Organisational Structure, Boundaries and Space Essay

Organisational Structure, Boundaries and Space - Essay Example The boundaries between home and work are blurring. Today, workers want more flexibility and mobility as compared to the previous years. The increase in the Web 2.0 tools at the workplaces is contributing to the erosion of boundaries between social and work life. The technological developments, web presence and the social media are considered as the major factors contributing to the blurring boundaries between work and home. Adnerson argues that difficulty in managing work-home balance is increasing divorce rate because when couple experiences difficulties in managing their roles, they start confusion over changing gender roles which create problems between them. Actually individuals have different roles which they perform in the society. In the context of an organisation, the roles of individuals at workplace and home are of special interest. Edwards, R. J. and Rothbard (2002) argue that a dramatic increase has been seen in the research devoted to study the association between work a nd family life and a number of linking mechanisms have been also suggested to explain the nature of the relationship between work and family roles of an individual. Organisations have adopted various mechanisms to reconfigure the work and home roles, so that employees could be better able to achieve the balance. Boundaries between work and home have become significantly important because of the changing work patterns and organisational behaviour. Greenhaus and Singh have highlighted few major links which are usually parallel to work-home boundaries. These conflicts include conflict, accommodation, enrichment, compensation and segmentation. Work-family conflict is the incompatibility between the work roles and home roles and it may be because of the pressures from either of the domain. Work-family accommodation as defined by Lambert (1990, cited in Greenhaus and Singh, 2003) is the process through which people try to reduce their participation in one role to fulfil the demands of the other role. Work-family compensation as defined by Lambert (1990) and Zedeck (1992, cited in Greenhaus and Singh, 2003) is the attempt to seek satisfaction from one role by offsetting the dissatisfaction in other role. Another mechanism that links work and home is the work-family enrichment, in which roles of ind ividuals in one role support the role of individuals in the other role. Finally work-home segmentation separates the roles of individuals at work and home and it advocates that integrating the roles can create conflicts. Therefore, work and home roles are strongly linked with each other. Managing boundaries have become important for the companies because organisations seek to achieve maximum employee productivity and it is only possible of employees play their role more effectively and efficiently. All individuals have transitions in their roles of home, work and other places and the transitions are the boundary-crossing activities where one performs roles and enters and exists (Ashforth, Kreiner and Fugate, 2000). Ashforth, Kreiner and Fugate have considered these roles to be arrayed on a continuum which spans from high segmentation to high integration. Actually, Ashfort and his colleagues have argued that roles can be broadly categorised into two major groups. When the segmentatio n between roles is significant, the boundaries blur and the magnitude of change increases, thereby, making the boundary crossing more difficult. On the other hand, when the roles integration is significant, t