Communicating across the borders: managing work-life boundaries through communication in various domains

ABSTRACT

Communicating work issues at home and home issues at work, also known as across-the-border (ATB) communication, is a part of everyday work and family interaction. This study focuses on the concept of ATB communication, using Work/Family Border Theory, according to which the boundaries between work and private life are seen as negotiated and shaped through social interactions and practices. We argue that through ATB communication, and especially by focusing on what is shared and how, employees can manage boundaries and achieve work-life balance. Altogether, 32 informants, comprising journalists (N = 16) and their relational others (N = 16), were interviewed to investigate the role of ATB communication in employees’ work-life boundary management. The findings show that ATB communication entails discussions about responsibilities in different life domains and a search for support in demanding or complex work or private life situations. One feature of boundary management involves refraining from ATB communication in order to achieve a balance between work and life. The study extends existing knowledge of boundary management as a communicative process and offers important practical implications by highlighting the role of interpersonal relationships in boundary management practices and the quality of ATB communication in these relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Across-the-border communication
• borders
• boundaries
• boundary management
• work-family communication
• work-life boundary

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jonna Leppäkumpu

Jonna Leppäkumpu is a PhD student in the Department of Language and Communication Studies at University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her research interests include managing work-life boundaries as a communicative process, work-life negotiations and connectivity inglobal teams and in other distributed work arrangements.

Anu Sivunen

Anu Sivunen is a Professor of communication in the Department of Language and Communication Studies at University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her research focuses on communication processes in global teams and in other distributed work arrangements, workspaces, and the affordances of organizational communication technologies. Her work has appeared injournals from a variety of disciplines, such as the Academy of Management Annals, Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and Human Relations.