INDIVIDUAL BOUNDARY MANAGEMENT: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION ON TECHNOLOGY-RELATED TACTICS

Elevated through the increasing digitalization, employees are expected to be available always and everywhere. According to boundary theory, individuals can manage their boundaries between work and private life on a continuum of integration and separation. As individuals have different preferences for integration or separation, they are implementing IT tactics to meet their preferences. However, there is a lack of research addressing this topic. Therefore, we used an exploratory approach using tools from grounded theory in order to detect IT-related tactics which employees use to manage their boundaries between work and private life in a way that is in line with their preferences. We identified six tactics that varied in their ability to foster integration or separation and could be administered either manually or automatically. These tactics ranged from physical detachment in which employees separate work and private life manually through creating distance between the device and themselves up to dynamic filters with which the device automatically filters messages from different people and lets only relevant messages come through