Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

When is a bed not a bed? Exploring the interplay of the material and virtual in negotiating home-work boundaries

When is a bed not a bed? Exploring the interplay of the material and virtual in negotiating home-work boundaries Thumbnail


Abstract

Working from home is often associated with possibilities of anytime-anyplace working and with a fusion of work and home. In this empirical paper, we explore how the sociomaterial contexts of home-working define and tether what is possible for home-workers in their negotiations with others. Drawing on qualitative data sets, Wengerian concepts are used by exploring the role of boundary objects and brokering in negotiating temporal and spatial boundaries around and across work and home. The home-workers’ bodies are shown to be the key boundary objects, through which technology objects and furniture objects are sometimes fused. Yet, such fusion is shown to be only temporary, always precariously situated and also mediated by identity-regulating norms and values of home-workers. The contribution of the paper is to highlight the limits of what is technologically possible by emphasising the role of the body and material objects in the home-working context.

Acceptance Date Jun 23, 2017
Publication Date May 27, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Culture and Organization
Print ISSN 1475-9551
Publisher Routledge
Pages 159-177
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2017.1349128
Keywords working from home; materiality; virtuality; boundary objects
Publisher URL http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14759551.2017.1349128

Files




Downloadable Citations