ICT-Enabled Work Extension and its Consequences: A Paradoxical Situation Between High Performance and Low Wellbeing

Abstract

The work-related use of mobile technological devices allows workers to reach out to digital work content or to engage in job-related communications outside their working hours. ICT-enabled work extension represents a new challenge for workers and management, yet we do not know much about its consequences. We thus systematically review and synthesize empirical results on the consequences of work extending behaviors and availability expectations presented by 68 peer-reviewed pieces of literature published between 2007 and 2019. Our findings reveal a paradoxical situation: The more workers engage in work extending behaviors, the lower is their wellbeing, yet the higher is their work performance and commitment. Availability expectations are only associated with lower levels of wellbeing. We call upon future research to further investigate the mechanism leading to preferable outcomes and to consider moderating factors such as workers’ motivation for ICT-enabled work extension in order to resolve this high-performance-low-wellbeing paradox.