ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
This article is part of the Research TopicDigital Solutions for Workplace Conflict: Enhancing Mental Health and Job PerformanceView all articles
Balancing opportunities and challenges: the double-edged psychological impacts of digital technology empowerment on rural homestay practitioners
Provisionally accepted
- 1Guangxi University, Nanning, China
- 2Guangxi International Business Vocational College, Nanning, China
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With the increasing prevalence of digital technology, its impacts on worker well-being remain a critical area of inquiry. However, existing research often neglects the dual effects of digital empowerment, particularly in resource-constrained rural contexts. By exploring how digital technology empowerment influences psychological well-being among rural homestay practitioners, this study focuses on the mediating roles of job autonomy and technology anxiety, as well as the moderating role of digital technology self-efficacy. Grounded in self-determination theory (SDT), this study analyzes survey data from 277 rural homestay practitioners in China using structural equation modeling. The results reveal that digital technological empowerment enhances psychological well-being by increasing perceived job autonomy, and likewise negatively affects it by increasing perceived technology anxiety. Additionally, digital technology self-efficacy amplifies the positive effects of empowerment on psychological well-being, but it has a limited impact on reducing technology anxiety. This study extends SDT to the digital technology context and provides a comprehensive understanding of its dual effects on well-being. Practically, the findings offer actionable recommendations for optimizing technology design, strengthening organizational support systems, and fostering user confidence.
Keywords: Rural homestay practitioner, psychological well-being, self-determination theory, Digitaltechnology empowerment, job autonomy
Received: 20 Jul 2025; Accepted: 31 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Su, Lin and Huang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zhikang Huang, 54875292@qq.com
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