Online boundary work tactics: an affordance perspective

Abstract

Studies of work/life balance have focussed on offline settings, and even though technology is considered as a boundary‐influencing feature, social media have not been the focus. Social technologies challenge the relationship between work and private life in new ways, due to their identified affordances: visibility, persistence, association and editability (Treem and Leonardi, 2012). In this paper, we present the results of a study of social media use (Facebook and Twitter) by employees of non‐governmental organisations (NGOs), and show how, through their affordances, these technologies influence the relationship and boundaries between work and non‐work, increasing visibility and reducing individual privacy. Consequently, we observe boundary work tactics that aim to protect private life from both public and professional scrutiny, in prohibitive, reactive or active ways. Our results call for organisations to develop explicit policies or guidelines for social media use, in both their own interests and those of their employees.

Teachers Falling off the Cliff Affordances and Constraints of Social Media in School

“…Social media is part of many teachers' and learners' everyday lives, and teachers use social media in teaching and communicating with their students [32]. Despite this, and in line with Siegert's and Löwstedt's findings [3], teachers in our investigated schools state little, or no, guidance for their digital work environment. Recent research on social media in schools [11, p. 178] points out that despite "an increasingly robust body of research on social media in education, only limited work translates this research into educational practices and policies".…”

“…Thus, social media is part of a so-called social organization of work with demands for collaboration, networking and social skills, which can collide with demands for productivity and contribute to stress and difficulties for recovery [5]. Simultaneously, the private self becomes increasingly visible in professional contexts as employees use their private social media in their work [3] or have to cope with the emotional demands that the workplace may impose on them [37,38].…”

“…The digital work environment with the risks it poses for increased stress and influence on psychosocial factors is therefore always present [2]. Siegert and Löwstedt [3] show in their study that employees at workplaces lacking policies or guidelines governing the use of social media at work risked an increase in boundaryblurring and potentially more stress. It is therefore important to understand how to develop and maintain a sustainable digital work environment when introducing new technology and when using existing technology [4].…”

“…Furthermore, individuals regard the potential of IT to blur boundaries between work and private life as either an opportunity or a risk [5]. One way to understand the impact of digitalization on work life and the working environment is the individual's ability to balance work requirements as part of the whole life puzzle, with the boundary between working life and private life as a central issue [3].…”

Sharing the Office, Sharing the Care?

“…According to a recent study of the European Commission [16], caring responsibilities are reasons for inactivity for almost 31% of inactive women while this is only the case for 4.5% of men. This happens to knowledge workers too (see for example [4,6,19]) for whom the boundary between the working and the private spheres is blurring [1], specifically because of the demands of this type of work including the atypical working patterns and the ubiquitous presence of digital technology [14,26,33]. From a management perspective, the enactment of policies to support balance of work and life roles may be beneficial to employees' performance [8,22] and these effects are not direct but rather mediated by employee wellbeing [25].…”