Organizations recognize that

December 2012 (11:4) | MIS Quarterly Executive 143
QUar MISterly
Executive
Work-Life Balance Concerns Arising
from the Use of Mobile Technology 1 2
Mobile technologies are profoundly affecting both how work gets done and how we live
our lives. In many sectors, there is an increasing need for ubiquitous access to systems and
information, coordination with colleagues across time and space, and constant connectivity.
However, while readily acknowledging the benefits of using mobile technologies in their
professional lives, many mobile workers also express a sense of helplessness arising from the
constant intrusion of these technologies into their personal lives.
Prior research suggests that a sustained lack of work-life balance (WLB) or work-life
conflict3 arising from “temporal servitude” (being on call all the time) can, over time, affect
workers’ health, psychological well-being, commitment and productivity. Further, working
conditions that limit the space for personal life have been known eventually to lead to higher
1 Dorothy Leidner, ShanLing Pan and Juliana Sutanto are the accepting senior editors for this article.
2 The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions and support of the editors, and also the grant received from the U.S.
National Science Foundation, which partially funded the study.
3 In this article, we use the term “lack of work-life balance (WLB)” as a synonym for “work-life conﬂict” and “work-life
imbalance.”
Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile
Technologies to Minimize Work-Life
Balance Impacts
Organizations recognize that employees’ use of mobile technologies improves
productivity. Yet there is concern that mobile usage can impact employees’ work-life
balance (WLB). In this article, we report on the undesirable impacts on WLB and offer
a framework and a set of strategies for managing WLB. We propose that there is a
continuum of WLB perceptions, with some seeing work and personal life as separate
domains, others viewing work as overlapping with personal life and yet others perceiving
the two domains as integrated.1,2
Suprateek Sarker
Washington State University
(U.S.)
Xiao Xiao
Washington State University
(U.S.)
Saonee Sarker
Washington State University
(U.S.)
Manju Ahuja
University of Louisville
(U.S.)
144 MIS Quarterly Executive | December 2012 (11:4) misqe.org | © 2012 University of Minnesota
Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile Technologies to Minimize Work/Life Balance Impacts
turnover, and organizational loss of knowledge
and specific experience that is not easy to
replace.4
In this article, we report on the findings of
our multi-year research into the WLB concerns
of employees who use mobile technologies
as part of their work, and the organizational
strategies designed to address these issues.
Although our field research was carried out
among professionals involved with IT-related
work, we believe our findings are relevant to
other knowledge workers who face aggressive
deadlines, work in teams separated by time and
space, and need to satisfy varied stakeholders in
highly distributed environments.
We found that a mobile workforce (i.e., one
that uses mobile technology as an integral part
of accomplishing their work) does not share a
single, monolithic conception of WLB. This means
that universal policies and practices aimed at
helping employees manage their WLB are not
generally useful, and can at best address the
needs of a segment of a mobile workforce. In this
article, we present the different ways in which
knowledge workers perceive the relationship
between work and personal life, and describe
the implications these perceptions may have
on their mobile technology use and WLB. We
discuss some of the ways in which mobile
technologies create work-life conflict, and also the
impact the lack of WLB can have on individuals
and their organizations. We then identify four
organizational strategies for addressing these
issues, and provide guidelines for managing the
WLB concerns of a mobile workforce.
The research methodology we used is
described in the Appendix.
Impacts of Mobile Technology
on Work-Life Balance
First, it is important to clearly state what
we mean by WLB. Hill et al. define WLB as the
degree “to which an individual is simultaneously
able to balance the temporal, emotional and
4 Felstead, A., Jewson, N., Phizacklea, A. and Walters, S.
“Opportunities to work at home in the context of work‐life balance,”
Human Resource Management Journal (12:1), 2002, pp. 54-76;
Ahuja, M. K., Chudoba, K. M., Kacmar, C. J., McKnight, D. H. and
George, J. F. “IT road warriors: Balancing work-family conﬂict, job
autonomy, and work overload to mitigate turnover intentions,” MIS
Quarterly (31:1), 2007, pp. 1-17.
behavioral demands of both paid work and
family responsibility.”5 Netemeyer et al. define a
lack of WLB (or work-life conflict) as the “inter-
(between) role conflict where the demands
created by the job interfere with performing
family-related responsibilities.”6
Although there has been much research on
the WLB challenges faced by managers, research
focusing on the WLB issues of knowledge workers
is sparse. One of the few studies of this area
explored the issues faced by IT “road warriors”—
IT professionals who work away from home
with their clients—and reported that work-life
conflict is a key contributor of stress and turnover
for these knowledge workers.7 Another recent
study revealed several factors that impact WLB
for teams of distributed software development
professionals, with individuals located around
the world in different time zones needing to
communicate frequently with each other.8
The research to date has focused on the
positive effects of using mobile technologies for
business and even commended. The most notable
benefits are:
● The potential for 24×7 uninterrupted
connectivity to human as well as
information resources
● Increased flexibility
● Improved coordination
● Increased productivity through flexibility
in time management
● Pleasure and enjoyment
● Availability of multiple media and genres
of communication suited for different
scenarios.9
5 Hill, E. J., Hawkins, A. J., Ferris, M. and Weitzman, M. “Finding
an Extra Day a Week: The Positive Inﬂuence of Perceived Job
Flexibility on Work and Family Life Balance,” Family Relations
(50:1), 2001, pp. 49-58.
6 Netemeyer, R. G., Brashear-Alejandro, T. and Boles, J. S. “A
Cross-National Model of Job-Related Outcomes of Work Role and
Family Role Variables: A Retail Sales Context,” Journal of the
Academy of Marketing Science (32:1), 2004, pp. 49-60.
7 Ahuja, M. K., Chudoba, K. M., Kacmar, C. J., McKnight, D. H.
and George, J. F., op. cit., 2007.
8 Sarker, S., Sarker, S. and Jana, D. “The Impact of the Nature of
Globally Distributed Work Arrangement on Work-life Conﬂict and
Valence: The Indian GSD Professionals Perspective,” European
Journal of Information Systems (19:2), 2010, pp. 209-222.
9 Sarker, S. and Wells, J. D. “Understanding Mobile Wireless
Device Use and Adoption,” Communications of the ACM, (46:12),
2003, pp. 35-40.
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Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile Technologies to Minimize Work/Life Balance Impacts
In this article, we counter-balance these
positive aspects of using mobile technologies by
examining the adverse effects they can have on
WLB. Our interviews suggest that these effects
may be categorized into four areas.
1. Constantly Raising Expectations of
Availability
First and foremost, the use of mobile
technologies provided and paid for by the
employer revises the psychological contract
between employer and employee by constantly
raising expectations of availability and ability to
respond. For example, one of our interviewees (a
senior consultant in one of the leading consulting
organizations) stated:
“… [because clients/project-team members]
know that you have a company-issued
smartphone, they feel no shame in
contacting you any time of the day or night.
I receive calls, emails at 8, 9, 10 o’clock at
night. Unfortunately, [because of the calls]
you have to get up, and get out the laptop to
produce some work at a ridiculous time …”
2. Blurring Boundaries of Work and
Personal Time
Second, while mobile technologies
undoubtedly facilitate flexibility and free people
from restricted hours and physical locations, they
also blur boundaries of work and personal time.
Many of our interviewees made this point (see
Box 1).
3. Coordinating Among Co-workers
Becomes More Complicated
Because of the flexibility enabled by mobile
technologies, coordination among co-workers
becomes much more complicated, which in
turn leads to further stretching of work-life
boundaries. One of our respondents, a former CIO
of a healthcare organization, observed:
“With mobile technology, you now have
the flexibility of managing things 24×7,
but there is no definition about what that
availability should be. I [may] happen to
be working, for example, at 8 pm because
I went to a child’s soccer game from 6 to
7:30. But since you have a mobile device,
you [are expected to] be available, but you
may be doing other things. So it creates
some discords because we don’t sync up any
more.”
4. Feeding Knowledge Workers’
Personal Compulsions
Many knowledge workers have a
compulsion to feel they are constantly on
top of developments, and the use of mobile
technologies, and the convenience of being always
connected, rather than “booting up” the computer
or laptop, feeds this compulsion. The downside is
that they experience work-related stress around
the clock. It can also strengthen the tendency for
knowledge workers to find escape in their work.
Both of these effects can, in time, cost employees
their personal health and well-being, as the
interviewee quotations in Box 2 illustrate.
Similar regret was expressed by a consulting
partner who mentioned, with a hint of sadness,
that she had given up her friends and hobbies.
In summary, mobile technologies seem to
contribute to the work-life conflict of knowledge
workers in a variety of ways, increasing their
stress levels as well as negatively influencing
their family and social lives. In time, for many
individuals and their organizations, these impacts
can result in serious consequences.
Box 1. How Mobile Technologies
Are Blurring the Work-Life
Boundary
“I think… mobile technology…basically chains you to your
job. You don’t have separaton anymore.” Senior consultant,
consultng organizaton
“… there is a constant expectaton that I am connected …
any tme between 7 am and 10 pm … if you respond to one
email at 8 pm then you are probably expected to respond to
another at 8:30.” Director, consultng organizaton
“… there are new apps—more like instant messaging—
[that] we now have on our phone, so people don’t even
know if I’m on my computer or my phone. And you are
always online … so I am online at midnight, my phone
vibrates. It is like a text message, except it uses the same
applicaton we use at work. Email is bad enough, but now
you can just instant message people, and they don’t know
what device they are instant messaging [to].” Manager,
global sofware company
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Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile Technologies to Minimize Work/Life Balance Impacts
Three Perspectives of WorkLife Relationships
There is general agreement among researchers
and academics that work and personal life
represent two different domains of an individual.
Like geographical areas, these domains also have
“boundaries,” at least in the minds of individuals.
Individuals tend to “idiosyncratically connect”
these two domains, which means their “mental
boundaries” between them to a great extent
determine how they cope with conflicts between
the demands of the two domains, and how much
they are able to concentrate within these domains
and move between them.10
The existing literature on WLB in traditional
organizations identifies several perspectives that
individuals may hold about the relationships
between work and personal life.11 BOur data
supports three perspectives found in the
literature-—compartmentalized, overlapping and
encompassing—each of which is described below.
10 Ashforth, B. E., Kreiner, G. E. and Fugate, M. “All in a day’s
work: Boundaries and micro role transitions,” The Academy of
Management Review (25:3), 2000, pp. 472-491.
11 Guest, D. “Human Resource Management, Corporate
Performance and Employee Wellbeing: Building the Worker into
HRM,” Journal of Industrial Relations (44:3), 2002, pp. 335-358.
These three perspectives are the end and middle
points of a continuum of work-life relationships
(see Figure 1).
Compartmentalized Perspective
People holding the compartmentalized
perspective demand, or prefer, a total separation
of work and personal life, and any spillover of
work into personal life is regarded as undesirable
or even unacceptable. However, the need for
“speed of response/reaction” now dominates
much of knowledge workers’ daily working life.
This means that knowledge workers who hold
the compartmentalized perspective will strive
harder—and probably unsuccessfully—to keep
the work and personal life domains separate. One
of our interviewees put it like this:
“I want a 9 to 5 job. I don’t care if I don’t get
promoted in five years … I’ll do whatever
you give me between 9 and 5. Don’t give
me an assignment outside of that.” IT

documentation
organization

specialist,

consulting

Others indicated their yearning for a
psychological separation between work and
personal life, as described by an IT contractor
providing consulting services:
“To me it’s being able to let go at the end of
the day and 100% invest my concentration,
my time, my happiness into my family or
leisure activity, or hobby or flat [apartment]
where I’m not thinking about work to any
degree.”
Knowledge workers who hold the
compartmentalized perspective tend to see
personal life as primary and work as secondary.
Most recognize the utility of work, which they
view as the means to living a good life because,
in return for their sacrifices, they have the
means to support their personal aspirations, a
certain life style and their hobbies. One of our
interviewees (a senior consultant at a major U.S.
consulting company) told us that his passion is
to be a photographer (rather than a consultant).
He chose consulting as a profession primarily for
the money it provides. For him, the compensation
from work enabled him to lead a more satisfying
life, and he preferred a limited intrusion of work
into his life.
Box 2. How Mobile Technologies
Can Feed Personal Compulsions
“I make the mistake that I think many people [make] of
checking work email at 11 pm when I am about to get
ready for bed, and [fnd] something jarring in [an] email.
I kick myself: ‘why did I do that?’” Former CIO, healthcare
organizaton
“… sometmes you’re just waitng for [an] important email
… and you want to check and make sure everything’s okay.
But the bad thing is, when your phone beeps at 3 am … you
want to check it out. You have to break out of that [habit] …
otherwise you are a slave to [the technology].” IT documentaton specialist, consultng organizaton
“If you talk about work-life balance, I don’t actually have
any. I think a smartphone…a PDA, a Blackberry is actually
decreasing work-life balance.” Senior IT consultant, consulting organizaton
“… people don’t want to get a Blackberry. They say, ‘The
moment you’re using the Blackberry, you’re working 24
hours.’” IT documentaton specialist, consultng organizaton
“[Working] 16-18 hours [a day] took a hit on my personal
life and health and every aspect of it …” Sofware engineer,
sofware development company
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Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile Technologies to Minimize Work/Life Balance Impacts
Several of our interviewees even felt that their
work was a burden, and was preventing them
from achieving what they truly desired as human
beings. For example, they mentioned that work
demands had caused them and their colleagues
to give up their hobbies and had harmed their
health. In one case, work demands had resulted in
divorce and loss of meaning in life.
Other factors that determine a knowledge
worker’s perspective on the work-life relationship
include an individual’s stage of life, career
ambition and job characteristics. For example,
our interviews revealed that individuals whose
careers had plateaued were more likely to regard
work as a separate part of life. And individuals
with significant family responsibilities (e.g.,
especially women with young children) are more
likely to hold the compartmentalized perspective.
Compartmentalized Perspective: Mobile
Technology Use Patterns. Because people who
hold the compartmentalized perspective see a
clear boundary between work and personal life,
they view mobile technologies as yet another
tool to get their work done efficiently, but do not
voluntarily use mobile devices for work purposes
after hours. They tend to manually disable certain
functions of mobile devices (e.g., turning off
emails) after hours or during weekends so that
they can “switch off” from work, focus on their
personal life and have “peace of mind.” Some in
this category even perceive mobile technologies
as a tool that others can use to track them.
Indeed, some interviewees said that they chose
not to get a work phone because they did not
want colleagues to contact them, or did not want
even to be aware of work-related issues after
hours:
“I was one of the last people … to get a
smartphone, because I didn’t want 24×7
email. When I left work, that was that.
I didn’t check anything, I didn’t look at
anything.” Consultant, consulting company
Overlapping Perspective
The overlapping perspective of the worklife relationship implies that a clean separation
of work and personal life domains is neither
feasible nor necessarily desirable. As such, this
perspective is more consistent with the current
working environment of knowledge workers.
Individuals who hold this perspective assume that
although the two domains may have “physical
and temporal boundaries,” there are “emotional
and behavioral” overlaps between the two, and
that this overlap leads to each domain affecting
the other in positive or negative ways.12 Although
individuals who hold the overlapping perspective
may accept the overlap, they tend to face greater
degrees of conflict as they attempt to balance the
two domains.
With knowledge work, spillover between work
and life domains is unavoidable and sometimes
even desirable. Many knowledge workers who
hold the overlapping perspective seem to view
work as a necessary aspect of a fulfilling life.
However, they are keen to limit the importance
of work to avoid being totally swamped by it,
or to prevent it hijacking their life goals: Our
interviewees suggested different percentages
of work (e.g., 40%) that they could comfortably
accommodate within their personal lives:
12 Clark, S. C. “Work/Family Border Theory: A New Theory of
Work/Family Balance,” Human Relations (53:6), 2000, pp. 747-770.
Figure 1: Continuum of Individuals’ Perception on Work-Life Relationship

Life Work
Compartmentalized Overlapping Encompassing
Life Work Life/Work

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Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile Technologies to Minimize Work/Life Balance Impacts
“Work is important to me, and I get
satisfaction from work, but I also put lots of
emphasis on my life outside of work too. So
I don’t feel like I need to work 24×7. There
are times when I can just put it away and
that’s it.” Consultant, consulting company
People holding the overlapping perspective
don’t mind spillovers of work into personal life,
but they usually have a “zone of tolerance”—
i.e., the amount of work-related incursions
they would readily allow into their personal
life domains beyond normal work hours. The
tolerance level is fairly elastic, and depends on
factors such as the nature and urgency of the
work concerned, the individual’s motivation (e.g.,
financial or career aspirations) and stage of life,
whether the individual is dealing with additional
family-related responsibilities at the time, and
whether the line manager consultatively made
an attempt to harmonize the additional work
demands with the personal circumstances.
We found that about 60% of our interviewees
fell into the overlapping perspective category
because of the nature of their job requirements as
well as the high level of connectivity enabled by
mobile technology. With increased globalization
and offshoring, it is not uncommon for knowledge
workers such as IT professionals to have to
collaborate with individuals across different time
zones, making it much more difficult to have
a clear boundary between work and personal
life. Moreover, knowledge workers in important
roles or with career growth aspirations are often
expected not to openly prioritize personal time
over work time. In some companies, for example,
it would become an issue if employees routinely
chose not to respond to emails after hours.
Overlapping Perspective: Mobile
Technology Use Patterns. People holding the
overlapping perspective appear to have mixed
feelings about the use of mobile technologies. On
the one hand, they have the urge to constantly
check their emails so they can attend to urgent
issues or, at the least, maintain awareness of
developments. On the other hand, they feel the
need to limit their use of mobile technologies
when the work starts making significant
invasions into their personal life.
Some knowledge workers are happy to allow
spillovers as long as they are compensated:
“[Being contacted by phone over the
weekends doesn’t happen] a lot. If [it
did], it would irritate me … It doesn’t feel
like an invasion to me, because I feel I
am compensated for that … I feel I get
compensated well enough for that, but I
think the downside is I am never refreshed.”
Security administrator, higher education
organization
Others tolerate spillovers because they derive
inherent satisfaction from work and from being
valued members of their teams. For them, mobile
technologies serve as a tool to keep them aware of
what is going on and also help them to voluntarily
attend to urgent work after hours:
“I like to see what is going on, I like to see
my emails are coming through, but I also
don’t feel compelled that I have to respond
to everything, that I have to really read
everything in detail. I can kind of observe
it … For the most part, I like to be aware,
but when it is outside [business] hours, I
don’t necessarily feel compelled to have
to respond to everything.” Consultant,
consulting company
Encompassing Perspective
With the encompassing perspective of
the work-life relationship, the entirety of an
individual’s life is completely encompassed
within his/her work domain, and success in the
work domain equates to success in the personal
life domain. Individuals who hold this perspective
do not see boundaries that separate work and
personal life, and often embrace the positives that
work brings to their non-work life. They prioritize
work over personal and family commitments,
filling their personal life with their hectic, often
self-defined work schedules. Integration (as
opposed to separation) of the work and personal
life domains seems to be natural for these
individuals.
One of our interviewees provided an
interesting historical justification for the
integration of work and personal life:
“The concept of strict separation of work
and personal life is really [a modern]
phenomenon. If you look back [in history]
people’s work and home life were fully
integrated. If you lived in the United States,
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Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile Technologies to Minimize Work/Life Balance Impacts
[every] small town and village [had its own]
blacksmith, doctor [and other] professions
… they [worked] when other people in
the town needed them. It’s only [since]
the industrial revolution and formation
of offices [that] people left their home
environment [to go to work]. So, I think
what we are seeing now is the potential of
swinging back with technology-mediated
work [to a] fully integrated [work/personal
life environment].” Former CIO, healthcare
organization
The encompassing perspective is often held
by individuals, who are driven to succeed or
progress rapidly in the organization. Many
of these don’t particularly feel the need to
compartmentalize their work and personal life
or to choose personal time over work time. For
them, nothing is more important than work. In a
sense, they could be classified as individuals who
live to work. Indeed, some see living to work as
the most productive way to spend their time at
their particular phase of life. Others are driven by
their aspiration of having successful careers. The
views on WLB from our interviewees who hold
the encompassing perspective are set out in Box
3.
In many of the firms our interviewees worked
for, a large proportion of jobs simply require
employees to work long hours and to be available
24×7 to engage with work-related issues. In such
situations, people are forced to adopt the “live to
work” mode because of the characteristics and
responsibilities of their jobs.
Individuals who are just starting out on their
careers in highly competitive companies are more
likely to hold the encompassing perspective,
at least until they feel they are established and
perceive that they are starting to add value to the
company. Likewise, individuals who see growth
opportunities if they excel in a particular phase of
their career tend to let work dominate their lives.
Encompassing Perspective: Mobile
Technology Use Patterns. People holding
the encompassing perspective of the worklife relationship have a predominantly positive
view of mobile technologies, because these
technologies support their work styles by
providing 24×7 connectivity. Use of mobile
technologies enables them to integrate work into
their lives because they can work anywhere (and
whenever) they want:
“… it is simpler and easier to get connected,
be connected and stay connected for those
of us who have tendencies to live that way
anyway … just like a laptop frees you from
a desktop computer, enables you to move
around, a smartphone or iPad frees you
from the laptop … So for example, I can go to
my son’s gym class and yet I can actually do
a little bit work on my iPad while he’s there.”
Product manager, software development
company
Another interviewee told us:
“We never really ever have to disconnect. So
if I am at the gym, I will check my phone.
Then if I have an email, I will stop running
and respond … I usually just check my email
whenever… no cut-off line at night.” Senior
manager, software development company
Interactions Between
People with Different WLB
Perspectives
Given that individuals often need to work with
colleagues who hold different WLB preferences,
we investigated the problems and challenges
that may arise when people involved in an
interaction hold different preferences. One of our
interviewees told us:
Box 3. WLB Views of Those Holding the Encompassing Perspective
“I am really focused on my career. I feel like I am doing
really good, so I am trying to hit when the iron is hot, so
that’s where I am right now … work as life. I am trying to
take advantages of the opportunites in front of me.” Senior
program manager, global sofware company
“For me, [work] is life. I am enjoying my work, and I like
pressure … I like challenges.” Manager, sofware development company
“To me, life means life within the company … while working
… you don’t have any life that is traditonally defned. But
we have life while working … [but a] compromised one,… If
we want to succeed within the company, we fnd kind of a
compromised way to enjoy life while working … life seems
to be realized or vitalized within the workplace without …
family.” VP, Korean consultng frm
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Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile Technologies to Minimize Work/Life Balance Impacts
“I think there is a major difference between
[people who] value work-life balance
[differently]. I think that [difference]
can cause some friction. [On the other
hand], if two people have the same views
[on work-life balance], that may cause
some synergies.” Owner of a small web
development firm
He also mentioned that he “felt guilty” for
trying to balance his work and life whenever he
worked with team members and managers who
“live to work.”
Another interviewee highlighted the
challenges he had faced when working with
colleagues who hold different WLB perspectives:
“The people who will always put life ahead
of work [i.e., who approach their work as]
‘I will get to it when I get to it’ [tend to] put
additional stress on the rest of the team
… trying to achieve a deadline.” Project
manager, consulting company
Along the same lines, a senior manager of
a global software company, who considered
himself as holding the encompassing perspective,
talked about his frustrations of working with
team members who sought to compartmentalize
their work and personal life domains or
prioritized personal time over work. He said
their attitudes “drove me crazy.” However, he
also sensed that he was paying a price for his
attitudes and perceived that he “turned people
off” and was starting to “step on people’s toes.”
Our interviews suggest that a preference
for the compartmentalized perspective often
signifies to others a lack of motivation and
commitment: A Finland-based manager at a
global IT company described people who hold
this perspective of WLB as follows:
“[People holding the compartmentalized
perspective] feel very agitated about the
fact that they need to go the extra mile. For
example, if I was setting up a meeting with
[them]… at 7 pm, they will totally reject
me. They will even contact HR and say,
‘This guy [i.e., the manager] is crazy … no
way, I am not going to do that’.”
Strategies for Addressing
Mobile Technology
Use WLB Issues
From our interviews, we distilled four
strategies for addressing the WLB issues related
to usage of mobile technologies. These are
summarized in Table 1 and described below.
Compensation Strategy
One straightforward strategy that has been
adopted by many companies is compensation.
In pursuing this strategy, the company attempts

Table 1: Summary of the Four Strategies
Generic Strategy for Addressing WLB Concerns	Summary
Compensaton	Setng up incentves that are provided to employees as a fair exchange for allowing a specifc (and limited) amount of work to spill over to their personal life domain.
Negotaton	Harmonizing, through consultaton and partcipaton, a) the demands of the job, which employees are intrinsically motvated to successfully accomplish, and b) their personal life requirements.
Integraton	Enabling employees to seamlessly move between work and personal life domains at all tmes.
Protecton	Isolatng employees from colleagues/managers who see integraton of work and life as an imperatve for accomplishing work efciently and eﬀectvely, and who may thus choose to impose this way of life on colleagues and subordinates.

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to compensate employees for the sacrifices
they make to get the work done. This strategy
is applied to all employees regardless of their
role, gender, stage in life or circumstances.
Typically, compensation is in the form of
monetary rewards or time off. However, one
view of this strategy is that it does not really
address the work-life imbalance but merely
provides incentives for employees to overlook
the problem. One of our interviewees referred to
this strategy as applying a “band aid.”
Our interviews also indicated that the
compensation strategy is effective only for
certain types of individuals—only those in
it for the money. Those who are financially
“comfortable” would not be helped by this
strategy. Managers should therefore not
assume that spillovers will be tolerated by such
employees on a continued basis just because they
are being compensated.
One of our interviewees reflected on the
indiscriminate use of the compensation strategy
to stretch employees’ work time (through, for
example, expectations about employees’ mobile
connectivity):
“No, I don’t think that [compensation]
works … it is a leadership cop-out … It is
just an easy thing to do. I think that weak
leadership will try that sort of thing …
I think the most effective way from the
business perspective is to be very clear
about what the objectives are, and define
what those are and give people the
flexibility to meet those objectives.” Former
CIO, healthcare organization
Even though some managers considered
the compensation strategy to be ineffective, we
believe it is relevant for knowledge workers
who view work and life as compartmentalized
but can be motivated by financial or other
incentives to tolerate spillovers. This strategy is
also relevant to knowledge workers who view
work as overlapping with life, to provide them
with reassurance that the company appreciates
their contributions, which might involve working
beyond the formal working hours.
Negotiation Strategy
The above quote from a former CIO in the
“compensation strategy” section indicates
that negotiation is a better strategy than
compensation for managing spillovers of
work into employees’ personal lives. The
negotiation strategy recognizes the fact that it
is not possible to achieve success in the current
environment by maintaining rigid boundaries
between work and personal life domains. Yet,
unlike the compensation strategy, which tends
to demand intense sacrifice in exchange for
something attractive, the negotiation strategy
takes a more sympathetic and humanistic
approach. Specifically, the goal is to limit the
stress by taking into consideration the personal
situations and capabilities of the individual,
and harmonizing them with the demands of the
project.
For example, the project manager may
designate different team members to be “on call”
and to monitor (late into the evening) the project
status in offshore locations on different days,
based on their family-related commitments (e.g.,
child’s soccer game) on given days. Likewise, the
manager may grant a long-overdue two week
vacation to an employee with the understanding
that he or she would check emails each morning
and be available to attend the Monday morning
coordination meeting remotely. One of our
interviewees explained:
“… We do this for groups across many
different types of dimensions, not just
mobile devices and work-life balance …
I always work with teams to go through
a very intentionally facilitated process
to define how we want to work together
as a team.” Former CIO, healthcare
organization
From our interviews, we conclude that
managers should consider devising mechanisms
for allowing employees to dynamically provide
input on their preferences and circumstances.
For the negotiation strategy to be effective,
employees will need to let their stakeholders—
managers, colleagues, clients, etc.—know how
much overlap between work and personal life
domains they are prepared to tolerate in terms of
mobile connectivity and responsiveness.
Note that the negotiation strategy requires
significant preparation on the part of
management, in terms of understanding different
employees’ preferences and constraints, and
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Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile Technologies to Minimize Work/Life Balance Impacts
then matching the project requirements with the
preferences. Only then can harmony be achieved
between work and life for the employees.
Our research shows that this strategy is
usually implemented by mid-level managers (e.g.,
project managers or team leaders) in the form
of informal procedures, norms, and rules. We
believe that a higher level of commitment and
trust among the various stakeholders is needed
as well.
Given the informal nature of policy
implementation in this area, the key to an
effective negotiation strategy is for managers
to create an environment where colleagues are
respectful of each other’s work-life boundaries.
One of our interviewees highlighted this issue:
“ … if you send an email [to your staff] and
you are a very high [level] partner … and
they see it at 10 pm at night, they are going
to think they need to respond. And it could
be the only reason it went out is because
you just landed somewhere. But you never
said that … So having a line in the email that
says, ‘No need to respond to this tonight’
[would be] really [helpful]. [Senior people
should] remember that not everybody is
[necessarily] connected … as [they] are… I
think it would be [good] to have a policy
[on this]…” Director, consulting firm
The negotiation strategy is relevant
for knowledge workers who view work as
compartmentalized from life as well as for those
who view work as overlapping with life.
Integration Strategy
Many forward-looking companies are openly
acknowledging that achieving a work-life balance
may not be a viable goal, and are thus promoting
the idea of integration:
“We’re moving away from that term
[WLB]… We now talk about work-life
integration. Nobody talks about worklife balance anymore.” Manager, global IT
company in India
The integration strategy implies that work
and personal life domains are so interconnected
that they become inseparable, and the
boundaries between them become meaningless.
This strategy focuses on creating an inviting
environment where employees experience life in
the workplace, thereby allowing those who are
sufficiently motivated or committed to immerse
themselves in work without feeling they are
missing out on life outside their organization.
One of our respondents from a leading Aerospace
company described the integration strategy that
one of her friends in an innovative IT company
really liked:
“They get a lot of perks to be able to work
there, they have … more flexibility. One
[perk] I would be really excited about is
you can bring your dog to work and have
periodic breaks during the day to walk [the
dog]. [It means you have some] work-life
balance during work.”
However, our interviewees made it clear that
the integration strategy is not for everyone; only
those who hold the encompassing perspective
can function and thrive in an environment that
promotes integration. The integration strategy
is therefore appropriate only for environments
where the encompassing perception of the worklife relationship is predominant.
Protection Strategy
Given that the integration strategy will likely
not be appropriate for a significant proportion of
knowledge workers, there is a need to separate
these individuals from those who see integration
of work and personal life, with its 24×7
connectivity and responsiveness, as essential for
accomplishing work efficiently and effectively,
and who may therefore want to impose this
way of living on others. We refer to this as the
protection strategy.
Protection has two aspects: first, the
organization must attempt to ensure that the
expectation of sustained (even if voluntary)
connectivity does not affect the health and
personal well-being of valuable individuals,
including those who hold the encompassing
perspective. This can be done through corporate
wellness programs tailor-made for each
individual. Second, the organization must enact
policies that protect subordinates and colleagues
who do not relate to the integration of work
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Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile Technologies to Minimize Work/Life Balance Impacts
and life domains, from individuals who want to
impose their encompassing perspective on them.
In other words, the protection strategy is
relevant for all knowledge workers. Managers
need to protect those knowledge workers who
view work as encompassing life from burning out
while also protecting other knowledge workers
who don’t hold this perspective of the work-life
relationship from being forced to work this way.
Above in Table 2, we have indicated the level
of relevance for each of the four strategies to
individuals with different perspectives of the
work-life relationship.
Guidelines for Managing a
Mobile Workforce
The discussion above implies that there is
no universal solution to the work-life balance
challenges faced by a mobile workforce because
different people hold different perspectives on
work-life relationships and hence have different
preferences on how to handle conflicts between
work and personal life domains. However,
this does not mean that organizations should
ignore the problem. Rather, there is a need for
a range of solutions that are sensitive to the
needs of specific situations and preferences of
knowledge workers. Though it is not necessary
to put in place a tailor-made plan for each
individual (indeed, this would be impractical),
organizations do need policies that are sensitive
to the range of reactions to WLB issues arising
from the use of mobile technologies. The policies
should also take account of how individuals’
attitudes to WLB vary by gender, organizational
role and the stage of life they are currently in.
Based on our interviews with a broad range
of IT professionals (whom we believe are
representative of knowledge workers in general),
we provide six guidelines for managing a mobile
workforce in a way that minimizes work-life
conflicts.
Guideline 1. Acknowledge that
Individuals Perceive the Relationship
Between Work and Life Very
Differently
WLB is not a universal concept, as evident
from the fact that different individuals
hold different perspectives of the work-life
relationship (see Figure 1). Work can be viewed
as being separate from life, overlapping with
life or even as encompassing life. Moreover,
individuals shift their perspective of WLB over
their professional lifetime depending on their
stage in life, or as their personal circumstances
and aspirations change over time. Even though
we had a limited number of interviewees in
countries other than the U.S., we feel comfortable
in asserting that the basic issues concerning
mobile technologies and WLB are consistent
across the globe. Our results did not reveal any
significant cultural differences in how knowledge

Table 2: Matching Management Strategies with the Work-Life Relationship Perspectives
Perspectve of Work-Life Relatonship	Compensaton	Negotaton	Integraton	Protecton
Work as Segmented from Life	H	H	L	H
Work as Part of Life	M	H	M	H
Work as Encompassing Life	M	M	H	M
H=High Relevance; M=Medium Relevance; L=Low Relevance

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Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile Technologies to Minimize Work/Life Balance Impacts
workers perceived the impact of mobile
technologies on their WLB.
Guideline 2. Universal Strategies for
the Use of Mobile Technologies are
Unlikely to be Effective
It is helpful for managers to be cognizant of
how their employees view work in the context
of their lives. In other words, when feasible,
managers need to place each employee (at a
given point of time) on the continuum shown in
Figure 1. Indeed, our findings may provide an
explanation of why practitioners and academics
alike report that universal organizational
policies fail to tackle work-life imbalance.
Given the vast differences in how different
individuals perceive the relationship between
work and life, universal strategies for managing
the use of mobile technologies are unlikely to
be effective. Knowledge workers (apart from
those who view their work and personal life
domains as completely separate) appear to have
a zone of tolerance with respect to their WLB.
For example, individuals positioned near the
middle point of the continuum (i.e., those who
view work as a valuable facet of life) cannot be
infinitely pushed with respect to their work.
While such individuals may indeed allow a
certain level of overlap between their work and
personal life domains to get the job done, there
is an upper limit to how much they can tolerate.
Sustained periods of higher-than-normal
spillover of work into personal life, even when
well-compensated, may lead to breakdowns in
an employee’s personal relationships or to health
issues, and, consequently, to increased staff
turnover and/or lower productivity.
Guideline 3. Strategies to Meet the
Organization’s Overall Mobility Goals
Should Cause Minimal Work-Life
Conflict for Individual Employees
Once organizations recognize the different
perspectives of the work-life relationship among
their employees, they can focus on choosing
the appropriate strategy for managing mobile
technologies usage—compensation, negotiating,
integration or protection. For example,
employees who see work as encompassing life
should be managed using tactics of integration—
in terms of technology infrastructure, policies
and nature of responsibilities assigned—that are
geared toward allowing them to move seamlessly
across work and personal life domains.
Guideline 4. Mobile Technologies
Should be Implemented Consistent
with Knowledge Workers’ WLB
Perspectives
Organizations need to encourage innovative
design and use of mobile technologies while
being sensitive to the differences in employees’
perspectives of the work-life relationship.
For example, individuals, who view work and
personal life as compartmentalized could benefit
from having two mobile devices, one paid for by
the company, which they switch off after work
hours, and another self-funded device that they
would use at other times (if they so desired).
Given that carrying two phones is inconvenient,
organizations could consider deploying devices
that can use or switch between two SIM cards,
one for business purposes (with charges paid for
by the employer) and the other for personal use.
For individuals who hold the overlapping
perspective, and thus feel the need to constrain
the compulsion to be connected all the time,
organizations can encourage the use of apps
with the default capability to switch off
connections to corporate email and data server
at predetermined times. On days the individual
is required to maintain mobile connectivity
beyond work time, the app would manage the
individual’s connections, according to his or her
personal-life constraints, and keep track of times
and the specific official activities in which the
individual may have participated. Such an app
could generate periodic reports, which could
serve as the basis for recognition or additional
compensation.
Individuals who hold the encompassing
perspective would welcome mobile devices
that could seamlessly integrate work into their
personal lives. Organizations should ensure
that these individuals are able to access and
manipulate corporate data and applications from
their mobile devices anywhere and anytime,
thereby increasing their productivity. Finally, the
policies many organizations have prohibiting
the use of company mobile devices for personal
activities are obviously inconsistent with the
needs of those who hold the encompassing
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Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile Technologies to Minimize Work/Life Balance Impacts

perspective.
reformulated.

Such

policies

should

Guideline 5. Effective Management of
Mobile Technology Usage Requires the
Entire Organization to Work Together
Our research reveals that optimal mobile
technology usage—aimed at keeping
productivity high, while causing minimal damage
to WLB—requires organizational management,
mobile workers, and even mobile technology
designers and IT resource managers to work
together, consistent with the overall strategy
deemed appropriate for the individual. Consider,
for example, individuals who are open to
spillovers because they receive compensation or
have a need to contribute to the team’s success.
Managers should encourage their use of mobile
technologies to facilitate the flexibility of work
schedules, while keeping in mind that there are
limits to the spillovers employees will tolerate,
especially over a significant period of time.
Guideline 6. WLB-related Strategies
and Suggestions Should be Applied
with Caution
There was no evidence in our study to suggest
that diverse cultures have a significant impact
on individuals’ perceptions of the work-life
relationship or their views on mobile technology
usage. However, different countries do have their
own labor laws and the social contract between
employees and employers, which can potentially
have implications for how WLB-related issues
need to be handled. This requires management,
especially of companies that operate globally, to
apply the strategies and suggestions we propose
in this article with caution, taking account
of the particular legal, regulatory, and social
environment in which they are being applied.
Concluding Comments
The findings of our research suggest that
effective use of mobile technologies requires
an understanding of the different perspectives
that an individual may hold on the relationship
between work and personal life. The
management strategies we have identified for
addressing the work-life balance issues arising
from the use of mobile technologies need to
be matched to these perceptions at both the
team and individual levels. Choosing the most
appropriate strategy will maximize productivity
while allowing individuals to achieve the optimal
work-life balance for their particular perception
of the relationship between work and personal
life.
Appendix: Research
Methodology
This article is based on data collected
between 2009 and 2012 as part of a larger
project, partially funded by the National Science
Foundation, an independent U.S. Federal agency.
We sought to investigate work-life balance issues
of IT professionals (especially those engaged
in distributed work) in China, Denmark, India,
South Korea, the U.K. and the U.S. Specifically,
we interviewed 61 workers at different levels
(ranging from analyst to vice-president) in a
variety of companies, including Microsoft (at
various locations), IBM, Nokia, LG, Boeing,
Adobe, Hewlett-Packard, BP, KPMG, Deloitte,
Slalom Consulting, PricewaterhouseCoopers and
a Hitachi joint-venture company. For this article,
we focused on the use of mobile technologies and
their impact on WLB based on 21 of the larger
set of interviews. The demographic information
on these 21 interviewees is provided below.
We would like to acknowledge the fact that
the sample of respondents for this study is
primarily U.S.-based. However, we also included
material from six interviews in Asia and two in
Europe because they featured themes relevant
to the topic of WLB and mobile technology.
Interestingly, we found no appreciable difference
between the perspectives of the U.S. respondents
and their Asian and European counterparts.
Our primary source of data was the
unstructured and semi-structured interviews we
conducted. Our conversations with respondents
on mobile technologies and WLB implications
were guided by the following broad questions:
1. What is the nature of your role?
i. Within your organization?
ii. Within your group?
iii. Nature of tasks you are mainly
engaged in?
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Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile Technologies to Minimize Work/Life Balance Impacts
2. Do you use mobile devices in your daily
work? If so, how?
3. How does the use of mobile devices impact
your work?
4. In your opinion, what is the relationship
between work and personal life? What is
your definition of work-life balance? (part
of, opposed to, as life, tool for)
5. Do you see people around you who have
different perceptions of the work-life
relationship?
6. Does the use of mobile devices for workrelated purpose impact your personal life?
If so, how?
7. Do you use mobile devices in your personal
life? If so, how?
8. Do you have some suggestions or
recommendations for mobile device
designers?
9. Do you have some suggestions or
recommendations for your company about
employees’ use of mobile devices?
10. Do you have any concerns about work-life
balance?
11. What other factors influence your work-life
balance?
However, there were some variations across
the interviews in terms of the issues discussed,
Information Regarding the Interviewees

Interviewee	Industry	Positon/responsibility	Gender	Country
1	Telecoms	Project Manager	M	Finland
2	Consultng	VP	M	Korea
3	Consultng	Senior Manager	M	Korea
4	Consultng	Partner	F	Korea
5	Sofware Development	Manager	M	Denmark
6	Sofware Development	Desk Manager; Testng	F	India
7	Consultng	IT Documentaton Specialist	F	India
8	Sofware Development	Internal Installaton and Licensing	M	India
9	Health Care	Former CIO	M	U.S.
10	Consultng	Senior Consultant	M	U.S.
11	Consultng	Director	F	U.S.
12	Sofware Development	Senior Manager	F	U.S.
13	Aerospace	Manager	F	U.S.
14	Consultng	Senior Manager	F	U.S.
15	Web Development	Self employed	M	U.S.
16	Consultng	Project Manager	M	U.S.
17	Sofware Development	Senior Program Manager	M	U.S.
18	Sofware Development	Product Manager	M	U.S.
19	Consultng	Contractor	F	U.S.
20	Sofware Development	Sofware Engineer	M	U.S.
21	Higher Educaton	System Security Administrator	F	U.S.

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Managing Employees’ Use of Mobile Technologies to Minimize Work/Life Balance Impacts
in part due to the diverse set of research
questions we were seeking to address in the
larger study, the responsibilities and experiences
of our respondents, and evolution of our own
understanding of the WLB phenomenon over
time.
Finally, our data analysis approach can be
characterized as “interpretive,” meaning that we
sought to develop a holistic understanding of the
interviews, and to portray the perspectives of our
respondents within a coherent framework.13
About the Authors
Suprateek Sarker
Suprateek Sarker (sarkers@wsu.edu) is Philip
Kays Distinguished Professor of Information
Systems at Washington State University. He
is also a Chair of Technology & Information
Management at Royal Holloway, University of
London. His past work has been published in
numerous outlets, including MIS Quarterly,
Information Systems Research, Journal of the
MIS, Journal of the AIS, Decision Sciences, IEEE
Transactions on Engineering Management,
European Journal of Information Systems,
Information Systems Journal, Decision Support
Systems, Journal of Strategic Information Systems,
Information & Management, Communications of
the ACM, Communications of the AIS and Journal
of Academy of Marketing Science.
Xiao Xiao
Xiao Xiao (xiao_xiao@wsu.edu) is currently a
doctoral candidate of information systems at
Washington State University. Her dissertation
is focused on cloud-based information systems
adoption in non-profit organizations. Her
research interests include qualitative research
methodologies, IT innovations and work-life
balance issues triggered by mobile technology.
Her research has appeared or is forthcoming in
conference proceedings such as the International
Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), the
Americas Conference on Information Systems
and the Pacific Asia Conference on Information
Systems. She has been accepted as a contributor
to the ICIS 2012 Doctoral Consortium. Xiao will
13 Walsham, G. “Doing Interpretive Research,” European Journal
of Information Systems (15:3), 2006, pp. 320-330.
be joining the Copenhagen Business School in
January 2013.
Saonee Sarker
Saonee Sarker (ssarker@wsu.edu) is Chair of
the Department of Management, Information
Systems, and Entrepreneurship, and the Hubman
Distinguished Professor in MIS at Washington
State University. Her research focuses on
globally distributed teams and IT-enabled value
creation, and has been published in outlets such
as Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly,
Journal of the AIS, Journal of MIS, Decision
Sciences and Decision Support Systems. She
serves as an associate editor for Decision Sciences
Journal and Communications of the AIS, and is
also the principal investigator of an NSF grant
that was awarded to study work-life balance in
globally distributed software development teams.
Manju Ahuja
Manju Ahuja (manju.ahuja@louisville.
edu) is Professor and University Scholar at the
College of Business, University of Louisville.
She has previously held faculty positions at
Indiana, Florida State and Pennsylvania State
Universities. Her publications have appeared in
MIS Quarterly, Management Science, Information
Systems Research, Organization Science and many
other journals. She has been ranked among the
top 100 IS researchers worldwide by a variety of
sources. She has served in editorial roles at MIS
Quarterly and Information Systems Research. She
is actively involved in research on issues related
to healthcare IT, mobile technologies and worklife balance, and virtual communities and teams.
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