Dual Use of Mobile IT and Work-to-Life Conflict in the Context of IT Consumerization

Using the same technologies for both work and private life is an intensifying phenomenon. Mostly driven by the availability of consumer IT in the marketplace, individuals—more often than not—are tempted to use privately-owned IT rather than enterprise IT in order to get their job done. However, this dual-use of technologies comes at a price. It intensifies the blurring of the boundaries between work and private life—a development in stark contrast to the widely spread desire of employees to segment more clearly between their two lives. If employees cannot follow their segmentation preference, it is proposed that this misfit will result in work-to-life conflict (WtLC). This paper investigates the relationship between organizational encouragement for dual use and WtLC. Via a quantitative survey, we find a significant relationship between the two concepts. In line with boundary theory, the effect is stronger for people that strive for work-life segmentation.