关键词: 非工作时间使用通信技术处理工作, “双刃剑”效应, 心理机制

Abstract: Within the past 30 years, the information and communication technologies such as smart-phone, laptop has spread across and networked the world and become an important part of our everyday life. Technology allows people to perform work via sending and receiving messages or emails, and keep contact with their supervisors or clients regardless of time and space. Nowadays, it is common for employees to conduct work through information and communication technologies on nights, weekends, or even holidays. Work-related use of information and communication technologies after hours (W_ICTs for short) has aroused wide concern in both research and practice due to its possible impact. Although this field has accumulated a number of research, the scholars have not drawn a consistent conclusion yet. So this article is aimed to review the relevant research and provides a structured summary about the definition, measurement, the “double-edged sword” impact of W_ICTs on individuals’ work and private life and its possible theoretical explanation. At the end of the article, some suggestions for the future research have been discussed. Different scholars have come up with many similar expression with subtle difference about W_ICTs, which may hinder the understanding and comparison between researches. This literature review clears them up and provide the definition of W_ICTs. That is, using information and communication technologies to deal with work during non-work time. It is found that there is no universal accepted measurement of W_ICTs base on the review of relevant literature. Most scholars quantify it by asking employee the frequency or how long they use mobile technology to handle work issue after hours, which may still exist some questions. As for the effect of W_ICTs on individuals’ work and life, there are both pros and cons. One the one hand, W_ICTs contribute to dealing with work issue anytime and anywhere, so that it provides convenience for employees to handle work more efficiently. On the other hand, W_ICTs brings work issue into non-work domain, which may leave employees no time to company the families or to relax and recover from work. As a consequence, they will be in the risk of perceiving work-family conflict, work exhaustion, followed by physical and psychological health problems. In view of the convenience and challenge W_ICTs brings, the questions how and why these effects come out, whether there is any terminal conditions have receive much attention. Some scholars tried to introduce theories in work-family domain into W_ICTs, such as job demands and resources model, conservation of resource theory. This article discussed 3 main theory model that are mentioned most to explain the “double-edge sword” effect of W_ICTs, which is, the work-family boundary theory, the conservation of resource theory and the self-determination theory. On the basis of the review of relevant literature, this article put forward some suggestions for the future research. The scale of W_ICTs is badly in need of improvement, so as the design of research. Then future research could expand the outcome variables. The theory model that introduced to explain the effect of W_ICTs also needs to be examined by more empirical research.

Key words: Work-related use of information and communication technologies after hours (W_ICTs), the “double-edge sword” effect, psychological mechanism