C74. Rice, R. E. (2017). Flexwork, boundaries, and work-family conflicts: How ICTs and work engagement influence their relationship. In G. Hertel, D. Stone, R. D. Johnson, & J. Passmore (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of the Internet at work (pp. 175-193).  London, UK: Wiley Blackwell Industrial & Organizational Psychology Series.

Flexwork involves workers having a choice in time, location, and duration of work-related tasks (Hill et al., 2008). Organizations have increasingly offered, and employees have increasingly used, flexwork options owing to organizational, technological, social, economic, and legislative forces (Kossek & Michel, 2010). The trend toward more flexible work arrangements involves transformations of work, office design, and work locations (Cowan & Hoffman, 2007; Felstead, Jewson, & Walters, 2005). Information and communication technologies, largely operating through the Internet and now wireless transmission, both facilitate and shape flexwork. Most flexwork would be impossible without the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), as they allow communication, collaboration, and use of resources across time, space, participants, and work–family boundaries. With this increase in the use and forms of flexwork come change in, and concerns about, boundaries, balance, and conflict between work, life, and family domains. Flexwork may benefit one domain while harming another, or require reconceptualization of behaviors and norms in one or more domains. Another primary shaper of and contributor to the rise of flexwork and associated work–family boundary, balance and conflict is the increasingly pervasive use of ICTs at work, home, and other times and places. ICTs play a central role in these developments and implications, but have not been much considered in the field of flexwork research.


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