Abstract
Facilitated by communication technology (i.e., smartphones), many employees adopt a work-family integration strategy to cope with work and home demands simultaneously. Taking boundary theory as a starting point, this quantitative diary study examines the potential impact of private smartphone use at work—i.e., boundary-crossing behavior—on employee well-being. We hypothesized that private smartphone use would be positively associated with the subjective experience of being interrupted, especially when smartphone use was appraised negatively (vs. positively). Additionally, we predicted that these interruptions by private smartphone use would be positively related to end-of-day exhaustion, and that this relationship would be stronger for employees who value work over family (high vs. low work centrality). The hypotheses were tested using a sample of 67 employees from various occupations who completed a short daily questionnaire for four successive workdays (N = 237 data points). The results of multilevel analyses generally supported the hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.
Highlights
Facilitated by communication technology, many employees adopt a work-family integration strategy to cope with work and home demands simultaneously
Results showed that 42.6% of the variance in private smartphone use at work, 79.5% of the variance in valence, 57.1% of the variance in the subjective experience of being interrupted by private smartphone use, 46.8% of the variance in workload, and 24.3% of the variance in exhaustion was attributable to within-person variations
Our study contributes to the research field of in terruptions (Jett & George, 2003) and boundary theory (Ashforth et al, 2000) in showing the potential costs associated with boundary-crossing behavior in the form of private smartphone use during worktime
Summary
Facilitated by communication technology (i.e., smartphones), many employees adopt a work-family integration strategy to cope with work and home demands simultaneously. Smartphones in particular, have become mainstream in our daily lives These devices facilitate the use of social media, sending messages to family and friends, monitoring news feeds, playing online games, and watching videos on streaming services – anytime, anyplace. This behavior is not by definition limited to one’s personal life, personal time, and perhaps even personal domain (i.e., at home). Analyzing phone logs revealed that connecting with significant others is the predominant reason for using the phone during the day, even compared to work-related phone use Building on this, they argue that the mobile phone offers new op portunities to maintain personal relationships and to create a sense of social presence, while being physically absent (Wajcman et al, 2008)
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