Communication Boundary Management Research Articles

Research on the Non-Linear Relationship between Information Disclosure and Subsequent Purchases: The Moderating Effect of Membership Level

In order to provide better marketing services to customers, companies often want to obtain as much customer information as possible. However, for customers, as well as leading to better service, information disclosure may also put them at risk of information leakage, so customers may respond in two different ways to firms’ invitations to disclose information. This paper applies theories of social capital and communication boundary management to developing a framework for understanding the psychological mechanisms behind individuals’ responses to disclosure invitations and their subsequent purchase behavior. The results of this study show that under the combined effect of social capital and communication boundaries, subsequent purchases show an inverted-U-shaped relationship, initially increasing and then decreasing as the level of disclosure increases. Furthermore, because the social capital of high-level members and firms is higher than that of low-level members, it moderates the inverted-U-shaped relationship; that is, the higher the level of membership, the more moderate the inverted-U-shaped relationship.

E-Mail Privacy in the Workplace: A Boundary Regulation Perspective

This study applied communication boundary management theory to examine employee responses to workplace e-mail monitoring. Specifically, a measure of perceived workplace e-mail privacy (PEP) was developed and fit to a model of antecedents and consequences. To accomplish this, the study used an online survey methodology to gather employee perceptions related to workplace e-mail monitoring. Results indicated that PEP is a two-dimensional construct capturing one’s proficiency at maintaining privacy and concerns about the organization’s ability to infringe on e-mail privacy. In support of the boundary management perspective, the data revealed that perceptions of workplace e-mail monitoring and PEP were related to the perceived quality of one’s workplace relationships, especially with top management.

Employee Perceptions of E-mail Monitoring from a Boundary Management Perspective

This research contributes to the growing body of literature exploring employee perceptions of workplace communication monitoring and surveillance by developing an explanatory model based on predictions derived from communication boundary management theory (CBM; Petronio, 1991, 2001). Specifically, this study explores the perceptions of workplace e-mail monitoring from a cross-section of 155 workers. The data suggest that when employees feel that there is a large amount of e-mail monitoring and believe that the monitoring is inappropriate, they respond negatively to top management. The implications of these findings are discussed.

The Impact of Relational Characteristics and Reasons for Topic Avoidance on Relational Closeness

Although research suggests that the act of topic avoidance itself has consequences for romantic partners, it seems equally likely that the antecedent conditions underlying these decisions to avoid certain topics also lead to important relational outcomes. Framed by communication boundary management theory, relationship characteristics, motivation for topic avoidance, and implications for relational closeness were examined. Findings indicate that relational commitment characteristics and individuals' reported rationale for topic avoidance are related to perceptions of relational closeness. These results illustrate the importance of understanding the underlying factors that motivate the decision to engage in topic avoidance and their impact on romantic relationships.

Making Sense of the Barriers Women Face in the Information Technology Work Force: Standpoint Theory, Self-disclosure, and Causal Maps

Two theoretical perspectives (i.e., standpoint theory and the communication boundary management theory) were used to investigate the comments that 39 female information technology (IT) employees made during focus groups as they discussed issues related to workplace barriers and voluntary turnover. The revealed causal mapping method was used to analyze the women’s responses. Voluntary turnover decisions were influenced by work schedule flexibility, family responsibilities, work stress, job qualities, and lack of consistency in workplace policies. Perceived barriers to promotion were linked to lack of respect, ageism, stress, and work schedule flexibility. Differences emerged between explicitly stated and implicitly embedded responses. Women explicitly discussed issues consistent with previous IT research; however their implicit statements often addressed barriers not commonly linked with IT advancement and turnover concerns.

Expected versus actual responses to disclosure in relationships of HIV‐positive African American adolescent females

Ten HIV‐positive African American adolescent females were interviewed regarding disclosure of their HIV infection in various relationships. Communication Boundary Management (Petronio, 1991) provided a framework for understanding disclosure patterns in these relationships. Participants described expected (n = 113) and actual (n = 94) responses to disclosing an HIV diagnosis. The findings indicate that expected response and the target of disclosure affect adolescents’ disclosure decisions. Participants expected targets of disclosure to respond as follows: experience negative emotional reactions, provide support, treat them differently, tell others, or were unsure of a target's response. On the basis of these findings, five themes were identified related to actual responses to disclosure of HIV infection: different treatment, negative emotional reaction, received support, target told others, and treated no differently. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

Managed care and the paradox of patient confidentiality: A case study analysis from a communication boundary management perspective

Managed care organizations have become one of the dominant forms of health care delivery in the United States. Paradoxically, this system, designed to provide better, less expensive care for patients and increased efficiency for health care providers may be compromising patients’ privacy by making patients’ records available to a wider range of internal and external parties. By allowing many individuals access to patients’ health records, the confidentiality of patients’ private information in the managed care environment is at risk. Using an extension of the communication boundary management perspective (Petronio, 1991, 2000) within a case study approach, a breach of patient confidentiality in a managed care environment is examined. From this analysis, practical recommendations are offered to patients, health care providers, and managed care organizations for managing the paradox of patient confidentiality.

Reconciling messages: the process of sexual talk for Latinas.

Young Latinas' experiences and meanings of sexuality were explored through 31 interviews, with grounded theory used to provide theoretical understanding of sexual talk. The women's level of comfort with sexual talk and their explicitness influenced the kind of sexual talk they engaged in with partners. The analysis of being in a romantic relationship revealed similar descriptions of processes within the accounts that led to the discovery of the core variable reconciling messages. This describes the Latinas' process of accepting messages that fit their value system, rejecting messages that theyfeel misrepresent their beliefs, and altering messages to accept their own sexuality. The findings expand Communication Boundary Management theory and have implications for interventions aimed at assisting women with safer sex topics.

"I'd rather not talk about it": adolescents' and young adults' use of topic avoidance in stepfamilies

This study examined adolescents' and young adults' use of topic avoidance with their mothers, fathers, stepmothers, and stepfathers. The types of topics avoided differed according to the type of parent-child relationship. Specifically, adolescents and young adults engaged in the most topic avoidance with their stepparents (regardless of whether the stepparent was a stepmother or stepfather), followed by their fathers, and then their mothers. Quantitative measures indicated that sex was the most frequently avoided topic across all relationship types. Open-ended responses revealed additional commonly avoided topics, including talking about the other parent/family, deep conversations, and money (e.g., child support payments). The most frequently reported reasons for this avoidance were self protection, relationship protection, and conflict. This research suggests that children in stepfamilies face unique decisions about topic avoidance. Communication Boundary Management Theory (Petronio, 1991) was used to explain how adolescents and young adults might engage in topic avoidance to regulate their personal boundaries, constructing relatively impermeable boundaries with some adults while maintaining looser boundaries with others. Finally, numerous practical suggestions are offered for understanding the balance between openness and closedness in stepfamilies and for promoting healthy stepfamily functioning.

Sometimes Jewish, sometimes not: The closeting of Jewish American identity

We explored the negotiation of Jewish American identity from a Communication Theory of Identity perspective. Interviews with 26 Jewish Americans revealed that participants contend with their group‐based identity on personal and relational levels when faced with decisions about whether to reveal or conceal their Jewish identity. Participants discussed Jewish identity management in their own lives and in the lives of other people they know. Analyses resulting in the themes of closeting, centrality of identity, and potential consequences reflect participants’ personal and relational levels of identity. These themes are played out in the how, when, why, and if of participants’ identity management. Rules were derived to explain these processes and the implications of the themes are discussed in light of the Communication Theory of Identity and Communication Boundary Management.

Intrafamily secrets in various family configurations: A communication boundary management perspective

Although extant literature suggests that blended, single‐parent, and biological/adoptive (i.e., nuclear) families differ in terms of the boundaries that separate family members, little systematic research has compared such boundaries. The current investigation examined this issue by focusing on communication boundaries as indexed by intrafamily secrets. As expected, college students in blended families reported that their original parents and siblings were more likely than their stepparents or stepsiblings to know the family secret that they reported in this study. This suggests the presence of a relatively rigid communication boundary between original family members and stepfamily members. Interestingly, participants in blended families, single‐parent families, and nuclear families were quite similar in terms of: (a) the number of intrafamily secrets they perceived in their family, (b) the topics of the secrets they reported, and (c) the functions they reported being served by the secrets. Also, regardless of family form, there was an inverse association between participants’ family satisfaction and their perceptions of how many intrafamily secrets their family held. Overall, in contrast to the literature that often portrays blended families and single‐parent families as particularly problematic, these results suggest remarkable similarities across family configurations in terms of communication boundaries.

Appropriateness of disclosure of HIV testing information: the perspective of the PLWAs.

Abstract This paper explores perceptions of the appropriateness of disclosure of HIV testing information from the perspective of people living with HPV/AIDS (PLWAs). A systems framework, communication boundary management, is employed as a theoretical approach. Seventy‐seven HIV‐positive individuals responded to a questionnaire asking if they thought particular individuals (also labeled targets or recipients) should have access to results of HIV tests. Results indicated PLWAs created three grouping of recipients based on perceptions of who should have access to this information. As expected, participants reported most desire for access to results of HIV testing information to the immediate family subsystem (e.g., spouses, fathers), next most to the extended family (e.g., aunts, grandfathers), and least access to non‐family (e.g., employers, teachers); actual disclosure patterns were similar. HIV‐positive individuals also reported there should be less overall disclosure of HIV testing information than other...

Communication Boundary Management: A Theoretical Model of Managing Disclosure of Private Information Between Marital Couples

This article presents a theoretical approach that may be used to understand the way individuals regulate disclosure of private information. The communication boundary management perspective, while more generally applicable, in this presentation focuses on the way marital couples manage talking about private matters with each other. This theoretical perspective presents a boundary coordination process representing couples’management of communication boundaries in balancing a need for difclosure with the need for privacy. The theory identifies the prerequisite conditions for disclosure and the message strategies a disclosing spouse may use to tell private information, as well as the strategic messages the marital partner may use to reply. In addition, a proposal for the way the disclosing spouse and receiving partner manage the coordination of their communication boundaries is presented.