Telework - Telenor

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40 of boundaries of here and there, of now and then, of public and private, of home and workplace. ICT causes a reduction in spatial and temporal order (Mante-Meijer et al., 1997 p. 15). The understanding of the distinctions between work and leisure in both time and place is brought into sharp focus when work is brought into the private sphere – homebased telework can therefore challenge the boundaries between work and leisure (Bakke, 1994a p. 17). Some of the homebased teleworkers experience this disruption between the public and the private sphere, and empirical studies in this field can explain how work influences the boundary between work and leisure. Organization of homebased telework Homebased telework combines different arenas in the everyday life of the individual. Homeworkers combine areas that are seen as separate, such as work/home, work life / domestic life and public/ private sphere (Salmi, 1997 p. 132–133). Just as with the freelance workers who have no decided work hours (Lie, 1994 p. 9), homeworkers usually have no agreements about how work from home should be regulated or organised. As Bakke states: “<strong>Telework</strong>ing is not a ‘pre-packaged’ way of organising work – there are several options and choices to be made, while there are relatively few traditions and regulations for this area of work.” (Bakke, 1997 p. 83.) Everyday life for the homeworker is not regulated in the same way as for those working in the employer’s office. For the ‘office worker’, the job is rooted in frames like laws, traditions and norms (Bakke, 1997 p. 86). This framework does not exist for the homebased teleworkers, and it is not obvious how they will organise their work and leisure at home or in the private sphere. In the public sphere and for the officeworkers, a framework of different agreements exists stating when and where the wage work should be done. The ‘normal’ way to organise work is that the employees carry out wage work in a private company or public department (Engelstad, 1991 p. 74), and use the private sphere, or his/her home for housework, leisure and domestic life. The homebased teleworkers do wage work in their own home – in the private sphere – where work and leisure are concentrated in the same place, a place normally used for leisure, and not for wage work. Homeworkers are not bounded by the same regulations and limitations as people working outside the home, and the homeworkers have to sort out their everyday life without these limitations (Haddon and Tucknutt, 1991). The first question in this article is to focus on how homeworkers organise their day, measuring how homeworkers are organised at home by studying the homebased teleworkers in relation to time and place. Through the empirical material and the homeworkers’ descriptions of when and where they work, their routines and breaks, I will discuss how homeworkers do boundary work. 4 Construction of boundaries Christena Nippert-Eng and Mary Douglas are both engaged in everyday life, in the content of the categories of work and leisure, among other things, and what these categories mean to us. Through their theories on boundaries, symbolic patterns and order it is possible to understand how the homeworkers do boundary work. In the boundary theory of Nippert- Eng we can see how employee’s working at the workplace are being categorised into the ideal types integrator and segmentator. Mary Douglas’ concept of dirt describes how order can be attained through the creation of symbolic patterns in the private sphere. Nippert-Eng: A sociological boundary theory Christena Nippert-Eng uses work and home as distinctions in the analysis of how workers construct boundaries between work and home. This article focuses on the areas of work and leisure within the private sphere. When work and leisure are located in the private sphere of the employee, cultural understandings of workplace in the public sphere are disrupted. It is the meeting between work- and leisure activities in the private sphere that makes the homeworkers’ boundary work between work and leisure interesting. On the background of the assumption that overlapping of boundaries are over- looked in studies of home and work (Nippert-Eng, 1996 p. 279), Nippert-Eng constructed a sociological boundary theory that shows how boundaries between different areas are being placed and transcended. The main purpose for Nippert- Eng is to understand how boundaries between work and leisure are being defined for each other. To create boundaries means that homeworkers maintain the categories of work and leisure, and the creation of boundaries are a mental activity being practised through different practical activities (Nippert-Eng, 1996 p. 7), such as when and where to work. The definition and experience of the categories of work and leisure can be viewed as a continuum where the ideal types integrator and segmentator represent the extremes (cf. Nippert-Eng, 1996 and Figure 2 below). Ideal typical representations are not descriptions, but models (Fivelsdal, 1979 p. X), which means cultivated and unreal categories. Therefore, integrators and segmentators are not personality types, but ways in which we classify things, actions and thoughts (Nippert-Eng, 1996 p. 17). Normally, people place themselves between the ideal types on the continuum, and no home worker is either integrator or segmentator. Through boundary work we place ourselves on the continuum (Nippert-Eng, 1996 p. 7). For the integrator, the categories of work and leisure are overlapping. The distinctions between home and work are limited, and home and work are one and the same. The segmentator feels that work and leisure are separate categories, and they separate strongly between work and home, and “everything belongs to work or home”. When the employees do some extra work at home in the evening they place themselves near the integrator-category. Through different boundary work, and through the typology integrator/segmentator, it is possible to see varying degrees of “publicity or privacy” connected to time and place for the employee, or the homeworker (Nippert-Eng, 1996). Integrator Segmentator Figure 2 Integrator and segmentator as extremes on the continuum Telektronikk 4.1999
Our understanding of home and work decides how we shape and experience our surroundings and the time we spend on activities of home and work (Nippert- Eng, 1996 p. 24). Nippert-Eng argues that the placement of boundaries takes place through the use of different ‘tools’; “... that is, one’s personal position along the integrator-segmentation continuum is highly dependent on three elements. The first is internalised, cultural images of ‘home’ and ‘work’. The second is unique permutations of social-structural constraints that emanate from both realms. The third is the personal practices through which we enact and elaborate images of these categories and situational constraints.” (Nippert-Eng, 1996 p. 6.) Nippert-Eng also asks what is the size of a category. The categories of work and leisure can be small or large, and they enlarge or contract over time (Nippert- Eng, 1996 p. 277), depending on who is understanding them. Boundaries will change depending on gender, family relations and way of living, among other things. This will affect homeworkers’ understanding of work and leisure (Nippert-Eng, 1996 p. 15, 36, 279). Depending on how we think, we place and transcend boundaries around the category of work. The boundaries will help us to separate one category from another (Zerubavel, 1991 p. 2). Through individual understanding and experience of the contents in the categories of work and leisure, homeworkers construct boundaries between these areas. Boundary work, or to construct a boundary, also deals with both placing them, and with getting over the boundaries (Nippert-Eng, 1996 p. 102). Nippert-Eng says that the transitions between two categories are decided from the similarity of the categories. Segmentators mean that work and leisure are different categories and move in a one-way direction between the categories (Nippert-Eng, 1996 p. 281). Nippert-Eng says: “The more we segment, for instance, the more our commuting routines depend on the direction of the commute. The more we integrate, the more irrelevant direction becomes and the less our commuting routines are a good prediction of where we’re going” (Nippert-Eng, 1996 p. 281). A segmentator “(...) must be something of a chameleon (...)” (Nippert-Eng, 1996 p. 102) to change the mental setting and Telektronikk 4.1999 to cross the boundaries between work and leisure. Integrators construct boundaries between work and leisure, which are two-way transitions (Nippert-Eng, 1996 p. 281). Integrators can ‘jump’ between work and leisure without problems, and it is impossible to tell whether they are on their way to work or leisure (Nippert-Eng, 1996). Mary Douglas: symbolic patterns create order Mary Douglas concerns herself about what makes our everyday life meaningful and what makes our thoughts clear. Douglas’ concept of dirt in her theory on order can be a useful framework to understand how things and activities, which belong to work, pollute the home because they, due to our cultural understandings, do not belong to the private sphere. Together with the typology of integrator and segmentator in the boundary theory presented by Nippert-Eng, Douglas’ concept of order can create an understanding of how homeworkers organise and construct boundaries. Douglas says that the membership in a society and in a culture tells individuals what belongs and what does not belong to a category. Through the concept of dirt Douglas shows how our classification of things creates symbolic patterns that we act towards. Distinctions such as black/ white, dirty/clean and work/home are categories that have a meaning and a uniform understanding among the people in a culture when we draw a dividing line between them (Whutnow, 1984 p. 82). The distinctions tell us when we have come across a boundary (Whutnow, 1984 p. 82), and Douglas wants to know when is something ‘clean’, and when is it ‘dirty’. Douglas means that it is the placement of the symbol or the thing that decides if it is dirty or clean, and illustrates this by an example where shoes are clean on the floor, but dirty on the table. This is how dirt is defined as “(...) matter out of place” (Douglas, 1990 p. 155). Through our thoughts we sort out the symbol that we think of as dirt. What is dirt “(...) is that which must not be included if a pattern is to be maintained” (Douglas, 1994 p. 41). Things and activities connected to the work at home are not dirt itself, but the placement of the things and activities makes them dirt. Therefore dirt can be seen as normal and functional. Douglas also says that dirt disrupts order (Douglas, 1994 p. 2), and in this way things and activities belonging to work are dirt when they are being placed in the kitchen, but are not dirt in the work place. The experience of dirt depends on the homeworker who places the things belonging to work, and their understanding of what is clean and dirty. Through Douglas’ concepts things and activities related to work in the private sphere can be seen as dirt that is being cleared when the homeworkers organise their everyday life. The way homeworkers place their working time during day and night, and their working place at home, can be seen as a clearing in the private sphere, so that the home is in a way so that the homeworkers understand the home as a category. Zerubavel calls the segmentator clean and the integrator unclean (Zerubavel, 1991 p. 37), and this statement can illustrate how the concepts of Douglas and Nippert-Eng can be put together. Through the concepts of Nippert-Eng it is possible to say that the less homeworkers see leisure and work as separate worlds, the less disorder they see when leisure and work overlap. A segmentating homeworker will se more dirt than the integrating homeworker, and the segmentating homeworker will use more time to clear up the home than the integrator (Nippert-Eng, 1996 p. 100, 102). To create order in existence we need to place things in symbolic patterns. In this cultural conditional symbolic pattern leisure belongs to the home and the private sphere, and work to the work place and the public sphere. Even if the boundaries in society get displaced, the homeworkers need to create order in the private sphere – order that includes both work and leisure. How homework creates order depends on each homeworker, but a separate work room and firm working time can be clearings that provide maintaining a symbolic pattern in the private sphere. Summing up the theoretical framework The common denominator for these two theories is the target of order in the private sphere. Through internal organising the homeworker will provide order at home. How order is understood is individually conditional. The same concerns 41
Page 2 and 3: Contents At the age of 95 and into
Page 4 and 5: 2 Telektronikk 4.1999
Page 6 and 7: 4 Telework research: Setting the sc
Page 8 and 9: 6 During the 1990s the focus was in
Page 10 and 11: 8 be internally conflicting. Howeve
Page 12 and 13: 10 The silent transformation of the
Page 14 and 15: 12 tions, telework became a favorit
Page 16 and 17: 14 Table 1 Categories of teleworker
Page 18 and 19: 16 120 100 25 20 15 10 80 60 40 20
Page 20 and 21: 18 The paradox is intriguing but al
Page 22 and 23: 20 The knowledge gap in the IT sect
Page 24 and 25: 22 Developing telework regulations
Page 26 and 27: 24 The International Labour Organiz
Page 28 and 29: 26 For the practice of telework, it
Page 30 and 31: 28 Julsrud, T, Opheim, H. 1998. Erf
Page 32 and 33: 30 as Toffler in the 1970s and 1980
Page 34 and 35: 32 Table 3 Proportion of time spent
Page 36 and 37: 34 (eg. whether it is seen as being
Page 38 and 39: 36 ence of ICTs. Individual use of
Page 40 and 41: 38 Huws, U, Korte, W, Robinson, S.
Page 44 and 45: 42 the understanding of work and le
Page 46 and 47: 44 for other activities than work,
Page 48 and 49: 46 Illustration 2 Why is boundary w
Page 50 and 51: 48 Flexible work and health ERIK BE
Page 52 and 53: 50 civil servants in jobs character
Page 54 and 55: 52 HIGH Decision Latitude (control)
Page 56 and 57: 54 Case La Dolce cooperativa A stud
Page 58 and 59: 56 productivity benefits. Policy de
Page 60 and 61: 58 Working with others: the virtual
Page 62 and 63: 60 try to co-ordinate their trips t
Page 64 and 65: 62 beginning, one of the teleworker
Page 66 and 67: 64 Telecottages and other work cent
Page 68 and 69: 66 • Place of purchase of commodi
Page 70 and 71: 68 too expensive to the organizatio
Page 72 and 73: 70 Toward increased organisational
Page 74 and 75: 72 Table 1 Telework and life form c
Page 76 and 77: 74 • Individual agreements concer
Page 78 and 79: 76 References Amin, A. Post-Fordism
Page 80 and 81: 78 • Intra-organisationel - Focus
Page 82 and 83: 80 Lack of physical proximity Less
Page 84 and 85: 82 • intended - a conversation in
Page 86 and 87: 84 Electronic team rooms The need f
Page 88 and 89: 86 transformation from hierarchy-bu
Page 90 and 91: 88 Proceedings from CSCW’96, (Cam
Page 92 and 93:
90 changed from being very optimist
Page 94 and 95:
92 Table 2 Inhabitants of Oslo and
Page 96 and 97:
94 Table 6 Reduction in total car j
Page 98 and 99:
96 Epilogue - “Confessions of a w
Page 100 and 101:
98 Telektronikk 4.1999
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Page 104 and 105:
102 PBX IP telephony software Phone
Page 106 and 107:
104 Control information Voice conne
Page 108 and 109:
106 Intelligent Network Management
Page 110 and 111:
108 the two standing working commit
Page 112 and 113:
110 References 1 Voice over IP Serv
Page 114 and 115:
Page 116 and 117:
114 Everything was easier before ..
Page 118 and 119:
116 IIA Internet Industry Associati
Page 120 and 121:
Page 122:
120 Engset was not afraid of long a
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