A study of work/life boundary management of instant messaging service users

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A study of work/life boundary management of instant messaging service users

Adam Romanak

Student ID: 11994886 Master’s Thesis

Graduate School of Communication Master’s programme Communication Science Under the supervision of: Dhr. Dr. J.W.M. Verhoeven

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Abstract

This quantitative study examines the relationship between preferences for setting work/life boundaries and negative reactions to interruptions of the boundaries on mobile instant messaging platforms. In a sample of 173 employed working adults, the findings show that with increasing preference to set boundaries both at home and at work, people react more negatively when these boundaries and interrupted via mobile instant messaging. The level of negative reactions to boundary interruptions is also shown to be influenced by perceived responsiveness expectations of social surroundings, namely those of supervisor and family/close friends for their relevant life domains. Present gender differences as well as absent age influence offer more insight into the relationship. Based on the observations, practical implications together with pathways for future research are suggested.

Keywords

Boundary management, instant messaging, uses and gratifications theory, boundary interruptions, social norms

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Introduction

Looking into how people mix or separate their professional and personal life, boundary theories have been exploring the context of these behaviors for over 20 years (Kossek, 2016). In that time, the already common practice of integrating or segmenting one’s work and private life through setting boundaries (Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate, 2000; Clark, 2000) entered the realm of CMC – computer mediated communication (Kossek, Lautsch & Eaton, 2005; Olson-Buchanan & Boswell, 2006). On one hand, the new possibilities brought about by this technology gave rise to more flexible working arrangements giving workers a chance to structure their working hours independently (Putnam, Myers & Gailliard, 2014) and benefit from transfers of resources and affects (e.g. happiness, satisfaction) in between the domains (Greenhaus and Powell, 2006). On the other hand, the newly available tools have also made it possible for work-related

communication to reach people outside the workplace and for private messages to reach people during working hours (Barber & Santuzzi, 2015). Such blurring of boundaries between work and private life leads to situations of work/life conflict where the aspects of separate domains clash (Ashforth et al. 2000). This can take form of work e-mails reaching employees during weekends or anger from an argument at home being passed on colleagues at work. In these situations, people experience negative outcomes such as lower life satisfaction or higher stress (Kreiner 2006). As the 2017 report of the International Labour Organisation notes, while CMC does enable higher autonomy, it also leads to higher levels of work intensity and can potentially cause the boundary between paid work and personal life to be blurred resulting in stress and health issues (Messenger et al., 2017). To avoid the possible negative impacts of work/life conflict, it is crucial to improve our understanding of people’s boundary setting preferences across

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Previous studies have identified several factors influencing the way people set their boundaries. These encompass individual characteristics such as gender (e.g. Kreiner, Hollenbe & Sheep, 2006; Bulger, Matthews & Hoffman, 2007) as well as social influences (e.g. Fenner & Renn, 2010; Koch & Binnenweis, 2015) including connectivity norms, which in some cases spawn unrealistic expectations of continuous availability (Mazmanian, Orlikowski & Yates, 2013). Likewise, research has already explored practices and consequences of boundary

management through employee’s use of devices (Hislop & Axtell, 2011; Derks & Bakker, 2014; Ragsdale & Hoover, 2016), e-mail communication (Barber & Santuzzi, 2015) and social media presence (van Zoonen & Banghart, 2018). However, instant messaging platforms, an integral part of contemporary CMC offerings, are yet to be covered in the literature.

There are currently many different mobile instant messaging (MIM) services, with the global market being predominantly controlled by WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger (Bobrov, 2017), two chat applications owned by the social network company Facebook. While other platforms dominate certain local markets (e.g. WeChat, Telegram or Viber) these two MIM services have a global user base as they are the most downloaded apps of all time to date (Potuck, 2018) each attracting over 1.3 billion users monthly (We Are Social, & Hootsuite, & DataReportal, n.d.). The wide spread of MIMs has made them a convenient choice for

day-to-day communication (Gibson, 2018) establishing yet another tool that can potentially blur the boundaries between life domains. After all, as the term suggests, instant messaging services were designed for synchronous communication and are thus meant to accommodate real-time message exchanges and their utilization creates expectations of immediate response (Flanagin, 2005). Accordingly, such communication tools bring about additional pressure on people to respond as soon as possible (Barber & Santuzzi, 2015). The combination of affordances of MIMs

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in general and the omnipresence of certain platforms in our lives makes them particularly important in the context of boundary theories which have not addressed them before leaving a gap this study intends to cover.

Therefore, this research explores the possible connection between people’s boundary setting preferences across life domains and reactions to interruptions of these boundaries via instant messaging together with possible moderating effects of social influence and MIM user group affiliation. To better understand the differences between the platforms in question, this study introduces uses and gratifications theory into the field of boundary management research. The aim is to improve the understanding of people’s attitudes and behaviors regarding the daily use of instant messaging for both work and personal purposes and thus help avoid practices that harm both employees and the performance of organizations.

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Theory and hypotheses

This chapter presents the development of the study’s main hypotheses based on boundary management theory as well as moderation hypotheses stemming from theories of social influence and uses and gratifications.

Boundary management

In the post-industrial society, workers carry out the majority of their work and family activities in locations that are physically, temporally and mentally separated from each other, creating life domains of work and private or personal life (Clarke, 2000). Boundary theory posits that people actively construct both psychological and behavioral boundaries to organize their domains. For instance, people can segment their home domain from work-related interruptions by switching off their work cellphones or actively suppressing thoughts about current work tasks. In contrast, others can integrate the domains by reflecting on upcoming team presentations while exercising or repeatedly checking updates on project management software during ‘off-work’ hours (Hecht & Allen, 2009; Koch & Binnenweis, 2015). These are practices of boundary management which entails strategies of segmenting or integrating the two life domains. The extent to which a person prefers to either segment or integrate them differs individually, forming boundaries of varying strength, permeability and flexibility (Nippert-Eng, 1996; Ashforth et al., 2000; Clark, 2000). The goal of this behavior is to achieve and maintain a balanced state between the domains and minimize the experience of work/life conflict (Clark, 2000; Bulger et al., 2007). Such conflicting situations occur when forces (e.g. stress) or social obligations (e.g. family gatherings) of the separate domains prove to be incompatible (Kreiner, 2006) resulting in negative outcomes like stress and lack of involvement (Frone, Russel & Cooper, 1992; Hunter, Clark & Carlsson, 2019). In general, people construct strong boundaries to prevent work/life

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conflict from happening by keeping the domains separate, and weak boundaries to integrate them (Olson-Buchanan & Boswell, 2006). When people construct strong impermeable boundaries and exhibit low flexibility to leave one domain for the other, segmentation takes place. In the

opposite case of integration, workers approach the domains as being freely interactive, which leads to blurring of the boundaries (Bulger et al., 2007). However, the characteristics of the boundaries can change over time (Hecht & Allen, 2009) and the boundaries people set in the separate domains can have differing strength and permeability based on the domain, meaning that while some prefer to construct strong boundaries to prevent work obligations to affect them at home, they do not desire to stop their personal communications to reach them at workplace (Frone et al., 1992).

As for the possible effects of boundary management strategies, previous research has indicated that separation of life domains decreases the amount of stress individuals are exposed to, resulting in less pressure spilling over from one domain spills over to the other (Rothbard, Philips & Dumas, 2005) and more psychological recovery from the demands of each sphere (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2007; Barber & Jenkins, 2014), allowing people to focus exclusively on their performance in current sphere (Ashforth et al., 2000; Rothbard et al., 2005). Separation can therefore improve well-being (Koch & Binnenweis, 2015) and reduce health risks caused by work-related stress (Barber & Santuzzi, 2015). On the other hand, integration brings about positive spillovers through work-family enrichment (Ilies & Wagner, 2009; McNall, Nicklin & Masuda, 2010). According to Greenhaus and Powell (2006), the positive influences of sphere and role integration take various forms including skill transition (e.g. a person gaining

interpersonal skills at home and using them in work) or social-capital resources (e.g. spouse support serving as a buffer for work-related stress). Integration can also lower the undesired

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experience of conflict during unexpected transitions and negative reactions to boundary

interruptions (Boswell & Olson-Buchanan, 2007; Sonnentag, Kuttler & Fritz, 2010; Nam, 2014). Once again, these can take various forms such as having to deal with work e-mails during

weekends or taking care of family matters during work-hours (Hunter et al., 2019; Greenhaus, 1985).

Previous research has confirmed that employees who prefer to segment their life domains react more negatively to similar unexpected shifts between the domains (Olson-Buchnanan & Boswell, 2006). Due to their technological nature allowing them to reach people throughout the life domains, CMC technologies, such as e-mail or MIM platforms, can cause spillover from one domain into the other (Barber & Santuzzi, 2015; Derks, van Duin, Tims, & Bakker, 2015). Stemming from their original purpose, this is especially salient for instant messaging

applications which create expectations of immediate responsiveness (Sun et al., 2017) and can be a pathway for boundary interruptions across the life domains resulting in negative reactions to the interruptions.

H1a: Preferences for setting home boundary predict negative reactions to home boundary interruptions on mobile instant messaging platforms.

H1b: Preferences for setting work boundary predict negative reactions to work boundary interruptions on mobile instant messaging platforms.

Perceived social expectations

Most workers today operate in social systems including families, friends, coworkers and other communities. Apart from personal traits and other aspects such as job nature, the forces originating in these systems are the main determinants for boundary setting preferences and the possible experience of work/life conflict (Benett 1996; Ashforth et al., 2000; Kossek, Lautsch, &

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Eaton, 2005; Kreiner 2006). The norms and mode of conduct of the particular social group play key role in forming workers attitudes and own practice of boundary management. (Derks et al., 2015). Observing behaviors such as colleagues having phone calls with family, or our relatives discussing work issues during family celebrations contributes to creation of perceived social norms in terms of boundary setting (Kreiner, 2006). Individuals are then trying to conform to what they think are the expectations of the either the working groups or their families by matching the actions of members of those social groups (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Barber & Santuzzi, 2015).

The perceived organizational norms of responsiveness to CMC can affect both the creation of boundaries and the experience one has with managing them (Derks et al., 2015). From an employee point of view, supervisors are an authority they answer to as well a as representation of the organization itself and can serve as role models in boundary management behaviors (Glavin & Schieman 2012; Koch & Binnewies, 2015). Research has shown that the subjective norm of responsiveness is constituted by the influence of peers and supervisors (Taylor & Todd, 1995; Derks et al., 2015) and that when employees perceive lower supervisor expectations in this matter, they experience less conflict between life domains (Derks et al., 2015). With regard to the potential outcomes of the conflict, setting a good boundary

management example for subordinates is a serious responsibility of supervisors and managers. (Koch & Binnenweis, 2015). The same way perceived organizational expectations of

responsiveness can influence work/life conflict outside of workplace, expectations of responsiveness people perceive from their families or closest friends are exhibiting in the work/life conflict (Myrie & Daly, 2009; Fonner & Stache, 2012).

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H2a: Relationship between preferences for setting home boundary and negative reactions to interruptions of this boundary on mobile instant messaging

platforms is moderated by perceived responsiveness expectations of supervisor. H2b: Relationship between preferences for setting work boundary and negative reactions to interruptions of this boundary on mobile instant messaging

platforms is moderated by perceived responsiveness expectations of family/close friends.

Uses and gratifications of instant messaging services

At the center of this study stand two MIM platforms – WhatsApp and Facebook

Messenger – conventional MIM services in the sense that they enable users to communicate with others instantly on various devices without time and geographical restraints (Sun et al., 2017), however, they differ fundamentally through what their environments offer to users. To make sense of the possible differences between the platforms, this study takes the perspective of uses and gratifications theory (U&G), which focuses on how people use different kinds of media and what types of gratifications they receive from their use (Ku, Chu & Tseng, 2013). Originally applied to investigate mass communication (Katz, 1959), U&G has been extended to explore people’s motives behind their use of communication technologies and media types (Lee & Ma, 2012; Pedersen & Ling, 2003). The U&G theory teaches us that people choose specific tools to communicate with others in order to gain particular gratifications (Stafford, Stafford & Schkade, 2004). Furthermore, U&G distinguishes between obtained gratifications and sought gratifications (Katz, Gurevitch & Haas, 1973; Palmgreen, Wenner, & Rayburn, 1980). The gratifications sought are the needs that the audience seeks to fulfil, whereas the gratifications that users obtain are those that they experience by using the media. The sought gratifications might differ from the

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obtained ones, creating a gap which can explain user’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction (Palmgreen et al., 1980). Previous studies have identified four main uses of instant messaging that can be freely combined: asking questions and requesting information; obtaining an immediate response; testing the availability of recipients to arrange face-to-face or telephone encounters; and lastly, managing several simultaneous courses of interaction on multiple platforms (Nardi, Whittaker & Bradner, 2000). Ku, Chu & Tseng (2013) identified Relationship Maintenance, Information Seeking, Amusement, Style, Sociability, and Killing Time as the gratifications sought by MIM users. The successful delivery of these sought gratifications has made MIM services an integral part of everyday lives of smartphone users around the world (Lee, 2007; Mesch, Talmund & Quan-Haase, 2012).

To understand the uses and gratifications of the MIM platforms researched in this thesis, it is essential to look into their past. Whereas WhatsApp was developed primarily as a MIM service, Facebook Messenger was originally intended as a chatting feature of the social network site Facebook and was later transformed into a stand-alone MIM platform. In practice, this means that to connect with other people on WhatsApp, users only need the app and a phone number. However, to access Facebook Messenger the user has to join the Facebook social network and thus its MIM feature still carries some of the characteristics of social networking sites. Although social networking sites as well as MIM platforms are perceived as important to feel involved in friends’ lives and in creating a sense of membership in a community, Facebook prevails as the source of social information in the peer community (Quan-Haase & Young, 2010). While for WhatsApp, the information about the user is limited to a phone number, nickname, picture and status option, Facebook is quite different; there the personal information regarding the user can range from date of birth, to recorded activities over several years, including photos,

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opinion expressions, status postings, and comments on other content. Although utilizing both of these MIMs for work-related communication can potentially produce a gap between sought and obtained gratifications, because of the private nature of Facebook profiles presenting yet another set of sought gratifications absent in WhatsApp (Church & de Oliveira, 2013), the user behavior on the platforms is expected to differ in relation to boundary setting preferences.

H3: Relationship between preferences for setting home boundary and negative reactions to interruptions of this boundary on mobile instant messaging platforms is stronger for Facebook Messenger users than for WhatsApp users.

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Methodology

Procedure and sample

An online survey was developed using the data collection website Qualtrics and administered at a single point in time. The survey methodology was selected because it is an established method in the field offering existing self-reported measures to quantify concepts in the center of this research. Confidentiality was emphasized in the introduction with an informed consent form followed by basic demographic questions (age, gender, marital status, education). Subsequently, the participants were asked to self-report their use of instant messaging platforms. Lastly, the variables were investigated using the measures as described below.

To capture a diverse sample of MIM users, participants were recruited using convenience and snowball sampling. No incentives were used for recruitment, while participants had to meet three requirements – an age of 18 years or older, use either WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger at least several times a day and not being unemployed. The last requirement was not limited in terms of job sector or number of working hours.

After discarding responses of those who had not finished the survey or were filtered out based on either the abovementioned criteria or outlying response time together with non-response behavior, a total of 173 out of 332 non-responses were eligible for the further analysis. In the final sample, females and males were equally represented with 49.7 % for each group with one respondent choosing the option “Other / Prefer not say”. The mean age was 25.1 years (SD = 4.32) with being single and having a bachelor’s degree as the mode values in terms of marital status and education respectively. Furthermore, 69.9 % of the sample reported traditional employment status making the rest freelance workers, self-employed or volunteers while 39.3 % of the respondents held managerial or supervisory positions. Based on the usage frequency of

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MIM, respondents were divided into groups representing users of Facebook Messenger (N = 94), WhatsApp (N = 56) and users not distinguishing their preferences (N = 23). Majority of both Facebook Messenger users and WhatsApp users reported using the platform more than 20 times a day.

Measures

All scales were subjected to factor analyses, which proved that all measures are indeed forming single unidimensional factors covering the intended concepts. The results of the analyses including factor loadings can be seen in Appendix A.

Boundary setting preferences

To measure participants’ preferences for setting both home and work boundaries, a measurement from Kreiner (2006) was used. This measure is regularly being utilized in the field and yielded great reliability results in this study with α = .87 for home boundary setting

preference (M = 5.19, SD = 1.36) and α = .83 for work boundary setting preferences (M = 4.70, SD = 1.22). All eight items were measured on a 7-point answer scale from “Strongly Disagree” (1) to “Strongly Agree” (7) and can be seen in Appendix A.

Reactions to boundary interruptions

To measure people’s reactions to interruptions on MIM platforms between work and life domains, items from a measure previously developed by Olson-Buchanan and Boswell (2006) were combined with an item from Hunter, Clark & Carlsson (2019). To increase measure validity, the six items were transformed to focus on interruptions on instant messaging services based on the user groups as mentioned earlier. The outcome variables focusing on boundary interruptions across the user groups consisted of a three-item scale covering the reactions to work interrupting non-work with α = .75 (M = 4.03, SD = 1.40) and three items representing the

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opposite with α = .82 (M = 3.07, SD = 1.29). All items were measured on a 7-point answer scale from “Strongly Disagree” (1) to “Strongly Agree” (7) and all items can be seen in Appendix A. Perceived social expectations

Variables of perceived responsiveness expectations from both supervisor and family/close friends were measured using an adjusted scale from Derks, van Duin, Tims & Bakker (2015) which focused on expectations from supervisors regarding employee’s availability and accessibility outside working hours with α = .78 (M = 3.43, SD = 1.49). The three items were then rewritten to measure expectations of family and/or close friends with α = .75 (M = 3.40, SD = 1.41). In line with other variables, the two sets of three items were measured on a 7-point answer scale adapted to fit the items and can be seen in Appendix A.

Control variables

Age, gender, education, marital status, job tenure (in years) and managerial role were included as control variables in all analyses since these have been found to play a role in people’s boundary management on different occasions (e.g. Jostell & Hemlin, 2018; Sonnentag, Kuttler & Fritz, 2010). Although strictly speaking an ordinal variable, because of its 6-point answer scale education was treated as a continuous for the purpose of the data analysis.

Results

Correlations between study variables and descriptive statistics are provided in Table 1. The results of the correlation analysis provided initial support for some of the hypotheses since the boundary setting preferences at home were positively correlated with reactions to

interruptions of the home boundary (r = .43, p < .01) and the boundary setting preferences at work were positively correlated with reactions to work boundary interruptions (r = .28, p < .01). The correlation analysis also showed a weak correlation between preferences for boundary setting outside of workplace and gender (r = -.18, p < .05) as well as moderate correlation with

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job tenure (r = -.38, p < .01) confirming their role as control variables. Furthermore, marital status is negatively correlated with work boundary setting preferences (r = -.37, p < .01) and negative reactions to interruptions of that boundary (r = -.16, p < .05). Lastly, the managerial position is negatively correlated with negative reactions to interruptions of home boundary (r = -.22, p < .01).

Hypotheses testing

To test the hypothesis that preferences for setting home boundary predict negative reactions of this boundary on mobile instant messaging platforms (H1a), a regression analysis was conducted. Table 2 shows the resulting regression coefficients for this testing as well as H1b tests. Model 1a in the table includes control variables which account for 13.2 % of variation in boundary interruption reactions. However, only three controls – gender, job tenure and

managerial position – were significant and thus included in Model 2a, as well as in the models used for testing the subsequent moderation hypotheses. Model 2a adds the variable of home boundary setting preferences and shows that this variable predicts the negative reactions to boundary interruptions outside of work (B = .33, SE = .09, p < .001). The model explains 21.8 % of the variance and is significant as a whole, F(4, 135) = 10.679, p < .001. This confirms that the more people prefer to set boundary for segmenting work-related matters outside of work, the more negatively they react to the work-related interruptions of the boundary on instant messaging services in general.

Similarly, the hypothesis that preferences for setting work boundary predict negative reactions to interruptions of this boundary on mobile instant messaging platforms (H1b) was tested using the same analysis. Model 1b with control variables was not significant and these were therefore left out of the Model 2b which yielded significant results, F(1, 171) = 14.372,

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p < .001, explaining 7.2 % of the variance. The preference to separate private life from work in the workplace has been identified as a predictor of boundary interruptions in the workplace (B = .30, SE = .08, p < .001), signaling that with increasing preference to segment private life matters from work domain, the negative reactions to interruptions of the work boundary via instant messaging increase. Hypothesis 1 in both its iterations is accepted.

Hypotheses H2a and H2b expected the relationships between boundary setting

preferences in both work and home and boundary interruption reactions to be moderated by the perceived responsiveness expectations from either supervisor or family or closest friends. Firstly, the suspected moderators in both dimensions were subjected to regression analysis recognizing both as significant predictors of negative reactions to boundary interruptions (F(5, 129) = 11.837, p < .001 for Model 3; F(1, 161) = 11.138, p < .001 for Model 4). The results of the analyses for both models can been seen in Table 3 and prove that the more people perceive that their social environment – represented here by supervisor and family/close friends – expects them to respond to messages on instant messaging, the more negative reactions to interruptions of both life

domain boundaries they experience. The presence of interactions was subsequently explored through regression analysis using the PROCESS macro Version 3 (Hayes, 2012) with a percentile bootstrap estimation approach with 5,000 samples. Although the models were significant (F(3, 160) = 18.119, p < .001 for model of home boundary interruptions with supervisor expectations and F(1, 160) = 7.399, p < .001 for model of work boundary interruptions with family/close friends expectations), the moderation analysis did not show significant results for supervisor expectations (b = 0.02, t(160) = 0.37, p = .72) and expectations of family/close friends (b = 0.01, t(160) = 0.23, p = .82) alike. The alternative hypotheses H2a and H2b are thus rejected.

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The last hypothesis posited that the relationship between preferences for setting home boundary and negative reactions to interruptions of this boundary on mobile instant messaging platforms is stronger for Facebook Messenger users than for WhatsApp users (H3). To test this, another set of regressions was run. Firstly, the boundary setting preferences were examined as a predictor in both user groups using the variable of home boundary setting preferences as

independent variables and home boundary interruptions on Facebook Messenger (Model 5) and WhatsApp respectively (Model 6) as dependent variables. Table 4 reports the results of the analyses with both models being significant (F(1, 92) = 19.100, p < .001 for Model 5;

F(1, 54) = 3.064, p < .01 for Model 6). Despite the differences in the amount of variance in the separate models, and the significance of the model as a whole (F(1, 146) = 8.922, p < .001) the possible interaction effect of the user group affiliation on the boundary interruptions outside of workplace was not identified as significant (b = 0.04, t(146) = 0.22, p = .83) by another

regression analysis using the PROCESS macro Version 3 (Hayes, 2012) again with a percentile bootstrap estimation approach with 5,000 samples.

The findings do not confirm that the strength of relationship between preferences for setting home boundaries and negative reactions to interruptions of these boundaries on MIM platforms is moderated by user group affiliation. This means that the relationship is not stronger for Facebook Messenger users than for WhatsApp users, and alternative hypothesis is rejected.

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Table 1: Means, Standard Deviations and Correlations (N = 173)

Notes: High values on Home boundary setting preference and Work boundary setting preference represent preference for segmenting the domains.

Gender (0 = Female, 1 = Male). Marital status (0 = Not Married, 1 = Married). Managerial position (0 = Not Managing/Supervising, 1 = Managing/Supervising); * p < .05; **p < .01. All two-tailed tests.

preference 2. Work boundary setting preference 4.70 1.22 .01  3. Reactions to home boundary interruptions on MIMS 4.03 1.40 .42** .05  4. Reactions to work boundary interruptions on MIMS 3.07 1.29 -.02 .28** .23**  5. Age 25.1 4.32 -.06 -.10 -.11 .06  6. Gender (Male = 1) -.18* -.01 -.26** -.01 .15  7. Marital status (Married = 1) .02 -.37** -.01 -.16* .40** .03  8. Education 3.73 1.11 .05 -.06 .01 .00 .52** -.10 .25**  9. Job tenure 3.02 3.84 -.31** -.14 -.24** -.13 .55** .09 .19* .17*  10. Managerial position (Yes = 1) -.14 -.02 -.22** .00 .35** .18* .16* .12 .28*  11. Supervisor expectations 3.42 1.48 -.07 .08 .24** .09 -.19* -.07 .10 -.12 -.15 .02  12. Family/friends expectations 3.40 1.41 .03 -.02 .17 .21* -.09 .04 .16* .01 -.02 -.06 .20* 

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Reactions to home boundary interruptions on MIMs Reactions to work boundary interruptions on MIMs

Model 1a Model 2a Model 1b Model 2b

B s.e. B s.e. B s.e. B s.e.

Age 0.03 0.04 0.01 0.04 Gender -0.76*** 0.23 -0.55** 0.22 -0.06 0.24 Marital Status 0.16 0.26 -0.33 0.26 Education -0.02 0.12 0.02 0.12 Job Tenure -0.08** 0.04 -0.03 0.03 -0.05 0.04 Managerial Position -0.51* 0.25 -0.43 0.23 0.19 0.25

Home boundary setting preference 0.33*** 0.09

Work boundary setting preference 0.30*** 0.08

Constant 4.02*** 0.71 2.77** 0.52 2.90*** 0.72 1.69*** 0.38

Adjusted R2 0.13*** 0.22*** -0.01 0.07***

F 4.510 10.679 0.796 14.372

Notes: High values on Home boundary setting preference and Work boundary setting preference represent preference for segmenting the domains.

Gender (0 = Female, 1 = Male). Marital status (0 = Not Married, 1 = Married). Managerial position (0 = Not Managing/Supervising, 1 = Managing/Supervising). F statistics are presented in the s.e. column for Adjusted R2; N = 173. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01. ***p < 0.001.

Table 3: Findings of regression analyses predicting boundary interruptions reactions with perceived social interruptions.

Reactions to home boundary interruptions on MIMs Reactions to work boundary interruptions on MIMs

Model 3 Model 4

B s.e. B s.e.

Gender -0.41 0.22

Job Tenure -0.00 0.03

Managerial Position -0.29* 0.23

Home boundary setting preference 0.37*** 0.09

Perceived supervisor expectations 0.26*** 0.07

Work boundary setting preference 0.20*** 0.07

Perceived expectations of family/closest friends 0.30** 0.08

Constant 1.60*** 0.61 0.98* 0.45

Adjusted R2 0.29*** 0.11***

F 11.837 11.138

Notes: High values on Home boundary setting preference and Work boundary setting preference represent preference for segmenting the domains. Gender (0 = Female, 1 = Male). Managerial position (0 = Not Managing/Supervising, 1 = Managing/Supervising).

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Table 4: Findings of multiple regression analyses predicting home boundary interruptions reactions on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Reactions to home boundary interruptions

on Facebook Messenger

Reactions to home boundary interruptions on WhatsApp Model 5 Model 6 B s.e. B s.e. Gender -0.82* 0.32 -0.40 0.39 Job Tenure -0.04 0.06 -0.05 0.04 Managerial Position -0.77* 0.33 -0.34 0.38

Home boundary setting preference 0.28* 0.12 0.24 0.17

Constant 3.37*** 0.77 3.18** 1.05

Adjusted R2 0.26*** 0.13

F 6.823 3.064

Notes: High values on Home boundary setting preference represent preference for segmenting the domain. Gender (0 = Female, 1 = Male). Managerial position (0 = Not Managing/Supervising, 1 = Managing/Supervising). F statistics are presented in the s.e. column for Adjusted R2; *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01. ***p < 0.001.

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In this chapter, the findings of the data analysis are discussed. Following the main

hypotheses and central themes of the research, the results are interpreted, explained and practical implications are drawn.

The practice of boundary setting between main life domains – work and private life – continues to evolve with changes in communication technology (Rothbard & Ollier-Malaterre, 2016) and thus calls for ongoing research. Mobile instant messaging, a branch of CMC

technology, has spread globally extending over devices as well as life domains. This study explored how boundary setting preferences across the life domains impact the reactions to interruptions of these boundaries on instant messaging services. The results shed light on the boundary management behavior across life domains, as they confirm that the preferences for setting boundaries in both life domains predict negative reactions to boundary interruptions on instant messaging services at home and workplace alike.

This provides a strong argument for addressing the issues of boundary interruptions on instant messaging platforms with organizational policies. Organizational members such as internal communication specialists or managers need to recognize that some individuals prefer to segment their life domains and react negatively to communications that reach them on MIM platforms. While higher preferences for segmentation are also positively associated with negative reactions to crossing of work boundary, organizations should especially focus on the possible contra productive outcomes of interruptions of home boundary. A path to recognizing the preferences for segmentation was foreshadowed by companies such as Volkswagen that have introduced ‘off-hours’ for internal e-mail communication (Gallo, 2012). While this could be a solution for the majority who seems to seek segmentation of the domains, ideally, organizations

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need to cater to the needs of both types of employees in terms of segmentation and integration. Therefore, similar policies should also include options to stay up-to-date with the work

communication so that people who prefer to integrate their domains are not limited in doing so and thus allowing both groups to indicate their preference. That said, organizations should be extremely cautious when addressing the interruptions of work boundary by private matters on MIMs. Introducing policies aimed at restricting private communications on MIMs at work on either desktop or mobile devices could lead to more undesired outcomes such as a decreasing worker autonomy as well as eliminating potential positive spillovers between the domains. All in all, it is paramount that organizations and its members are clear in what their expectations in terms of work/life boundary setting are so these can be successfully managed.

In line with findings of numerous studies conducted in the area prior to this research (e.g. Eagle, Miles & Icenogle, 1997; Myrie & Daly, 2009), gender emerged as a significant predictor of negative reactions to boundary crossing on instant messaging platforms outside of work, showing women react more negatively to boundary interruptions. At the same time, the results suggest that females tend to segment home domain from work more than men. Furthermore, managers and employees with a longer job tenure at their organization show signs of reacting less negatively to the interruptions of the home boundary, possibly caused by higher levels of job identification and organizational loyalty (Kossek et al., 2006). A practical implication arises, especially for organizations wishing female employees would segment their life domains less allowing for positive spillovers between them. Since female employees were unequally

represented in the managerial group of the sample, which is in fact very much representative of the whole population (European Commission, 2018), a good first step to achieve the desired change would be to entrust more female employees with managerial positions or supervisory

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responsibilities. Future research should look into whether similar gender specific boundary management patterns exist in cultures and countries that have minimized gender gaps such as Iceland, Finland or Rwanda (World Economic Forum, 2018). This could illuminate the extent to which cultural and economic context of the society form role expectations, influencing boundary management and the experience of work/life conflict. Similarly, a possible connection to the role of a spouse might be the reason married individuals gravitate towards both constructing less work boundaries and reacting less negatively to their interruptions. This is something employers should also keep in mind when creating workplace communication policies and acknowledge the duality of the life roles of workers that are married or living in domestic partnerships. Moreover, no connection was found between the preferences for setting boundaries when in work and outside of it. This suggests that people’s boundary management preferences vary in the separate domains confirming the general findings of previous research.

The combination of relative youth of the sample and reported preferences for segmenting life domains also adds an interesting point of discussion to boundary theories. As the generation of digital natives has entered the workforce and will continue to do so, research is asking the question of what are going to be the preferences for work/life boundary setting of this group (Colbert, Yee & George, 2016). The results of the present study suggest that young workers favor less blurring of the boundaries, especially when it comes to receiving work communication outside of the workplace. This seemingly counter intuitive finding implies that boundary management practices are not specific for workers who had just adapted to use of CMC technology, but rather a phenomenon that is independent of age group affiliation.

Despite not being identified as a moderator in the main relationship, the predicting value of perceived social expectations is equally important for understanding boundary management.

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The current findings suggest that once the boundaries are formed, the social environment cannot influence how people experience the interruption of the boundaries and thus offers a lesson for organizational practice. The lesson is that expectation regarding responsiveness of employees and members of the closest social circles should be laid out clearly so that inaccurate perceptions of the expectations do not form. Moreover, by being a predictor by themselves, the perceived social expectations of responsiveness retain an important role in this relationship that should be researched further, ideally in combination with a focus on personality traits such as

self-monitoring.

Future research should also delve into the cultural context of MIM use and its possible impacts on boundary management in this area. This study has focused on the main global MIM services Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. There is reason to believe that user behavior might differ in regions such as Asia or the Middle East, or on geographically specific MIM platforms (Sultan, 2016; Nguyen & Fussell, 2013).

Finally, the utilization of uses and gratifications theory in the field of boundary

management should not be entirely dismissed. As work-related communication is spreading over new platforms such as social media or instant messaging (Messenger et al., 2017), the theoretical framework of sought and gained gratifications can offer valuable insights. The negative reactions to boundary interruptions on instant messaging services by themselves could be an exhibition of a conflict of user expectations and actual experience as they are reached by work-related

communication on a platform where they sought a different set of gratifications. Future qualitative research should thus focus on the experience of workers both in and outside of the workplace in this matter. While the researched differences between WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger have not been proved, Instagram – another instant messaging platform with an

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entirely different set of characteristics – was the most common instant messaging service alternative mentioned in the sample and the possible experiences of work/life boundary interruptions on this social media platform should be explored.

Limitations

The present study has several limitations that need to be recognized. First and foremost, the generalizations of the main findings are limited due to the convenience sampling method. Despite being quite balanced in terms of gender, the sample did consist of respondents from the researcher’s social networks and was younger and more educated than the general population. However, since there were no requirements in terms of employment sector or job tenure, we can assume that the sample consisted of workers from a variety of professions and industries.

Furthermore, the predictions based on the results remain limited since a cross-sectional survey design was used, making it impossible to rule out other factors that were neither explored nor included in the analyzed models. The models predicted up to 29 % of the variance which indicate that other important factors can have an influence on the researched relationships. These could consist of both personal characteristics such as overall instant messaging use or other organizational factors like identification or industry standards. Moreover, the survey design brings about issues of self-reporting that might have had an influence on the results, especially in the case of social norms which are highly subjective.

Last but not least, as already mentioned, this research has predominantly focused on the most commonly used instant messaging services Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp which despite being the most common MIM platforms remain just a sample of the industry.

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Conclusion

This thesis contributes to the literature by introducing instant messaging services into the area of boundary theories. Carrying expectations of responsiveness, spanning across life domains and devices and being omnipresent in the daily lives of billions of users, MIM platforms are unprecedented communication tools. The present study points to one of possibly many issues that emerge on the intersection of work-related and private contents on these platforms by proving that with increasing preferences to segment life domains, people experience more negative reactions to the interruptions of the boundaries. Moreover, results of the research show that this is happening both outside of workplace when people experience interruption of the home boundary by work-related matters as well as during work hours when it is the private issues interrupting the work boundary. In addition, by covering the influence of social

surroundings, this study also confirmed that the more people perceive that their supervisor or family/close friends expect them to respond immediately on instant messaging, the more negative reactions to boundary interruptions via instant messaging they experience.

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Appendix A – Results of the factor analyses including measure items

1. Home boundary setting preferences

Total Variance Explained

Factor Total % of Variance Cumulative %

1 2.907 72.666 72.666

2 .520 12.998 85.664

3 .362 9.040 94.704

4 .212 5.296 100.000

Item Factor loading

I don’t like to have to think about work while I’m home. .90

I prefer to keep work life at work. .70

I don’t like work issues creeping into my home life. .72 I like to be able to leave work behind when I go home. .86

2. Work boundary setting preferences

1 2.651 66.264 66.264

2 .561 14.013 80.277

3 .459 11.463 91.740

4 .330 8.260 100.000

I don’t like to have to think about my private life while I am at work.

.74

I prefer to keep my private life at home. .74

I don’t like my private issues creeping into my work life. .66 I like to be able to leave my private life home when I go to

work.

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3. Reactions to home boundary interruptions on MIM in general

1 2.026 67.547 67.547

2 .570 18.997 86.544

3 .404 13.456 100.000

I get upset or annoyed when I am interrupted by work-related messages during ‘off-work’ hours.

.64 I find it hard to enjoy my free time when someone messages me

about work.

.84 Work-related messages are interrupting my personal life more

than I desire.

.68

4. Reactions to work boundary interruptions on MIM in general

1 2.478 82.603 82.603

2 .291 9.709 92.311

3 .231 7.689 100.000

I get upset or annoyed when I am interrupted by personal messages at work

.87 I find it hard to enjoy my work when I am interrupted by

personal/family messages at work.

.83 Personal messages are interrupting my work more than I desire. .88

5. Reactions to home boundary interruptions on Facebook Messenger

1 2.160 71.992 71.992

2 .541 18.026 90.018

3 .299 9.982 100.000

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messages on Facebook Messenger during ‘off-work’ hours. I find it hard to enjoy my free time when someone messages

me on Facebook Messenger about work.

.87 Work-related messages on Facebook Messenger are

interrupting my personal life more than I desire.

.62

6. Reactions to work boundary interruptions on Facebook Messenger

1 2.227 74.234 74.234

2 .460 15.345 89.579

3 .313 10.421 100.000

I get upset or annoyed when I am interrupted by personal messages on Facebook Messenger at work

personal/family messages on Facebook Messenger at work

.99 Personal messages on Facebook Messenger are interrupting my

work more than I desire.

.72

7. Reactions to home boundary interruptions on WhatsApp

1 1.853 61.776 61.776

2 .852 28.387 90.163

3 .295 9.837 100.000

I get upset or annoyed when I am interrupted by work-related messages on WhatsApp during ‘off-work’ hours.

.84 I find it hard to enjoy my free time when someone messages me

on WhatsApp about work.

.91 Work-related messages on WhatsApp are interrupting my

personal life more than I desire.

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8. Reactions to work boundary interruptions on WhatsApp

1 1.985 66.160 66.160

2 .748 24.949 91.109

3 .267 8.891 100.000

I get upset or annoyed when I am interrupted by personal messages on WhatsApp at work.

personal/family messages on WhatsApp at work.

.92 Personal messages on WhatsApp are interrupting my work

more than I desire.

.69

9. Perceived responsiveness expectations of supervisor

1 2.081 69.381 69.381

2 .566 18.861 88.242

3 .353 11.758 100.000

My supervisor expects me to respond to work-related messages during my free time.

.90 When I don’t answer my supervisor during my free time my

supervisor clearly shows that he/she doesn’t appreciate it.

.67 I feel that I have to respond to messages from my supervisor

immediately during leisure time.

.65

10. Perceived responsiveness expectations of family/closest friends

1 2.005 66.828 66.828

2 .598 19.939 86.767

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My closest family/friends expect me to respond to their messages during my working hours.

.87 When I don’t answer my closest family/friends during my

working hours. they clearly show that they don't appreciate it.

.64

I feel that I have to respond to messages from my closest