Workplace flexibility and communication flows: a structurational view

Nordbäck, Emma; Myers, Karen K.; McPhee, Robert D.

doi:10.1080/00909882.2017.1355560

Cited by 23 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Since telecommuting from home entails a decontextualization of employees' contributions and communications (Vega, 2003), it can negatively affect the sensemaking and sensegiving processes that are enacted by remote workers (M€ uller et al, 2019). More specifically, working from home may have side effects on remote employees' ability to understand and communicate the identity and the specificity of their contribution to the organization, thus impairing organizational excellence (Nordb€ ack et al, 2017). Hence, it can be assumed that:…”

Section: Literature Review and Research Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Beware of side effects on quality! Investigating the implications of home working on work-life balance in educational services

Palumbo

Manna

Cavallone

2020

TQM

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PurposeTelecommuting from home is back up on the agenda as a result of the unforeseen challenges brought by COVID-19. Working from home permits to avoid disruption in the ordinary functioning of educational institutions triggered by social distancing. However, home-based telecommuting may have some side effects on employees, especially in terms of work-life balance. Soft Total Quality Management (TQM) initiatives are needed to address these side effects. The article intends to shed light on these issues, providing some food for thought to scholars and practitioners.Design/methodology/approachSecondary data about the working conditions of 2,046 people employed in the education sector across Europe were investigated. A serial mediation analysis was designed to examine the direct and indirect implications of working from home on work-life balance.FindingsThe study suggests that home-based telecommuting may trigger work-to-life and life-to-work conflicts, due to the blurring of boundaries between work and everyday life. Soft tools, such as organizational meaningfulness (OM) and work-related well-being (WB), mediate the relationship between working from home (HW) and work-life conflicts (WLC), lessening the negative implications of working from home on work-life balance.Practical implicationsThe design and the implementation of home-based telecommuting arrangements should include a special concern for soft TQM practices. Among others, OM and WB are likely to minimize the disruption of remote employees' jobs and interpersonal relationships. Failure to do so impairs the ability of home-based employees to make sense out of their working arrangements and to achieve a sustainable work-life balance.Originality/valueThis is one of the first attempts to illuminate the side effects of home-based telecommuting and to investigate the role of soft TQM in addressing these side effects.

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Section: Literature Review and Research Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Beware of side effects on quality! Investigating the implications of home working on work-life balance in educational services

Palumbo

Manna

Cavallone

2020

TQM

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“…While theorizing on CPM and catalyst criteria have only been marginally examined within organizational contexts, scholars have found that organizational factors do influence individuals' sharing and/or concealing of private information. For instance, Smith and Brunner (2017) argued that organizational culture motivates people to reveal or conceal private information at work, and Nordbäck et al (2017) argued that organizational policies structure organizational discourses, shape work/life boundary perceptions, and influence employees' workplace behaviors. This culture, in turn, encourages or discourages everything from privacy turbulence experienced among coworkers (Smith & Brunner, 2017) to the occurrence of informal conversations within the workplace (Fayard & Weeks, 2007).…”

Section: Privacy Rule Decision Criteria and The Work-spouse Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Privacy Rule Decision Criteria: An Examination of Core and Catalyst Criteria that Shape Disclosures in the Work-Spouse Relationship

McBride

Thorson

Bergen

2020

Management Communication Quarterly

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Despite the prevalence of work spouses, scarce empirical research has focused on the communication occurring within these relationships, leaving managers with little understanding as to whether organizations can or should communicate support for employees forming these relationships and how privacy is navigated among work spouses. Building on McBride and Bergen’s conceptualization of the work-spouse relationship, we used Communication Privacy Management theory (CPM) to understand what, if any, privacy rule decision criteria individuals used as they negotiated disclosures within their work-spouse relationships. Analysis of interviews with 41 people in work-spouse relationships suggests that participants recognized both their own core privacy rule decision criteria and when these criteria were similar to or different from the criteria influencing their work spouse’s. Furthermore, work-spouse relationships formed despite organizational efforts to keep them at bay. Theoretically, the findings add to CPM theory, such that they establish the need to examine catalyst criteria as current and previous, as well as argue for the addition of confirming criteria to account for situations in which catalysts reinforce routinized privacy rules. Overall, the findings from this study advance the literature on communication in the work-spouse relationship and CPM theory and highlight the role that workplaces play in fostering these types of relationships.

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“…As such, structural features such as demographic or linguistic structures may form the basis for faultlines, but they are discursively produced such that their outcomes are not predictable or given. This branch of CCO includes the 4 Flows Model (Nordbäck et al, 2017;McPhee & Iverson, 2009), another structurational view that posits that organizations are constituted by on-going flows of communication: activity coordination (managing collaborative tasks), membership negotiation (negotiating roles and status), reflexive self-structuring (including both formal structure and informal interactions that produce and reproduce norms and relationships), and institutional positioning (managing relations with external stakeholders).…”

Section: Subgroups As Discursively Constructedmentioning

confidence: 99%