How to Design Information Technology that facilitates Detachment from Work: an Empirical Investigation of Work-Discontinuance Intention

Information Technology (IT) becomes more and more part of our lives both at home and at work. However, theory-based research concerning the question how information technology can be designed to facilitate employees’ work-life-balance is scarce. We fill in this gap building upon boundary theory to identify design-relevant constructs in the context of work-life-balance. As boundary theory suggests that holding up strong boundaries between work and private life is beneficial for health and well-being, we focused on the design of IT that supports employees’ discontinuance of work when reaching the end of their working time. We used nudge theory to derive 14 possible design options for the IT artifact, including one non-nudge design option that represents the enforcement of work discontinuance. Based on survey data from 67 industry employees, we tested how the design options influenced the work discontinuance intention of employees compared to enforcement. Our results indicate that nudging through disclosure, eliciting intentions and increasing ease has a significantly higher effect on work discontinuance intention than enforcement while nudging through a reminder has a significantly lower impact.