The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 2 - 67

Work/Life Boundary Integration

With changing family dynamics in most
Western countries, researchers have broadened their focus from the balance of work
and family, which leaves out large segments
of the workforce that currently may be single
or without children, to the balance between
work and the non-work aspects of life including leisure and personal growth (Cohen,
2008; Henninger & Papouschek, 2008; MacInnes, 2008; Ransome, 2008; Warhurst,
Eikhof, & Haunschild, 2008a). Along with
this shift, there has been an increased focus
on how individuals manage work/life boundaries. The shift from studies about balance to
studies about boundaries addresses a concern
that Eikhof, Warhurst, and Haunschild
(2007) expressed: that the implicit assumption in work/life balance literature is that the
domain of work is a negative that needs to be
controlled and the domain of home/family is
a positive that needs to be protected and expanded. In contrast, Greenhaus and Powell
(2006) found that there are occasions when
work and home converge to enrich individuals' lives. Therefore, by looking specifically at
boundary management instead of work/life
balance, no assumptions need to be made that
one domain or another is more or less important to the individual. This focus on the management of boundaries fits with the results of
Nippert-Eng's (1996b) seminal study, which
found that some individuals prefer to integrate the domains of work and home and
create very porous or non-existent boundaries
around the two domains.
Ashforth, Kreiner, and Fugate (2000) asserted that "the act of creating and maintaining
boundaries . . . complicates the act of crossing from one domain into another" (p. 474).

Domains are defined as physical locations
to which people ascribe specific categorical
boundaries such as work, home, and the gym.
Nippert-Eng (1996b), in her long-term qualitative study of 72 employees in a northeastern
research lab in the United States, posited that
individuals conceptualize boundaries between
the domains of work and home as being very
distinct and separate (segmentation) or overlapping and porous (integration). Extrapolating from the work of Nippert-Eng (1996b),
Ashforth et al. argued that the level of complication in boundary crossing is mitigated by the
amount of segmentation or integration that
the individual creates between domains.
Nippert-Eng (1996b) noted that segmentation and integration were often conceptualized by individuals as a continuum. Extreme
segmentors (those who prefer a complete separation between work and home) often have
different clothes, calendars, and key rings for
each domain and do not discuss home matters
at work or vice versa. Opposite to this, extreme
integrators do not see a difference between
home and work and often allow aspects of
one domain to overlap into or exist within the
other. She found, however, that most people
fall somewhere in the middle of this continuum, and the extremes are rare (Nippert-Eng,
1996a, 1996b).

METHODOLOGY
This study was guided by a qualitative methodology adapted from Charmaz's (2006)
constructivist grounded theory. Similar to
traditional grounded theory studies, constructivist grounded theory studies attempt to
construct theory inductively, with an emphasis
on how the participants view their situations.

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 2

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