The interplay between organizational polychronicity, multitasking behaviors and organizational identification: A mixed-methods study in knowledge intensive organizations☆
Introduction
The literature on multitasking and interruptions has significantly furthered our understanding on how individuals behave in multitasking environments (e.g. Salvucci and Taatgen, 2011) and react to interruptions (e.g. Grandhi and Jones, 2010, Trafton and Monk, 2007), on the antecedents of individual behaviors and management strategies (e.g. Mark et al., 2012), and on the consequences in terms of individual psychological states as well as group outcomes, such as individual overload (e.g. Wickens, 2008) or coordination (e.g. Perlow, 1999). However, a significant amount of this research, conducted in diversified fields such as human–computer interaction, computer-supported collaborative work, IS, and psychology has overlooked the role of the workplace context in the understanding of multitasking and interruptions and, in particular, has left us with a number of questions on how organizations influence their employees’ multitasking behaviors. Among the notable exceptions we find the seminal work by Perlow (1999) that shows how organizational norms regarding time use influence the organizational members interrupting behaviors, and the work by Dabbish et al. (2011) that shows how the organizational environment influences self-interruptions. The works in this line of research (see also Harr and Kaptelinin, 2007, Harr and Kaptelinin, 2012) started to uncover the role of organizational environments, but largely overlooked the importance that the individuals’ perceptions of the organizational context have in conditioning the way they work.
Organizations and the perceived demands that they entail play a fundamental role in individuals’ life and influence their behaviors because they desire to be evaluated positively and accepted by coworkers and organizational members at large (Blount and Leroy, 2007). Thus developing a more profound understanding of how individual multitasking behaviors are embedded in the interpretation of the organizational work context is of both theoretical and practical importance.
The aim of this paper is to explore how the individual interpretation of organizational context influences individual multitasking behaviors. Specifically, we will focus on how individuals perceive the organizational temporal norms and are attached to the organizations they work for. For organizations that face intensified competition and fast-paced environments, the management of temporal issues is of paramount importance (Ancona et al., 2001) and the way individuals perceive and experience time is central to groups and organizations’ functioning (Schein, 1992). Among the temporal-related organizational variables, we argue that organizational polychronicity, or the individual members’ perception of the organization’s time use preference (Slocombe and Bluedorn, 1999), plays a prominent role in influencing how people deal with multiple tasks. At the group or organizational level of analysis, polychronicity has been conceptualized as a dimension of culture (Bluedorn et al., 1999, Hall, 1959, Schein, 1992, Souitaris and Maestro, 2010) and it reflects the preference for the involvement of individuals or groups in several tasks simultaneously as opposed to a preference for completing tasks sequentially that, conversely, characterizes a monochronic orientation. Thus, organizational polychronicity refers to perceived organizational preferences about the sequencing of activities and reflects how organizations prefer to allocate one of the most precious resource of their members, that is their work time (Souitaris and Maestro, 2010).
Building on research on multitasking (e.g. Salvucci and Taatgen, 2011, Trafton and Monk, 2007) and time and polychronicity (e.g. Bluedorn et al., 1999, Hall, 1959, Hall, 1983), we argue that individuals who perceive their organization as more polychronic will engage in more multitasking behaviors. Also, building on Social Identity and organizational identification theories (e.g. Ashforth and Mael, 1989, Dutton et al., 1994) we propose that the strength of organizational identification will positively moderate the above relationship. Individuals highly identified with their organization see the organization’s attributes as self-defining and are deemed to be more willing than their low identified counterparts to promote the organizational values and norms and engage in subsequent identity-congruent behaviors. Highly identified individuals who see their organization as highly polychronic should thus try harder to engage in multitasking behaviors.
We investigate the relationship between perceived organizational polychronicity, multitasking behaviors, and organizational identification in two knowledge-intensive organizations that are devoted to research and development: an engineering university department and the R&D Unit of an organization that operates in the alternative energy industry. To collect our data we adopted a mixed-methods research approach. In particular, we collected data through a structured survey, the recording of diary data and qualitative semi-structured interviews. The variety of methods allowed us not only to test our hypotheses but also to develop a more nuanced understanding of how individuals made sense of what they believed their organizations asked from them and how they dealt with multiple tasks.
Section snippets
Multitasking in organizations
Knowledge intensive organizations, such as research and development units, software houses, or university departments, increasingly ask their employees to work on multiple activities, projects, and tasks in one single day or in shorter periods of time (Bertolotti et al., 2015, Bluedorn, 2002, O’Leary et al., 2012). In addition, knowledge workers are now intensively using collaborative technology (e.g. email, IM) that, on the one hand, enhances the possibility of being in multiple teams and
Data and methods
In order to test our hypotheses and further understand the complex interplay between how individuals perceive their organizations and multitasking behaviours, we conducted a mixed-methods study in two organizations devoted to research and development activities. We followed a sequential procedure, which entails researchers expanding the findings of one method with another method (Creswell, 2003). Specifically, our study was composed of two phases. It began by collecting data from a survey and
Hypothesis testing
Table 2 presents a comparison of means and standard deviations of variables in this study across the different organizational settings. Table 3 shows a correlation matrix and descriptive statistics for all the measured variables. Organizational polychronicity positively correlates to position (r=0.24, p<0.01), number of tasks (r=0.27, p<0.01), unexpected tasks (r=0.31, p<0.01), expected/unexpected switches (r=0.24, p<0.01) and unexpected rate (r=0.25, p<0.01). It shows a negative correlation
Contributions
Our mixed method study on the antecedents of multitasking behaviors in the workplace has shown that the extent to which individuals perceive that their organization values the involvement of members in multiple activities at a time (i.e. organizational polychronicity) directly influences their actual multitasking behaviors. Our work adds to the emerging literature in human computer studies that tries to explain how the organizational features influence individual multitasking behaviors in the
Conclusion
The current research contributes to the literature on multitasking furthering our understanding of how features of the organizational context, and in particular perceived organizational polychronicity, influence multitasking behaviors. We thus add to the literature that shows how the individuals’ choices in terms of multitasking behaviors are socially embedded, above and beyond individual preferences and the nature of the tasks. As knowledge intensive firms rely more and more on new forms of
Acknowledgements
This research was partially funded by the Italian Ministry of Research through the PRIN project ‘International Sourcing of Knowledge: Organizational Factors and System Effects’.
References (88)
- et al.
Juggling on a high wire: multitasking effects on performance
Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud.
(2012) - et al.
The effects of polychronic orientation upon retail employee satisfaction and turnover
J. Retailing
(2006) - et al.
Technology-mediated interruption management
Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud.
(2010) - et al.
Exploring links between polychronicity and well-being from the perspective of person–job fit: does it matter if you prefer to do only one thing at a time?
Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process.
(2005) - et al.
Time use behavior in single and time-sharing tasks
Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud.
(2012) - et al.
The clocks that time us are not the same: a theory of temporal diversity, task characteristics, and performance in teams
Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process.
(2013) - et al.
A perspective on practice in interunit knowledge sharing
Eur. Manage. J.
(2010) - et al.
Time-related behaviour in multitasking situations
Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud.
(2005) - et al.
Intense loyalty in organizations: a case study of college athletics
Adm. Sci. Q.
(1988) - et al.
Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions
(1991)
Time: a new research lens
Acad. Manage. Rev.
The multi-tasking paradox: perceptions, problems and strategies
Manage. Decis.
Social identity theory and the organization
Acad. Manage. Rev.
Identification in organizations: an examination of four fundamental questions
J. Manage.
Social comparisons in boundary-spanning work: effects of community outreach on members’ organizational identity and identification
Adm. Sci. Q.
Social interactions across media interpersonal communication on the internet, telephone and face-to-face
New Media Soc.
Polychronicity and temporal dimensions of work in learning organizations
J. Managerial Psychol.
Self categorization, affective commitment and group self-esteem as distinct aspects of social identity in the organization
Br. J. Soc. Psychol.
Exploring the relationship between multiple team membership and team performance: The role of social networks and collaborative technology
Research Policy
Individual temporality in the workplace: how individuals perceive and value time at work
Res. Soc. Work
Polychronicity and the Inventory of Polychronic Values (IPV): the development of an instrument to measure a fundamental dimension of organizational culture
J. Managerial Psychol.
The Human Organization of Time: Temporal Realities and Experience
How many things do you like to do at once? An introduction to monochronic and polychronic time
Acad. Manage. Executive
Diary methods: capturing life as it is lived
Annu. Rev. Psychol.
The time-course of recovery from interruption during reading: eye movement evidence for the role of interruption lag and spatial memory
Q. J. Exp. Psychol.
Executive Behaviour: A Study of the Work Load and the Working Methods of Managing Directors
The rhetoric of identification and the study of organizational communication
Q. J. Speech
Time budgets
Juggling and hopping: what does it mean to work polychronically?
J. Managerial Psychol.
Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: the impact of organizational identification, identity and image on the cooperative behaviors of physicians
Adm. Sci. Q.
Organizational images and member identification
Adm. Sci. Q.
Who moved my cube?
Harvard Bus. Rev.
Organizational culture and identity: what’s the difference anyway?
Survey Research Design
The interview: from structured questions to negotiated text
Members’ identification with multiple-identity organizations
Organiz. Sci.
The new techno culture in the workplace and at home
J. Am. Acad. Bus.
Cited by (0)
- ☆
This paper has been recommended for acceptance by E. Motta.