Mobile Technology and Boundary Permeability
| Author | Christopher Higgins,Rob Smart,Maggie Stevenson,Linda Duxbury |
| Date | 01 July 2014 |
| Published date | 01 July 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12027 |
Mobile Technology and Boundary
Permeability
Linda Duxbury, Christopher Higgins,1Rob Smart and Maggie Stevenson
Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6, 1Ivey School of Business,
University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6H 3K7
Corresponding author email: Linda_Duxbury@carleton.ca
An extensive review of the literature reveals a lack of insight into why some employees
and their families benefit from the adoption of mobile technology while others do not.
The paper summarizes the authors’ efforts to answer this question. The authors under-
took a longitudinal case study of the adoption and use of a BlackBerry Smartphone by
25 professional knowledge workers. Four theoretical lenses were used to help with the
data analysis process: boundary theory, the social constructivist view of technology,
sensemaking and attribution theory. Analysis of the Time 2 data identified three groups.
Segmentors (n =4) did not use their smartphones outside work hours. Integrators
(n =8), used their smartphones to connect to both work and family anywhere, but not
any time (temporally separated work and family roles). Struggling segmentors (n =13)
felt pressured by their organization to use their device 24/7 and did so. The analysis
indicates that the relationship between the use of mobile technology and successful
boundary management depends on the development of a strategy to manage the device
prior to adoption, the ability to change one’s strategy to respond to concerns at home,
and self-control.
Introduction
The use of smartphones has been linked to a fun-
damental shift in how the boundaries between
work and home are constructed (Golden and
Geisler, 2007; Shumate and Fulk, 2004;
Wajcman, 2008). When Kahn et al. (1964) pub-
lished their seminal work on role conflict and
ambiguity, the separation of work and family
roles in both time and space was common. Work
occurred during designated times, at a location
away from the home, and transitions between
work and home-based roles were well scripted
in societal expectations. Today, technology has
made it possible to conduct work at home, to
conduct personal business on the job, and to do
both in the same time frame (Shumate and Fulk,
2004, p. 59). An extensive review of the literature
(see Duxbury and Smart, 2011) reveals competing
and contradictory findings on the impact of
mobile technologies on the work–family bound-
ary. This paper addresses this issue by undertak-
ing a longitudinal study to increase understanding
of why the adoption of mobile technology
changes the work–family boundary for some
workers but not others.
Theoretical framework
Theoretically, this research is informed by work in
four areas: boundary theory (Ashforth, Kreiner
and Fugate, 2000; Desrochers, Hilton and
Larwood, 2005; Kreiner, Hollensbe and Sheep,
2009; Nippert-Eng, 1996); the social constructivist
view of technology (Orlikowski and Scott, 2008);
sensemaking (Maitlis and Sonenshein, 2010;
Weick, 1995); and attribution theory (Heider,
The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of
the Associate Editor (Dr Celeste Wilderom) and the two
anonymous reviewers. Their comments and feedback
pushed our thinking and resulted in a vastly improved
paper.
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British Journal of Management, Vol. 25, 570–588 (2014)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12027
© 2013 The Author(s)
British Journal of Management © 2013 British Academy of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
1958; Martinko, Harvey and Dasborough, 2011;
Weiner, 1980, 1992). The next sections outline
how each of these theories has relevance to this
study.
Boundary theory
Boundary theory (Ashforth, Kreiner and Fugate,
2000) addresses how people construct, maintain,
negotiate and cross the boundaries between work
and family roles. Boundaries, ‘the physical, tem-
poral, emotional, cognitive and/or relational
limits that define entities as separate from one
another’ (Ashforth, Kreiner and Fugate, 2000,
p. 474) serve to structure and demarcate the
various roles an individual maintains in different
domains.
The concept of ‘role transition’, defined as ‘the
psychological (and where relevant physical) move-
ment between roles including disengagement from
one role (role exit) and engagement in another role
(role entry)’, is used by Ashforth, Kreiner and
Fugate (2000, p. 472) to explain how an employee
exits and enters various roles. Role identity is
defined as ‘socially constructed definitions of the
specific goals, values, norms, interaction styles
and time horizons cued by a certain role’
(Ashforth, Kreiner and Fugate, 2000, p. 473).
According to boundary theory, the greater the
dissimilarity between role identities, the greater
the difficulty an individual may have making the
transition between roles, as people who hold con-
trasting roles have problems ‘switching cognitive
gears’ – ‘disengaging psychologically from the
identity implied by one role and re-engaging in the
dissimilar identity of a second role’ (Ashforth,
Kreiner and Fugate, 2000, p. 475).
The characteristics of role boundaries and role
identity allow researchers to map any two pairs of
roles (e.g. employee, parent) along a continuum
ranging from high segmentation to high integra-
tion (Nippert-Eng, 1996). Roles are considered to
be segmented when role identities are highly differ-
entiated, and role boundaries are inflexible and
impermeable. Roles are considered to be inte-
grated when identities are weakly differentiated,
and role boundaries are flexible and permeable.
Research has shown that the tendency to integrate
the work role into the family domain is idiosyn-
cratic and independent of the reciprocal integra-
tion (Ashforth, Kreiner and Fugate, 2000; Ilies,
Schwind-Wilson and Wagner, 2009; Olson-
Buchanan and Boswell, 2006). The directionality
of integration–segmentation is seen to be related to
boundary permeability, which is defined as ‘the
degree to which a role allows one to be physically
located in one’s role domain but psychologically
and/or behaviourally involved in another role’
(Ashforth, Kreiner and Fugate, 2000, p. 474). In
most cases, the individual has some latitude over
the degree to which his/her boundaries are perme-
able (Chesley, 2005; Ilies, Schwind-Wilson and
Wagner, 2009; Olson-Buchanan and Boswell,
2006). Key information on these two boundary
management strategies reported in the literature
(Ashforth, Kreiner and Fugate, 2000; Fritz et al.,
2010; Ilies, Schwind-Wilson and Wagner, 2009;
Kreiner, 2006; Nippert-Eng, 1996) is summarized
in Table 1.
A number of authors make the case that mobile
technologies have a negative impact on employees
by increasing work–life boundary permeability
and promoting work–family blurring – ‘the expe-
rience of confusion or difficulty in distinguishing
one’s work from one’s family roles in a given
setting’ (Desrochers, Hilton and Larwood, 2005,
p. 449). Boundary permeability is seen to disrupt,
erode and reconstitute the temporal and spatial
divisions between work and family, increase time
in work, and increase conflict between work and
family Authors such as Middleton and Cukier
(2006) and Chesley (2005) feel that mobile tech-
nology use increases work–life conflict by: (1)
increasing the amount of time employees spend
on work-related activities during family time; (2)
increasing organizational expectations with
respect to employee productivity, availability and
response time; and (3) making it more difficult for
employees to psychologically let go of work.
These challenges are exacerbated by the fact that
mobile technologies hold the potential to inter-
rupt or distract an individual at any time and
at any place (Arnold, 2003; Ashforth, Kreiner
and Fugate, 2000; Boswell and Olson-Buchanan,
2007; Chesley, 2005; Fenner and Renn, 2010;
Fleming and Spicer, 2004; Golden and Geisler,
2007; Ilies, Schwind-Wilson and Wagner, 2009;
Middleton, Scheepers and Cukier, 2005; Pica and
Kakihara, 2003; Prasopoulou and Pouloudi,
2006; Shumate and Fulk, 2004; Wajcman, 2008).
Not all researchers paint a bleak picture of
the impact of mobile technology on work–life
boundaries. Proponents argue that the technology
is not deterministically disruptive (Wajcman,
Mobile Technology and Boundary Permeability 571
© 2013 The Author(s)
British Journal of Management © 2013 British Academy of Management.
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