Boundary Construction
Boundary work refers to the ongoing process through which individuals create, manage, transform, and transcend “boundaries” between work and life as they navigate WLC (Nippert-Eng, 1996).
Communication scholars have called attention to the fundamentally discursive nature of boundary construction (see Kirby et al., 2003) as well as its socially performative implications (Shumate & Fulk, 2004). Boundaries are socially constructed and changing—individuals create diverse boundaries between work and life that vary along a continuum from segmented to integrated, which “implies that these categories, their contents and their boundary must be negotiated” (Nippert-Eng, 1996, p. 6). Those who segment work and life build and maintain the spheres asseparate and unique, while those who integrate construct work and home as intricately interrelated minimize distinctions (Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate, 2000). Attending to the communicative practices through which boundaries are built and transcended provides insight into how individuals accomplish work and life.
Ashforth et al. (2000) illustrate that segmentation and integration lead to different stresses: While WL integration leads to a blurring of boundaries that makes boundary maintenance an ongoing challenge, WL segmentation requires more intensive boundary transitions. Research indicates that generally, segmentation reduces WLC more than integration as it provides individuals with more control and decreased levels of stress—but of course, this depends on the individual and the organization (Kreiner, 2006; Voydanoff, 2005). In Gill’s (2006) study, many female entrepreneurs physically separated work and life as well as created/enforced family rules (e.g., having an established family time) and personal rules (e.g., not taking work home) and claimed that such segmentation helped them reduce WLC.
Some scholars suggest that the reasoning for integration will shape its effectiveness in reducing WLC. For example, Eng, Moore, Grunberg, Greenberg, and Sikora (2010) found a vast difference in WLC for those who planned to work from home as opposed to those who were a llowed to do so in order to complete extra work (as this indicated work overload rather than flexibility). As this work progresses, the literature is making space for the possibility that individuals potentially construct diverse WL boundaries. For example, in considering the role of personal digital assistants in boundary work, Golden and Geisler (2007) find participants use the technology both to create a clear distinction between work and life and to develop integrated selves—to achieve the “concurrent and conflicting goals of integration and segmentation” (p. 541).