting with corporate clients on digital solutions. Their work is
characterised by specific and distinctive occupational demands as we describe in Table 1.
Projectification of work results in role ambiguity and role conflict (Kim & Wright, 2007). IT professionals are
affected by work intensification, manifested in high workload and tight deadlines (Allen et al., 2008;
Moore, 2000). They experience work delimitation because they work in both co-located and virtual teams, and
have to be available for meetings with team members from different time zones. The IT industry is characterised
by relentless innovation so that IT professionals require excellent IT skills and knowledge to fulfil their functions.
ITskillrelateddemandsresultfromtheneedtokeepupwithnewandcomplextechnology(Majoretal.,2007;
Tarafdar et al., 2007). For example, Generative AI applications such as ChatGPT have disrupted the IT landscape
since 2022, following which IT companies have set-up dedicated research units to address the transformational
challenges for their services and work organisation (de Cremer et al., 2023;Gmyreketal.,2023). Organisational
demands include corporate expectations from a culture of extended availability for work (Pawlowski et al., 2007).
The work of maintaining critical IT infrastructures requires short response times, resulting in working anytime and
from any place. IT professionals also report a lack of support from their managers (Allen et al., 2008). Improved
pay scales and mentoring (Allen et al., 2008) as well as increased feedback and participative management (Kim &
Wright, 2007), can buffer against organisational demands, but IT professionals face frequent lack of such
organisational support (Major et al., 2007;Moore,2000; Pawlowski et al., 2007). Performance demands reflect a
competitive work environment and a performance-oriented culture. Performance expectations for IT profes-
sionals are typically high and have increased over time (Moore, 2000), yet expectations and criteria for promotion
oftenremainvague.
2.2 |Strain from IT professionals' occupational demands
Occupational demands lead to strain. Strain can manifest physiologically, for example, in increased heart rate, blood
pressure, and muscle tensions. It can also manifest in negative psychological outcomes such as low job satisfaction,
and negative behavioural outcomes such as low productivity (Cooper et al., 2001). These strains are non-beneficial
responses to occupational demands and indicate negative stress, that is, distress. However, high levels of physiologi-
cal strain can also be accompanied by positive psychological and behavioural outcomes, such as high levels of work
engagement (Junker et al., 2021; Schaufeli et al., 2009) or enhanced professional drive (Selye, 1976), indicating posi-
tive responses to occupational demands. Such responses may be associated with positive stress, that is, eustress
(Cavanaugh et al., 2000; Lazarus, 1993; Le Fevre et al., 2006; Selye, 1976).
There are several indicators of strain specific to IT professionals. Their high workload increases work exhaustion
(Lee & Ashforth, 1996), which can lead to high turnover (Harden et al., 2018; Moore, 2000). Extended work hours
predict burnout (Pawlowski et al., 2007; Shropshire & Kadlec, 2012). Technology enables extensive availability for
work, making work-life conflict a significant problem (Armstrong et al., 2015; Messersmith, 2007). It also enables
constant connectivity, leading to inability to switch off and disconnect from work (Sarker et al., 2012). High levels of
telework and remote work bear the risk of social isolation and can decrease job satisfaction due to lack of social
interactions with colleagues (Weinert et al., 2014). These strains are indications of distress.
However, studies have also found indications of eustress as IT professionals' response to occupational demands.
Some IT professionals perceive IT skill related demands, such as technology related complexity and learning as posi-
tive challenges, and even seek technically complex jobs (Tsai et al., 2007) that fulfil their need for challenging work
(Allen et al., 2008) and for working with highly-talented colleagues. ICT enabled flexibility for anytime and anywhere
work decreases workload and work exhaustion (Ahuja et al., 2007). These findings are possible indications of
eustress that IT professionals experience.
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2.3 |Coping behaviours of IT professionals and IT users
Coping describes individuals' “cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands
that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the person's resources”(Folkman et al., 1986, p. 993). Pensgaard and Duda
TABLE 1 Occupational demands faced by IT professionals.
Category Demand Description and sources
Projectification
of work
Fragmentation of work IT professionals work on multiple projects simultaneously (Pawlowski
et al., 2007) and need to satisfy different stakeholders with
sometimes contradicting expectations, resulting in role ambiguity and
conflicts (Allen et al., 2008; Moore, 2000).
Intensification
of work
Tight deadlines Due to a competitive market environment, IT professionals are exposed
to deadlines for finishing projects, most of which are externally
determined and cannot be changed (Dhar & Dhar, 2010;
Moore, 2000).
High workload In the battle for being the first to develop new technical solutions or
services, IT professionals face a high workload leading to prolonged
working hours and extended availability for work (Allen et al., 2008;
Harden et al., 2018; Moore, 2000; Pawlowski et al., 2007).
Delimitation of
work
Spatially and temporally
distributed work
IT professionals often work remotely, which reduces the possibility to
connect with colleagues during coffee breaks or water-cooler chats
(Weinert et al., 2014). Globally distributed teams require working
across time zones (Sarker & Sahay, 2004). IT professionals work from
different locations leading to less social interactions with their
families, friends, and colleagues (Ahuja et al., 2007) and a lack of
organisational structures and boundaries.
IT skill related
demands
Complex media
repertoire
IT professionals have to work with various applications and multiple
devices (Tarafdar et al., 2007).
Keeping up with
technology
Being at the forefront of rapid and potentially disruptive technological
advances requires IT professionals to continually keep up and invest
time and effort in learning new skills (Chilton et al., 2010; Niederman
et al., 2016; Pawlowski & Robey, 2004).
Organisational
demands
Availability expectations The critical business role of IT infrastructures requires high levels of
vigilance and responsibility on part of IT professionals as well as
short response times in case of a crisis so that managers and clients
expect IT professionals to use various mobile devices (e.g., mobile
phone, tablet, laptop) that connect them continually to their job
(Messersmith, 2007). This constant connectivity is paired with
expectations of high levels of availability and responsiveness from
clients, managers and co-workers (Sarker et al., 2012).
Lack of organisational
support and
recognition
IT professionals often experience a lack of organisational support and
rewards (Harden et al., 2018; Moore, 2000; Pawlowski et al., 2007).
Performance
demands
Performance tracking
and decontextualized
assessment
IT professionals' performance is easy to track, monitor and reward
using technology (Gal et al., 2017). However, managers assess the
outcome of work mostly without considering the conditions under
which the results have been achieved (Major et al., 2007).
Uncertain and often
unrealistic
performance
expectations
IT professionals are responsible for their tasks and outcomes. Still, role
ambiguity leads to uncertainty about what is expected in their job
causing IT professionals to develop unrealistic performance
expectations (Kim & Wright, 2007).
1906 MATTERN ET AL.

(2003) illustrate that effective coping is a predictor of high competitive performance in sports. Similarly, high per-
forming IT professionals have to cope effectively with occupational demands to continue performing at a high level
while having low strain levels and staying healthy.
Lazarus and Folkman (1984) distinguish between problem focused coping and emotion focused coping. Problem
focused coping describes how individuals modify the demands that are the sources of strain. Emotion focused coping
describes how individuals reduce negative emotional responses to a demand, for example, by modifying the perception
of a demand from providing a threat to providing a positive opportunity such as growth (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).
Research on IT professionals has identified different coping behaviours. Love and Irani (2007), find that
Australian IT professionals frequently apply problem focused coping such as problem solving, while applying emotion
focused behaviours, such as accepting responsibility and escape-avoidance less frequently. In contrast, Dhar and
Dhar (2010) have found among Indian IT professionals a prevalence of leisure-oriented behaviours, for example,
engaging in socialisation and physical activities to get away from work or taking breaks during the workday. Coping
in response to IT skill related demands has been a particular focus of study. Tsai et al. (2007), have found that IT pro-
fessionals engage in both problem and emotion focused coping behaviours to cope with technical obsolescence.
Benamati and Lederer (2001) have identified five categories for coping with changing IT: education and training,
internal procedures, vendor support, consultant support and endurance. The above studies do not describe how IT
professionals cope with multiple occupational demands, nor how their coping behaviours are linked to their levels of
physiological and psychological strain. Further, they do not explain whether the variety and type of coping behav-
iours can explain inter-individual differences in their strain levels.
In another strand of research, IS literature on coping has focused on how IT users cope with disruptive changes
from IT. Early studies (e.g., Beaudry & Pinsonneault, 2005) showed that when individuals perceive IT related threats
from implementation of new applications, they adopt primarily problem focused coping, such as adapting their work,
the technology features, and their own technology skills, when they have high work control. When they perceive
low work control, they adopt emotion focused coping behaviours such as avoiding use of IT. IT users facing IT secu-
rity threats cope through inward (e.g., avoidance and mental disengagement) and outward (seeking support and
venting) emotion focused coping, as well as through problem focused coping (e.g., installing security software) (Liang
et al., 2019), while those facing stress from complex IT security policies cope through moral disengagement (D'Arcy
et al., 2018). IT users facing ongoing technostress engage in proactive and reactive coping behaviours. Proactive cop-
ing includes developing new IT skills to have better control over IT use and positively appraising IT as beneficial.
Reactive coping includes distancing from IT use and venting frustrations about IT (Pirkkalainen et al., 2019). They
also cope through an interplay of problem and emotion focused coping (Salo et al., 2020). These above studies have
explained how IT users cope with IT related change, IT security related threats and technostress situations –all faced
by IT users and all focusing on IT related demands as the object of coping. They have not focused on how IT profes-
sionals cope with their occupational demands.
The above studies suggest that IT users engage in both problem focused and emotion focused coping
(Beaudry & Pinsonneault, 2005; Liang et al., 2019). Some coping behaviours interact positively with one another to
increase the effectiveness of coping. For example, when IT users' IT skills are high, low levels of distancing are bene-
ficial, and when IT users positively interpret IT, high levels of distancing are beneficial (Pirkkalainen et al., 2019).
These studies therefore prime us to the complexity of coping by highlighting different types of and interactions
among, coping behaviours. However, given that the studies have focused on IT related demands faced by IT users,
they cannot explain the puzzle of why some IT professionals do well (i.e., experience low strain) in the face of their
occupational demands and others do not.
2.4 |Theory background: Coping flexibility and coping repertoire
Subsection 2.1 categorised diverse occupational demands that IT professionals face. The Law of Requisite Variety
suggests that a system can successfully adapt to changes in the environment by matching the environmental
MATTERN ET AL.1907

complexity with its own variety (Ashby, 1956). More specifically, the theory of coping flexibility explains how multiple
coping behaviours can be used to respond to different demands. Coping flexibility is “one's ability to modify one's
coping behaviors adaptively to meet the demands of different stressful situations”(Kato, 2012, p. 262). The theory
explains that individuals' coping is most effective when they can draw from a number of coping behaviours so that
they can flexibly select a set of coping behaviours matching a specific demand (Cheng, 2009). A good coping
behaviour-demand fit is crucial for effective coping (Cheng et al., 2014). Individuals with high coping flexibility
choose between different coping behaviours (Cheng, 2001). Higher coping flexibility is associated with beneficial
outcomes in terms of reduced physiological and psychological strain (Cheng et al., 2014). In parallel, the concept of
coping repertoire captures the breadth of individuals' coping behaviours and suggests that individuals employ diverse
coping behaviours in response to dynamic and situational demands (Duhachek & Kelting, 2009, p. 475). Studies have
associated a combination of multiple coping behaviours with positive outcomes, such as higher self-efficacy expecta-
tions (Freire et al., 2020).
Based on the concepts of coping flexibility and coping repertoire we expect that IT professionals with a low level
of strain develop and apply many and a wide variety of, coping behaviours (Duhachek & Kelting, 2009; Kato, 2012).
Further, to match the different occupational demands, we expect them to have both emotion and problem focused
coping in their range of coping behaviours.
3|RESEARCH DESIGN
We crafted an abductive research design. We used abduction as a forensic analysis in trying to solve the puzzle
(Ngwenyama & Klein, 2018) characterising our research objective, namely, to understand how IT professionals
achieve both high performance and high well-being, in spite of high occupational demands. We followed a phenome-
non driven approach of abduction starting with this empirical puzzle (Sætre & Van de Ven, 2023) based on our access
to an exemplar group of individuals identified as high performing IT professionals. Based on our literature review, we
draw on coping behaviours as our theoretical approach.
3.1 |Research setting and sample
Our research setting constitutes three coaching seminars for IT professionals working in a globally operating IT ser-
vices company, which we refer to by the pseudonym Beta. The EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) unit of Beta had
set up a High Performer Program (HPP) in 2015 to retain and develop talent for future leadership positions. For our
study, Beta had agreed to embed us into the consultant team facilitating the seminars as external university consul-
tants, who offered to study the participants and provide feedback, without providing interventions. Three seminars
were held with an identical design and about 24 participants each, which we refer to as cohort 1–3
2
(see Table 2).
During each seminar, we offered one session explaining the purpose of our study and extending an invitation to par-
ticipate, which involved voluntary participation in three stages of research as described in Subsection 3.2. We con-
firmed that any information shared by participants would be treated confidentially and that Beta would receive a
high-level summary and anonymous of our findings.
The HPP offered coaching seminars for the selected participants to develop knowledge and skills needed to fur-
ther their career at Beta. For each seminar, participants were selected from the top 10% performers based on Beta's
performance metrics and recommended by their managers due to their outstanding performance and career poten-
tial. The IT professionals in our sample engaged in technical solutions development, together with technical sales and
pre-sales functions for clients, with regard to new and emerging technologies. They worked on multiple projects for
2
After three cohorts the HPP was discontinued.
1908 MATTERN ET AL.

which they travelled across Europe to meet with corporate clients and technology partners. They had to meet tight
project deadlines for their managers and clients. Their technology landscape changed rapidly, and they had to keep
pace with the changes.
Our study sample comprised 5 female and 22 male IT professionals, representing a slightly higher gender differ-
ence in favour of males compared to the total number of attendees (20 female and 50 male). Our participants were
aged 26 to 57 years (Mean =36.7, Standard Deviation =9.1). They had worked at Beta on average for 9 years
(Standard Deviation =6.68) and had been in their current position on average for 2.6 years (Standard
Deviation =1.38). 12 participants described specific conditions such as sickness, and non-work-related events such
as divorce/separation and moving to another region, in the preceding 6 months, which could potentially affect the
physiological measurement of their strain. We excluded them from the data analysis, resulting in a final sample of
15 IT professionals, 3 females and 12 males.
3.2 |Data collection
We crafted a mixed-methods approach (Venkatesh et al., 2016), collecting quantitative (physiological) and qualitative
data (interview data) at three points in time (see Figure 1). Complementing physiological and self-reported data has
been suggested to yield a more comprehensive understanding of strain associated with phenomena such as
technostress (Tams et al., 2014; Tarafdar et al., 2019). Figure 1depicts the three stages of our data collection, the
different data sources and how the data are combined in the data analysis.
3.2.1 | Stage 1—Preparatory interview
Our first interaction with the participants was during a virtual preparation day, a few days before the seminar. We
introduced our research plan and conducted a 10-minute interview with each participant, as part of an assignment
for the participants. During this interview, we collected basic information about their professional situation. To
assess their perceived psychological strain level in a five-year time horizon, we asked the participants, if they per-
ceived their current pace and style of work as sustainable. We also used the interviews to sensitise the participants
and motivate them to participate in our study. All interviews were recorded and transcribed (see Appendix Afor the
interview guideline).
3.2.2 | Stage 2—Two-day seminar of the high performer program
Two days after the preparatory interview, we met each cohort during their seminar (see Table 2). The environment
of the two-day seminar, conducted in an offsite venue where the HPP team from the EMEA region convened, pro-
vided a work-oriented setting for the participants. During these 2 days, all participants had to work on the same set
TABLE 2 Study timeline.
Cohort 1 Cohort 2 Cohort 3
Stage 1: Preparatory interview April 17 Aug. 17 October 2
Stage 2: Two-day seminar of the
High Performer Program
May 5–7 Aug. 25–27 October 6–8
Stage 3: Feedback session May–June September–October October–November
MATTERN ET AL.1909

of assignments (interviews, time-bound tasks, management coaching, profiling, presentations, group sessions). This
created a demanding setting similar to what they faced in their jobs and functioned for us as a real-world setting, as
the participants were exposed to the similar conditions.
We invited the participants to a 24-hour Heart Rate Variability (HRV) measurement, which has been established
as a bio-marker for occupational strain (Järvelin-Pasanen et al., 2018). In addition, we encouraged the volunteers to
keep a diary to help recall situations, which caused strain. We collected the HRV measurements with FAROS
180 bio-sensor devices. The participants had been informed about our study design, the devices used, and the data
collected. We ensured informed consent through signed consent forms, and emphasised the sensitivity of the
data and that we would share no individual data with Beta. We assured that the participants remained owners of
their data, which we would save in a university-run cloud storage. We clarified that the participants could opt-out at
any point in time.
The data were algorithmically analysed using dedicated software (Cardiscope™), which creates a dashboard like
visualisation of the parameters (Appendix C). The software allows for automatic quality checks of the measurements
(artefact detection) as well as manual corrections (i.e., adjustment of time periods for analysis). The HRV parameters
were computed based on the full measurement period (including sleep). The interpretation of HRV data requires
experienced analysts and collaboration of the subjects to contextualise the findings. We therefore collaborated with
an expert in HRV data analysis, an experienced health consultant who regularly employs such analysis as part of her
consultancy business. She received anonymous data, analysed it, and provided a one-page summary for each partici-
pant that we later shared with them.
During the seminar, we also organised 60-minute focus group sessions with 5–6 participants. These sessions
provided rich contextual information about Beta, namely, work motivation and rewards, occupational demands,
career perspectives and uncertainties, the organisational culture, and coping behaviours. Data from these sessions
served to contextualise the findings, as we were able to better understand the motivations for applying certain cop-
ing behaviours or refraining from others.
FIGURE 1 Data collection and data analysis.
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3.2.3 | Stage 3—Feedback session
For the last stage, we invited the participants to individual one-hour virtual feedback sessions, which took place sev-
eral weeks after the seminar. The sessions comprised two segments: (1) individual analysis and explanation of the
HRV data and (2) questions about daily routines, reflection on occupational demands, and coping behaviours. During
the first segment, participants received explanations and feedback regarding their individual HRV data from the HRV
expert as a prompt for self-reflection about their physiological strain. The HRV expert walked participants through
the data, shared her interpretation of episodes (e.g., sleep, arousal and relaxation during the day), the HRV parame-
ters, and their significance. This segment helped the participants make sense of their HRV data by relating them to
their interview data. During the interviews, we explicitly explained our role as IS researchers examining coping
behaviours and not as medical experts in cardiology or therapists.
During the second segment, we asked questions about the structure of the participants' workday, their working
routines, and their coping behaviours for managing stressful situations (see Appendix Bfor the interview guideline).
In this segment, we used the HRV measurements as prompts for an examination of work and coping behaviours. As
Stage 3 was conducted a number of days after Stage 2, the participants related to their overall repertoire of coping
behaviours and not only to those used during the HPP seminar.
Our research was designed to examine which coping behaviours the participants used and how those were
linked to their strain levels. In line with the salutogenic approach (Antonovsky, 1979), we engaged in in-depth and
dialogical interactions with participants, aimed at facilitating the participants' self-reflection of their coping behav-
iours in response to their occupational demands. Mindful of researcher sensitivity to field conditions
(Davison, 2021), we executed this three-stage research design, with multiple ways of engaging with participants,
means of data collection, and types of data collected. This provided a rich empirical environment conducive to inter-
actions and for building a relationship with the participants as we progressed through the stages. Since literature has
suggested that coping behaviours happen in response to specific work conditions (Cooper et al., 2001; Lazarus &
Opton, 1966), it was necessary to contextualise and anchor the coping discussions with the participants within their
work conditions. This was done by eliciting responses regarding the sustainability of their current pace of work
followed by what occupational demands they faced and how they responded to those demands. As we explain next,
the data analysis integrated the three sets of data we collected across the three stages.
4|ANALYSIS
The literature on occupational demands of IT professionals (Subsection 2.1) and emotion and problem focused cop-
ing behaviours of IT professionals (Subsection 2.3) provided the basis for a deductive analysis of the categorization
of the coping behaviours into emotion and problem focused coping. We then categorised the strain levels inductively
based on quantitative and qualitative measurements. This allowed us to match participants' coping behaviours and
strain levels inductively. We found coping portfolios to be a suitable theoretical explanation for different strain levels
of our participants.
Strain. To measure the participants' strain levels, an indicator of the effectiveness of coping (Folkman
et al., 1986), we complemented the qualitative, semi-structured interviews (collected in Stage 1) with the quantita-
tive, physiological HRV parameters (collected in Stage 2). Based on the preparatory interview data, we assigned each
participant to one of three levels: high, medium or low psychological strain. The expert in HRV analysis interpreted
the HRV data of each participant and similarly identified three levels, controlling for age and gender (see Table C1 in
the appendix for the parameters included in the analysis): high, medium, and low physiological strain. Next, we com-
bined the physiological strain measure (HRV data) with the participants' self-perception of their psychological strain
(collected in Stage 1). We identified three strain levels that indicated a negative response to the occupational
demands: high distress, medium distress, and low distress (see Table 3). For each level, the participants' physiological
MATTERN ET AL.1911

strain level matched their psychological strain level. We further identified a fourth strain level for which the physio-
logical data showed a high strain, but the interviews revealed that the participants did not perceive high strain.
Rather, they explained that they enjoyed experiencing high occupational demands. We characterised this level as
eustress (see Table 3). Research on stress (Cooper et al., 2001; Selye, 1976) has suggested that physiological markers
for both distress and eustress may be similar. Thus, a combination of psychological (in this case interviews) and phys-
iological (in this case HRV) data is needed to identify IT professionals' experience of eustress.
We note that the individual was our unit of data collection and analysis. Yet, as we were interested in identifying
correspondences between strain responses and coping behaviours, we clustered the participants around four strain
levels, to examine inter-individual patterns of coping behaviours.
Coping behaviours. We analysed the preparatory interview (Stage 1) and the second segment of the feedback
session (Stage 3) to identify the participants' coping behaviours. We used open coding, a qualitative method aimed
at the inductive and iterative development of thematic categories (Myers, 2020). Two IS researchers, who had not
participated in the data collection, iteratively coded the interviews by selecting participants' statements about coping
behaviours. In mutual discussions, they assigned similar statements to groups of coping behaviours (see Table 4). All
coping behaviours were mentioned several times and during the coding of the later interviews no new coping behav-
iours were mentioned. For analysing and comparing the coping behaviours, the authors of this paper then deduc-
tively classified the behaviours into problem and emotion focused coping based on Lazarus and Folkman (1984)
differentiation (see Table 4).
Comparison of coping behaviours for participants experiencing different strain levels. For each coping behaviour, we
analysed whether the participants applied the behaviour, applied it only to a certain extent, or did not apply it at all
(see Table 5). We then analysed for each strain level how many participants with the respective strain level applied
each coping behaviour to what extent, enabling us to identify the coping behaviours for each strain level.
TABLE 3 Participants' strain levels based on combining heart rate variability data and participants' responses in
the interviews.
Heart rate variability
(HRV) data
a
(physiological) Interview data (psychological) Strain levels
Low HRV High psychological distress: The participant is exhausted and can
barely sustain their current workload.
“I think I am somehow on my maximum. There is no way I could take over
more load at this point”(Antonio).
High distress
(n=1)
Medium HRV Medium psychological distress: Participants perceive their work as
very stressful during short periods but have a good work-life balance
during the rest of the time.
“It depends on the time. Sometimes it is hard to find time for family or
personal activities, but it is always a short period. I have an okay
balance between my professional life and my personal life”(Luca).
Medium
distress
(n=6)
High HRV Low psychological distress: Participants have established a good work-
life balance and perceive a manageable amount of workload.
“I would say it's definitely sustainable”(Jeremy).
Low/no
distress
(n=6)
Low HRV High psychological eustress: Participants like the complexity and
difficulty of their job and that it requires them to learn something
new every day.
“There is always lots to learn, lots to do. I just generally find it interesting
and stimulating. There is always lots of interesting stuff to do so that
keeps me going”(Bert).
Eustress
(n=2)
Note:n=Number of participants showing this strain level.
a
Tables C1 and D1 in the Appendix document how the HRV data and interview have been coded into the four strain levels.
1912 MATTERN ET AL.

5|FINDINGS
We first describe occupational demands our participants faced. We then analyse the coping behaviours they
reported. Next, we present the strain levels that we identified. Finally, we compare the coping behaviours of IT pro-
fessionals for different strain levels. For confidentiality, we use pseudonyms.
TABLE 4 Coping behaviours of Beta's IT professionals.
Coping category Coping behaviour Description, illustration
Problem focused Planning and preparing Scanning through emails during the weekend to be prepared for
the week.
Optimising travel Participants with a high travel load try to schedule and reduce
travel to keep time for hobbies and social events.
Prioritising Setting priorities, enacting control over the workday.
Delegating and seeking help Delegating tasks and asking others for information or help.
Behavioural detachment Creating periods of non-availability, handling tools and devices,
establishing rules and communicating non-availability (“saying
no”).
Cognitive detachment Doing sport or engaging in other activities to find a distraction
from the job.
Emotion focused Being passionate Finding meaning in the job, which creates a positive mind-set.
Relationship management Establishing a trustful relationship with the manager, colleagues,
and clients.
Emotional detachment Detaching from work without feeling guilty about it.
TABLE 5 Coping behaviours for each strain level.
Coping
category
Strain level High
distress (n=1)
Medium
distress (n=6)
Low/ no
distress (n=6)
Eu-stress
(n=2)Coping behaviour
Problem
focused
Planning and preparing O(✓) (3) ✓(4) ✓(2)
Optimising travel ✓(1) O(✓) (2) O
Prioritising O✓(5) ✓(5) ✓(2)
Delegating and
seeking help
✓(1) (✓) (1) ✓(3) (✓) (1)
Behavioural
detachment
O(✓) (1) ✓(5) O
Cognitive detachment O✓(5) ✓(5) O
Emotion
focused
Being passionate ✓(1) ✓(4) ✓(5) ✓(2)
Relationship
management
OO (✓) (3) (✓) (1)
Emotional detachment OO (✓) (3) O
Note:✓=applied: a coping behaviour is applied systematically/pervasively by more than two third of the participants, (✓)
=applied to a certain extent: a coping behaviour is applied to a certain extent/sometimes by less than two third of the
participants, O=not applied: no participant mentioned engaging in these behaviours. Numbers in parentheses show how
many participants per strain level mentioned the respective coping behaviour.
MATTERN ET AL.1913

5.1 |Occupational demands faced by IT professionals
Each of our study participants experienced all categories of occupational demands mentioned in Table 1.
Projectification of work was present because participants worked on multiple projects simultaneously, attending
a mix of physical and virtual meetings for each. Tasks piled up during the day, often requiring prolonged workdays.
As one participant mentioned, “I will have to travel to those meetings, attend those meetings, focus, and then write up
the results and so on. But during that time, I can get phone calls, instant messages, emails, issues, problems (…). Anything
can happen at any time from any angle”(Tom). Intensification of work was present as all participants mentioned tight
deadlines and high workload. As mentioned by another participant, “It is like you are in the front line and fighting, and
you have no time for other things, and that is wrong”(Brian). Delimitation of work was visible when participants men-
tioned sacrificing time with their family for their job. “It's [work-life-balance] very difficult because I could be travelling.
So I can only try to schedule evening activities”(Bert). Participants faced IT skill related demands. They mentioned that
they had to manage a highly complex set of technologies: “You will have broad knowledge in a lot of areas, and specific
knowledge in some areas. So only if I had an infinite amount of time, I would be able to learn all the material there is to
know about that particular technology”(Jeremy). Organisational demands were visible as participants described man-
agers' and clients' expectations of high availability and responsiveness. As a result, the participants had their mobile
devices always turned on and nearby. “I believe that Beta prefers employees who are available at every hour of the day
or night and who understand work-life balance rather in terms of work”(Alex). The participants also faced performance
demands. They described that a detailed performance tracking system increased the perception of being a small cog
in a big machinery that cared only for numbers and revenues. “We are monitored through these tools we use. How
many calls we make, how many deals we process. Day-to-day, it is reaching a crescendo”(Tom). The participants missed
recognition of major achievements. For example, they reported that, previously, Beta's management used to organise
a party for them to acknowledge their success each time they closed a big deal, a practice now discontinued.
Because our participants were high performers, they were candidates for promotion and wanted their performance
to be visible. “It is about impressing other people and creating visibility. And this can be reached by performing good and
going the extra mile. Giving 120% instead of 100%”(Jim).
5.2 |Coping behaviours of IT professionals
We identified nine coping behaviours for coping with the occupational demands (see Table 4). In line with previous
research (Beaudry & Pinsonneault, 2005; Setor et al., 2015; Tsai et al., 2007), we categorised them into problem
focused and emotion focused coping as shown in Table 4. We find that the participants responded to the different
occupational demands with more than one coping behaviour. We next describe the coping behaviours within each
coping category.
5.2.1 | Problem focused coping
Our participants apply problem focused coping behaviours, which addresses occupational demands stemming from
the intensification of work, such as deadlines and goals set by managers and clients. Planning, optimising travel, pri-
oritising, and scheduling, enable the participants to anticipate the demands and control them before they result in
strain.
•Planning and preparing. Some participants check or answer emails during the weekend to increase control over
their workload: “I have always made an effort to check things like email on the go on a weekend (…) because I always
1914 MATTERN ET AL.

thought that the worst thing I could do on a Monday, is to come in, and boot up, and suddenly there are 50 emails for
me to scan through”(Jeremy).
•Optimising travel. Participants have to travel to be available for their clients. To reduce the distress resulting from
travel, they schedule their travel days carefully. They mention that this behaviour allows them to integrate regular
appointments in their week and reduces the likelihood that their working hours are prolonged to the weekend: “I
decided I am going to travel three days a week, and Monday, Friday I do not travel”(Antonio).
•Prioritising. The participants organise their day in a way that their workload remains achievable. They create to-do
lists inside of to-do lists; that is, they differentiate between things they have to do to complete a particular task
and things that are nice-to-have but not a necessary condition to complete that task.
•Scheduling. The participants accept that it is impossible to complete every task, and prioritise the most important
tasks for finishing a project. “What is the most essential part for me, is my freedom and my responsibility. I can orga-
nize my day, so I can get the best result”(Corinna).
In contrast to Love and Irani (2007) who have found that IT professionals accept being responsible for every
task, our participants deliberately delegate some tasks to their colleagues.
•Delegating and seeking help. The participants are aware that they can neither know everything nor fulfil every
request. Therefore, to manage their workload, they delegate some of their tasks to colleagues: “You have to dele-
gate or push away some tasks. To better distribute work so that you do not have the situation that you have to work
on the weekend”(Alex).
They also make use of their professional network to reach out to colleagues who know better than themselves
how to respond to a request: “There is a number of skills, talents, or roles that I need to achieve. For any one account
there are usually at least four or five other people to whom I talk several times a week (…). So that teamwork dimension
is important”(Peter).
Our participants apply problem focused coping to organisational demands by reducing their after-hour availabil-
ity. They reduce their technical connectivity to work (e.g., by switching off devices) but also make their absence
explicit and transparent (e.g., by communicating periods of absence and rules for unavailability, such as taking no calls
after 6 pm). They engage in behavioural and cognitive detachment to prevent work from spilling over to private life,
a common problem among IT professionals (Armstrong et al., 2015; Messersmith, 2007).
•Behavioural detachment. To cope with expectations regarding extensive availability and responsiveness for work,
participants create periods during which they are not available. This behaviour related to technical devices that
connect them to their job: “I have two telephones. One for the job and one for the personal [life]. When I finish, I turn
off my office phone”(Brian). It also involves communicating periods of unavailability. The participants develop
rules and openly communicate them, such as scheduling no calls after 6 pm. They achieve to stick to these rules
by “learning to say no. This is extremely difficult. You learn it with the years”(Antonio).
•Cognitive detachment. The participants explain that they stop thinking about work during non-work hours. This
behaviour includes activities that distract them from their work, such as doing sports and going for a walk, or
mental activities, such as playing an instrument, doing Sudoku, or reading a newspaper: “For example, in the morn-
ing, when I go running outside, for me it is important because in some way I switch off. In that hour, I do not think
about work”(Maria).
5.2.2 | Emotion focused coping
Emotion focused coping behaviours target participants' response to IT skill related,organisational, and performance
demands.
MATTERN ET AL.1915

Being passionate was the emotion focused coping behaviour that allowed participants to avoid negative emo-
tions and strengthen a positive attitude in the face of IT skill related demands.
•Being passionate about their job is the most-reported emotion focused coping behaviour in our sample. All partici-
pants emphasise that they like what they do. They try to see the positive side of their job even in stressful
periods. This passion helps them to maintain their performance even when they face high demands, and moti-
vates them to increase their effort: “I found that the amount of work required to understand some topics is very high;
it is up to the passion you have and also your attitude. You are less under stress, the more you are passionate and like
the topic”(Brian).
Such behaviour enables positive reinterpretation so that the participants can redefine demands and see them in
a positive light (Love & Irani, 2007). They further reason that they do need broad knowledge and skills (Niederman
et al., 2016) about the IT they use. Thereby, they do not perceive the high IT skill related demands as threats but as
positive challenges.
At the same time, a healthy, positive relationship with superiors, peers and clients provides emotional stability
and support, and helps participants deal with organisational demands.
•Relationship management. Many participants emphasise the importance of a good relationship with their managers
and colleagues: “If people around like you, then you are going to do very good in your career”(Charlie). Several par-
ticipants state that their managers need to know they can rely on them to be able to benefit from the autonomy
their jobs are offering. To know what their managers expect from them and to fulfil those expectations, the par-
ticipants regularly ask for feedback on their performance. Some participants further report that they have
established such a good relationship with their clients.
By emphasising the social aspect of their job, participants understand that a positive aspect of availability is that
it enables them to help their clients.
With regard to performance demands, emotion focused coping comprises emotional detachment.
•Emotional detachment is the ability to call it a day without feeling guilty about it. Participants explain that they can
leave their high workload behind and take a break from being extensively connected to their job. By putting their
job into perspective, they manage to deal with the high-performance expectations set on them: “it is only ICT,
there are not people dying”(Corinna). They relate the importance of their job to their health or social life, which
allows them to reduce the emergence of unhealthy work behaviours (Isak, 2016).
We do not understand emotional detachment as a maladaptive defence mechanism aimed at avoiding the
demand by ignoring or denying it (Love & Irani, 2007). Instead, participants apply this behaviour knowing that their
work will never end and that a finished project always precedes a new one.
The emotion focused and problem focused coping behaviours by our participants are complementary. For exam-
ple, emotional detachment is complementary to behavioural and cognitive detachment. Not thinking about work
while engaging in leisure activities is only achieved when the participants also detach emotionally from expectations.
Otherwise, they are likely to feel guilty about doing sports during a work break instead of continuing to work.
5.3 |IT professionals' strain levels
Combining qualitative and quantitative data yielded three distress levels (high, medium, low) and one eustress level
(see Table 3). Table D1 in the appendix shows the detailed categorization of the participants.
1916 MATTERN ET AL.

High distress. The first distress level comprises one participant who is exhausted and exhibits low HRV parame-
ters (see Table C1). They have a limited ability to switch between the ‘rest and digest’and ‘fight or flight’mode of
their physiological systems, which leads to difficulties in replenishing their resources. In the interviews, they report
to be exhausted and to be unable to maintain their current work style. They state to feel constantly overloaded with
tasks and to be under unbearable pressure. Maintaining the current work style could lead to chronic, negative physi-
ological effects.
Medium distress. Six participants exhibit a medium level of distress for both their HRV data and their interview
data. Their HRV parameters are in the normal range for people of their gender and age (see Table C1). These partici-
pants neither say that they are completely overloaded nor affirm that they can sustain their current performance
throughout the next 5 years without compromising their health. As long as nothing changes (e.g., family situation,
more work responsibility) they expect to be able to manage the workload.
Low or no distress. Six participants exhibit low physiological and psychological distress. Their HRV parameters
exceed those of the comparison group (see Table C1). They show high regeneration potential. These participants do
not report any problems in managing their workday. They not only manage their workload but can also take on more
tasks during brief periods without compromising their health.
Eustress. Two participants display a low HRV indicating high strain levels. However, they report that they are not
exhausted. Instead, they report feeling energised and motivated and do not see any problems in sustaining their cur-
rent way of work. They emphasise that they love their job's unpredictability and see the demands as challenges
rather than as problems. “I will not be the one saying, ‘I cannot do it, it is too difficult. I try to achieve my goals. (…) Every-
one knows that I can solve the case”(Anna). They “like reasonable amounts of stress”(Bert) and perceive the demands
of their work as challenges that motivate them to thrive in their job.
5.4 |Coping behaviours for different strain levels
Table 5shows the coping behaviours the participants of each strain level used. Table E1 in the appendix illustrates
quotes indicating on the one hand (left side) that a coping behaviour is applied systematically/pervasively and on the
other hand (right side) that a coping behaviour is applied to a certain extent/sometimes.
High distress. The participant applies only one emotion focused coping behaviour. S/he is passionate about the
job and likes working for Beta. In addition, s/he partly uses two problem focused behaviours: optimising travel as
well as delegating and seeking help. S/he tries to schedule travelling from Tuesday to Thursday. Also, s/he asks the
manager or colleagues for help and delegates some of her/his tasks. The coping portfolio is very narrow and s/he is
aware that this is not sustainable:
“I don't take breaks every day. And this is something I will probably try to improve (…) So I think over time I will learn
how to prioritize better. Maybe delegate even more whatever. But at this point time I could keep pace as it is, but there is
no way I could take over more load at this point”(Antonio).
Medium distress. Participants report several problem focused behaviours, such as cognitive detachment, pri-
oritising tasks, and scanning through their emails on Sundays to prevent a rough start on Mondays, rather than emo-
tion focused coping behaviours. They are aware that saying no and creating periods of non-availability
(i.e., behavioural detachment) are necessary to reduce their workload. However, only some of them rarely organise
periods of absence. Most of them continue to receive work-related messages after hours and end up working again.
They report that they make use of their professional network to ask for help when necessary. However, they do not
invest much time to establish relationships that increase their visibility and support their career.
Low/no distress. Participants apply all problem focused and emotion focused behaviours. They are the only ones
who detach emotionally. They have realised that their work never ends, no matter how hard they try. Those partici-
pants who report emotional detachment emphasise that they have needed some time to understand that their health
and family are more important than their job and describe the ability to detach as a hard-won achievement: “I didn't
MATTERN ET AL.1917

use to do that, but I've learned to accept that the hamster wheel continues to spin whether or not I am doing work in the
afternoon or evening or not”(Charlie). Some report that broadening their coping portfolio was triggered by external
events, such as getting separated from one's partner due to work: “I did this adjustment and follow through with it until
today because I feel that it is best for me. Even though I sometimes feel pressured to do more. I don't want it to affect my
private life anymore”(Jim). They exhibit flexible coping in applying their coping behaviours depending on their work-
load: “it's sort of peaks and lows. Sometimes it's busier and you just have to put the hours in. So sometimes I work until
eight or nine at night if I have to. It's just supply and demand”(Sarah). They also adapt their coping behaviours
depending on spatial requirements, such as doing coffee breaks when in the office versus doing breaks to run
errands in the home office (Rico).
Eustress. In addition to the emotion focused behaviour of being passionate, participants report that they have
established a trustful relationship with their managers. They stay behaviourally, cognitively, and emotionally con-
nected to their job and do not detach from it. They exhibit a high level of work engagement, that is they are highly
invested in their work, spend long hours at work and compromise their leisure-time for work (Junker et al., 2021;
Schaufeli et al., 2009). They acknowledge the positive effect of work-free times but admit that they do not take
them. For many, coping means to plan flexibly how much to work. They flexibly adapt their coping behaviours to
their environment: “when I am away overnight …and not with my family, …I can work more”(Anna).
6|DISCUSSION
In this section, we explain our findings to theorise portfolios of coping behaviours associated with the different strain
levels. All participants experience similar demands. However, they respond to the demands in different ways.
6.1 |Portfolios of coping behaviours
Each of the four strain levels is associated with a distinctive combination of problem and emotion focused coping
behaviours (see Table 5). Drawing from and extending the concepts of coping flexibility (Kato, 2012) and coping rep-
ertoire (Duhachek & Kelting, 2009), we propose the concept of coping portfolios. We understand coping portfolios
as a distinct set or collection of diverse coping behaviours that are used to respond to specific demands. To cope
with multiple, different, and changing occupational demands, IT professionals need to flexibly apply many
(i.e., coping flexibility) and varied (i.e., coping repertoire) coping behaviours. Accordingly, IT professionals with a low
strain level have a large and broad set of coping behaviours. In contrast, those with high strain levels have a smaller
and narrower set of coping behaviours. Thus, at different levels of strain, IT professionals have (high or low) flexibility
to draw from a (larger or smaller) set of coping behaviours to respond to occupational demands (Kato, 2012). Based
on these observations, we theorise the idea of a particular portfolio of coping behaviours corresponding to each
strain level. Each portfolio consists of a distinct set of problem and emotion focused coping behaviours, from which
IT professionals choose particular coping behaviours to meet specific occupational demands. We next examine each
strain level and the associated coping portfolio.
6.1.1 | The high distress level—The ‘insufficient portfolio’
The participant with a high level of distress reports a limited portfolio of coping behaviours, which we call the ‘Insuf-
ficient Portfolio.’As they experience high psychological and physiological strain, their behaviours yield high perfor-
mance, however at the price of high strain. The Insufficient Portfolio comprises only three coping behaviours: being
passionate, optimising travel, and delegating and seeking help. The participant only enacts control over the spatial
1918 MATTERN ET AL.

boundaries of the job by limiting the days on the road. This portfolio presents an attempt to reduce work-life spill-
over and to spend more time with the family and friends; however, it does not consistently establish boundaries. Fur-
thermore, it does not contain any behaviour that aims to gain physical or emotional distance from the occupational
demands.
The IS coping literature has shown that in absence of work control, IT users' problem focused coping is not
effective and they experience high levels of strain (Beaudry & Pinsonneault, 2005; Pirkkalainen et al., 2019). Simi-
larly, in this portfolio, we see that the absence of problem focused coping behaviours such as planning, preparing
and prioritising is associated with high levels of strain. The participant is not able to take control over their time.
This portfolio only addresses a few occupational demands so that several demands are not addressed, leading to
a high level of strain. It neither entails any behaviour to establish boundaries between work and private life nor any
behaviour to restrict work to particular times and places. Therefore, the participant in this category is constantly in
the ‘fight or flight’mode and does not engage in breaks necessary to recover from the demands (Meijman &
Mulder, 1998).
6.1.2 | The medium distress level—The ‘instrumental portfolio’
We characterise the portfolio applied by the medium distress level as the ‘Instrumental Portfolio’because partici-
pants focus on instrumental, problem focused coping behaviours and not on emotion focused coping behaviours that
target inter-individual relationships. This portfolio comprises just enough coping behaviours to survive, but not
enough to buffer against potentially increasing demands in extremely stressful situations. It is possible, that, in the
long run, IT professionals who adopt the Instrumental Portfolio can only continue their high performance without
increasing their strain level as long as no additional occupational demands develop.
The focus of the Instrumental Portfolio is effective time management; that is, the participants prioritise the most
important tasks so that the workload can be managed (Lim & Teo, 1996). The portfolio comprises several behaviours
to organise the workweek and each workday so that the workload remains manageable. The behaviours in this port-
folio strengthen the mental boundaries between work and private life by preventing prolonged working hours and
work-life spillover.
In the context of IT use, problem focused coping behaviours are effective in the presence of high control
(Beaudry & Pinsonneault, 2005; Liang et al., 2019). Similarly, we find that greater control combined with other prob-
lem focused coping behaviours is associated with medium levels of strain. Further, in the context of coping with
technostress from IT use, distancing behaviours are effective when the IT user has a positive view of IT (Pirkkalainen
et al., 2019). We find that IT professionals in this portfolio engage in cognitive and behavioural detachment. This,
together with being passionate about their work, can explain their medium levels of strain.
Participants displaying a medium distress level do not address all types of occupational demands. They do not
engage in coping behaviours for which communication is the key (e.g., behavioural detachment, relationship manage-
ment). Organisational and performance demands result from the expectations of managers or clients and can be
addressed by managing relationships and thus explicitly communicating availability with them. This finding supports
previous research suggesting that expectations of after-hours availability impede individuals' ability to recover
(Mellner, 2016).
6.1.3 | The low/no distress level—The ‘balanced portfolio’
The portfolio exhibited by participants having the low distress level comprises all coping behaviours that our partici-
pants report. The portfolio can be described as a ‘Balanced Portfolio’because it addresses all types of occupational
demands with different coping behaviours. Since high performance is accompanied by low strain, participants can
MATTERN ET AL.1919

sustain their high level of performance while staying healthy. Participants applying the Balanced Portfolio simulta-
neously achieve high levels of work performance and experience low levels of strain, thus they can be said to have
achieved a sustainable work style.
The Balanced Portfolio is the only one that includes emotional detachment behaviours, suggesting that emo-
tional detachment is an important complement to behavioural and cognitive detachment for reducing strain. By
detaching emotionally from expectations, in addition to detaching behaviourally and cognitively, participants can end
their workday without feeling guilty. They can also cope with the demands that put them under emotional pressure
(Major et al., 2007). Since performance demands and IT skill related demands are especially high for high performing
IT professionals (Moore, 2000), to achieve a low strain level, it is crucial to gain physical and emotional distance from
these demands. We observe that the Balanced Portfolio focuses on holistic detachment (i.e., behavioural, cognitive,
and emotional).
The focus of this portfolio is to gain distance from work and associated occupational demands. In the context of
coping with technostress from IT use, distancing behaviours are highly effective (Pirkkalainen et al., 2019). Similarly,
we find that IT professionals in this portfolio engage in all three detachment behaviours, which is associated with
highly effective coping. Further, this is combined with passion about their job, which is similar to the combination of
high positive reinterpretation and high distancing, a highly effective combination of coping behaviours in the context
of technostress experienced by IT users (Pirkkalainen et al., 2019).
The Balanced Portfolio combines both problem and emotion focused coping. This finding supports literature
suggesting that IT professionals who balance problem and emotion focused coping experience lower strain (Tsai
et al., 2007). Participants display the full range of coping behaviours from which they can flexibly choose the ade-
quate coping behaviour for a given situation. IT professionals need a broad portfolio because the rapid changes in
their work environment (Benamati & Lederer, 2001) require them to immediately target fast-changing occupational
demands. The Balanced Portfolio prepares them for such situations.
6.1.4 | The eustress level—The ‘engaged portfolio’
Participants who show signs of eustress report more coping behaviours than participants with a high distress level,
but less than those with medium and low levels of distress. Although they exhibit high physiological strain, their psy-
chological strain is low. They report that they are aware of their high occupational demands, which they accept as a
challenge that they are motivated to overcome. Thus, they embrace their situation, are excited about and engaged in
their work (Crawford et al., 2010; Junker et al., 2021), and feel strongly motivated by and committed to it. They
appear to be able to handle higher strain levels without being highly distressed (Ho et al., 2023). Therefore, we call
this portfolio of coping behaviours the ‘Engaged Portfolio.’
We note, however, that literature has shown that persistently high physiological distress, even if accompanied
by low psychological distress, can lead to chronic long-term damages if not controlled (Junker et al., 2021;
Lazarus, 1993; Moeller et al., 2018). There are two possibilities how participants applying the ‘Engaged Portfolio’
may turn out in the long run. One is that even if this portfolio is sustainable in the short term, it might be difficult to
sustain in the long run. A persistently high level of physiological distress could lead to increased psychological strain
level in the long term and thus to reduced performance. These observations are consistent with Junker et al. (2021)
p. 788, results, which “…suggest that engaged employees are less exhausted but face a higher risk of exhaustion over
time”(see also Moeller et al., 2018). The second possibility is that these participants would learn to adopt additional
coping behaviours.
The Engaged Portfolio includes mostly emotion focused behaviours. However, none of the detachment behav-
iours are part of this portfolio, suggesting that participants who experience eustress use the technical features of var-
ious devices to stay connected to their job and do not experience the benefits of distancing. Similar to the
Instrumental Portfolio, the Engaged Portfolio focuses on prioritising the most important tasks to keep the workload
1920 MATTERN ET AL.

manageable on a day-to-day basis. However, the focus is not to strengthen the boundaries between work and pri-
vate life. Instead, the coping behaviours primarily aim to fulfil expectations and to develop an effective professional
network, thereby increasing the participants' visibility and promoting their career.
This portfolio is narrow and only effective for targeting a few occupational demands. Since they do not psycho-
logically perceive their situation as harmful, the participants do not feel the need to change it. Thus, they do not
develop an extensive set of coping behaviours and stay exposed to the occupational demands, which is associated
with high physiological strain (Meijman & Mulder, 1998) regardless of their low psychological strain. This Portfolio
involves more emotion focused behaviours than the Insufficient and Instrumental Portfolio, which indicates that
these participants do not address the conditions leading to strain, that is, the occupational demands. Instead, they
address the emotions resulting from the occupational demands. Literature shows that IT users', emotion focused
coping behaviours are associated with low psychological strain in the presence of high work control (Liang
et al., 2019). This portfolio shows a similar finding: the two emotion focused coping behaviours, being passionate
and relationship management, in combination with control enabled by preparing and prioritising, are associated with
low psychological strain.
6.2 |Coping portfolios as a conceptual development
The concept of coping flexibility explains how multiple coping behaviours can be used to respond to different
demands while the notion of coping repertoires focuses on the number and nature of coping behaviours individuals
use. The concept of coping portfolio integrates a contingency logic in line with flexible coping (different coping
behaviours are applied to specific types of occupational demands) and a competency logic similar to coping reper-
toires (skillfully and systematically applied coping behaviours). Coping portfolios thus address the robustness of cop-
ing behaviours, not just with respect to a particular occupational demand but to an environment of multiple
occupational demands, by suggesting alignment of the coping behaviours in a particular portfolio. In this sense, we
argue that coping portfolio is an extension to the concept of a coping repertoire. We employ the term coping portfo-
lio to emphasise demand-specific sets of coping behaviours. Like a financial portfolio, the benefits result from the
combination of different coping behaviours, which yield robustness not only with regard to individual occupational
demands but also with respect to an environment with multiple, overlapping, and potentially conflicting demands.
For example, the Balanced Portfolio constitutes both detachment and being passionate. Working together, these
two behaviours ensure that the IT professional has both low strain and high performance. We suggest that the con-
cept of coping portfolios can be theoretically developed further, to consider not just switching between coping
behaviours (flexibility), but also mitigating conflicting demands.
7|BOUNDARY CONDITIONS AND LIMITATIONS
We alert the reader to certain boundary conditions, inherent in the design of our study, and (related) limitations. Get-
ting access to a group of high performing IT professionals working under controlled and similar conditions (at the
two-day seminar) was a rare opportunity, which shaped our research design. We aimed for theoretical generalisation
through the concept of coping portfolios, which provides a plausible explanation of our empirical findings and fits
theoretically into the discourses on coping flexibility, coping repertoires and capacities for both high performance
and low strain.
We considered a number of rival explanations. First, a rival explanation could be high performance without any,
or with a single dominant coping, behaviour. We did not find evidence that would support either explanation. Sec-
ond, personality has been studied as a factor that can explain the effectiveness of coping, such that a typology of IT
professional types based on personality could be a rival explanation of high performance. However, a meta-analysis
MATTERN ET AL.1921

concludes “relations of personality to coping have been inconsistent across studies, suggesting a need for greater
attention to methods and samples”(Connor-Smith & Flachsbart, 2007, p. 1080). Moreover, we did not find evidence
to support this explanation. Third, we considered explanations based on job control, such as the demand control
model which suggests that high job control reduces mental strain even in a situation of high job demands
(Karasek, 1979), or that it enables job crafting (Tarafdar & Saunders, 2022; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001) as a way
of finding meaning in one's work. However, these could not explain all the findings. Overall, these above concepts
did not allow for a coherent and internally valid theoretical explanation of our findings.
Participation in our research was voluntary and an addition to the already busy schedule of the HPP. We do not
have specific information on those who chose not to participate or not to follow-up for an interview. However, it is
reasonable to assume that participation may have been perceived as additional work or as a concern regarding confi-
dentiality, particularly as 24-hour HRV measurements are invasive. Given the small number of participants, we
acknowledge that further studies will be required to empirically test the coping portfolios. That being said, the con-
trolled access allowed us to measure HRV by controlling for episodic and idiosyncratic factors that might influence
participants' strain, for example, an especially difficult meeting with a client on the particular day. We also controlled
for individual factors, such as age and gender.
Another limitation is that we measured IT professionals' psychological strain with a question aimed to reflect
their current work situation and project it into the future with a five-year horizon. Given the uniqueness of our sam-
ple, participants did not have time to fill out detailed surveys, which would be an alternative way of measuring psy-
chological strain.
The participants in our study took part in the seminars Beta had organised because their managers had rec-
ommended them as promising IT professionals and prospects for a leadership role at Beta. Therefore, social desirabil-
ity, in the sense of fostering impression management, could be an issue. We, took a number of steps to mitigate
social desirability. One, we invited participants to reflect about their current pace of work and its sustainability. This
allowed for a more nuanced interpretation of the answer. Two, we compared their responses with their HRV read-
ings as a physiological metric for triangulation against potential psychological repression. Three, we juxtaposed and
discussed both HRV findings and work practices in order to encourage an honest reflection. The HRV expert
explained the readings and checked whether the interpretation resonated with the participants (Birt et al., 2016).
While we are aware that these steps do not guarantee against responses shaped by social desirability, we are reason-
ably confident that we took necessary and possible safeguards.
8|IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
We set out to address the research question: How do high performing IT professionals cope with high occupational
demands? We found that IT professionals adopted different portfolios of problem focused and emotion focused cop-
ing behaviours, in response to various occupational demands.
We theorised differentiated portfolios of coping behaviours to show that a coherent combination of diverse
coping behaviours is needed for a low strain level. Given the multitude of occupational demands, we suggest that
coping portfolios are more contextually commensurate than single coping behaviours. We find that IT professionals
experiencing low strain apply the most coping behaviours (i.e., Balanced Portfolio). Our findings suggest that an
effective coping portfolio includes behaviours that help IT professionals target both the number and nature of the
occupational demands (primarily by problem focused behaviours) and to react to the effects of these demands by
regulating their emotional response (primarily by emotion focused behaviours). In a more general sense, we suggest
that coping portfolios are beneficial for individuals facing a complex work and dynamic environment that has differ-
ent kinds of occupational demands. For example, the rapid uptake of Generative AI applications is transforming the
technical work of IT professionals and their interaction with clients. The concept of coping portfolios provides a
framing for IT professionals to address multiple occupational demands from such transformations by
1922 MATTERN ET AL.

highlighting –among others –the need to upskill on short notice, deal with increased job uncertainty and ethical
conflicts, and to manage client relationships by helping them understand and tackle the effects of these applications
on products/services and processes.
We highlight the importance of detachment which has not received much attention in the IS literature. The work
environment of IT professionals comprises behavioural demands (e.g., high workload and extensive availability for
work), cognitive demands (e.g., high learning demands), and emotional demands (e.g., lack of social support) (see
Table 1). Therefore, detachment along all these dimensions (behavioural, cognitive and emotional) is important for IT
professionals to achieve low strain. Only participants experiencing low physiological and psychological strain
(i.e., Balanced Portfolio) apply all types of detachment behaviours. With this three-pronged detachment, we suggest
that IT professionals gain a sense of control over their environment by consciously detaching from demands. Psycho-
logical detachment has been linked to reduced work-related IS use after working hours (e.g., Cambier et al., 2019;
Schlachter et al., 2018).
Methodologically, we combine physiological and psychological strain measurements. IS literature has
reported discrepancies in empirical results between these measures (Galluch et al., 2015). Following the
methodological recommendation to use findings from physiological and subjective measures of strain in an
integrated way (Tarafdar et al., 2019) allowed us to gain a more complete understanding of our participants'
strain.
Our findings open up a number of avenues for further studies. First, future research could use a quantitative
approach to test the coping portfolios by assessing the extent to which IT professionals apply different coping behav-
iours, and clustering them using, for example, latent profile analyses. Such an approach could attempt to falsify our
notion of coping portfolios or, combined with other information about the participants, may give deeper insight into
the types of IT professionals who use a particular coping portfolio. Second, our study was conducted in a fairly
homogeneous work environment, with high performance as a uniform selection criterion for our participants. An
adjusted study design could be replicated in different corporate settings, to understand how firm specific conditions
juxtapose with the coping portfolios. Third, longitudinal studies with interventions directed at specific coping behav-
iours can generate a deeper understanding of how the coping behaviours in a particular coping portfolio emerge and
work together, and how different coping portfolios could morph and adapt over time, for example, the Engaged Port-
folio, given that highly engaged individuals may not be effective in managing their long-term health (e.g., Belasen
et al., 1996). Fourth, IT users face multiple demands from their use of IS (Tarafdar et al., 2019). Future research could
examine how they can develop coping portfolios to deal with such demands and reduce strain stemming from them,
potentially extending the literature on IT users' coping in a new direction.
Our findings are particularly relevant for practice, given that our empirical site exemplifies the high occupational
demands typical in leading global IT services organisations. The global IT services industry is the lynchpin around
which the IS infrastructures of organisations across the world function, and thus the wellbeing of IT professionals is
an important practical concern. Senior leaders in IT firms should develop and facilitate corporate wellness programs
that make IT professionals aware of the need for a portfolio-based approach to coping in response to their difficult
occupational demands, one that includes a broad arsenal of coping behaviours. Such programs should enable
employees to reflect on which coping behaviours work for them and to leverage synergistic coping behaviours
through the coping portfolio approach.
In conclusion, we contribute to the stream of research in IS that focuses on IT professionals. Complementing
existing studies that focus on topics like gender diversity, work life-balance and IT professionals' turnover (Ahuja
et al., 2007; Niederman et al., 2016; Trauth & Connolly, 2021; Zaza et al., 2022), we investigate how high performing
IT professionals cope with their occupational demands. In developing four portfolios of coping behaviours, we theo-
rise that a large and differentiated portfolio that targets various demands is most closely associated with low physio-
logical and psychological strain. We hope our findings can form the basis of further studies aimied at a deeper
understanding of IT professionals' demands, strain and coping.
MATTERN ET AL.1923

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
Research data not shared.
ORCID
Monideepa Tarafdar https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2831-1364
Stefan Schellhammer https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9954-7695
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