Bachelorarbeit, 2021
58 Seiten, Note: 1,3
Figures
Tables
Abbreviations
1 Motivation
2 Theoretical background
2.1 Deep individual work (DIW)
2.2 Knowledge worker productivity
2.3 Enforced working from home (EWFH)
2.4 Affordance theory
3 Research methodology
3.1 Literature search and review
3.2 Interviews
4 Results of the literature review
4.1 Overview of the selected literature
4.2 Concentration in EWFH settings
4.3 Tasks suitable for DIW in EWFH settings
4.4 Longer, foreseeable, interruption-free phases in EWFH settings
4.5 DIW in EWFH settings
5 Results of the interviews
5.1 Demographics
5.2 Concentration in EWFH settings
5.3 Tasks suitable for DIW in EWFH settings
5.4 Longer, foreseeable, interruption-free phases in EWFH settings
5.5 DIW in EWFH settings
5.6 Linking the DIW phases of higher quality to productivity
6 Limitations, further research and reflection
7 Conclusion
Appendix
References
Figure 1 Differentiation of work modes based on KW’s state of mind and the degree of KW’s interaction with co-workers
Figure 2 Notation for the analysis and visualization of interfering affordances ..
Figure 3 Codes used for the content analysis of the interviews
Figure 4 Affordances of the WAH, whose actualizations’ interference results in a setting affording the KW to concentrate (affordance notation from Figure 2)
Figure 5 Affordances of the VE, which actualizations’ interference might re sult in the affordance to prepare tasks for long DIW phases (affordance notation from Figure 2)
Figure 6 Affordances of the VE, whose actualizations’ interference might re sult in the affordance to block long interruption-free work phases (affordance notation from Figure 2)
Figure 7 Interference of affordances of the EWFH setting resulting in the af- fordance to engage in DIW (affordance notation from Figure 2)
Figure 8 Intersection of the affordances of the home occupied with work-related goals and the affordances occupied with non-work-related goals emerging with the shift to EWFH (affordance notation from Figure 2)
Figure 9 DIW-beneficial cycle of organizing DIW phases and task’s preparation for DIW phases in EWFH settings (affordance notation from Fig- ure2)
Figure 10 Suggested propositions on how the quality of DIW relates to the interviewees’ individual productivity
Figure 11 KWs’ perceived productivity in the EWFH setting at Hilti compared to before the outbreak
Figure 12 Importance of IW for KWs perceiving themselves as much more productive and others in EWFH situations
Figure 13 Need for long IW phases of KWs perceiving themselves as much more productive in EWFH situations and others
Figure 14 Better place to engage in IW for KWs perceiving themselves as much more productive in EWFH situations and others
Figure 15 Terms of the affordance concept (as understood in this thesis) as ERM- Model
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The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has turned the world of knowledge work to the left. Increasing the productivity of knowledge workers is a permanent challenge for organizations. It attracts attention that knowledge workers report being more productive when forced to work from home. This thesis investigates how this perceived increase in productivity might relate to the better conditions for deep individual work knowledge workers encounter in the enforced working from home setting. Therefore, this thesis reviews the enforced working from home literature in the context of deep individual work and conducts two exploratory interviews. This thesis shows narrative evidence that knowledge workers (1) can concentrate better in the workplace at home, (2) prepare their tasks to be suitable for long deep individual work phases, and (3) have the control over their schedule to arrange long interruption-free phases. Thus, knowledge workers engage in deep individual work phases of higher quality, which allows them to be more productive in terms of better work results.
As Drucker (1999) stated, it is one of the biggest challenges for organizations to increase the productivity of their knowledge worker (KW)s. While tasks will require more and more high-concentration work, the work world builds up obstacles for this work mode in the form of communication tools or busy open offices (Newport 2016, sec. Rule #1). But, for the last 20 years, more and more KWs discovered their homes as niches for deep individual work (DIW) (Fonner and Stache 2012; Kopf 2018) and started doing a part of their work from home with permission from their employer (Baruch 2001). For the same period, KWs, organizations, society, and the academic community argue about the risks and benefits of working from home (WFH) (Boell et al. 2016). Suddenly, the COVID-19 pandemic turned the work world on the left. In April 2020, a third of the workforce in Germany worked from home (Möhring et al. 2020) as KWs were ordered to work from home nationwide. Thus, KWs had to adapt quickly to the new situation and questioned several long-established work paradigms (Crummenerl et al. 2021). In the enforced working from home (EWFH) setting (Waizenegger et al. 2020), the perks of WFH, which motivated KWs to work from home voluntarily, are not sufficient to characterize the pandemic situation. As WFH was not practiced nationwide and for certain reasons, e.g., for the care of domestic duties (Versey 2015), reducing commuting time (Kelliher and Anderson 2010), and avoiding distractions (Fonner and Stache 2012), the home is now the default place to work (Waizenegger et al. 2020).
Research observed dichotomous experiences in the EWFH setting (Bolisani et al. 2020; Ford et al. 2020; Wu and Chen 2020). This dichotomy is not a new observation. Before the pandemic, Boell et al. (2016) made a dichotomy regarding telecommuting visible. But, as WFH is now enforced, the dichotomy becomes practically visible because those who were critical towards WFH are forced to work from home. But it attracts attention that 22% reported being much more productive during the EWFH phase (Appendix A), as a survey of the Hilti Global IT Study among employees of the IT department at Hilti showed. So, while it is no surprise that studies focus on the challenges of EWFH (e.g., Mattern et al. 2021; Waizenegger et al. 2020), research should investigate work-related auspicious effects of EWFH precisely as well to gain insights from this pandemic times to sustain possible productivity increases beyond the pandemic. The Hilti Global IT Study data suggests that the perceived increase of productivity is related to the better conditions to engage in DIW the participants encounter in the EWFH setting (Appendix A). Almost all respondents pointed out that they get done DIW better at home. While the increased ability to engage in DIW is considered an advantage in EWFH settings by most participants, it is blurred how this might increase productivity.
Boell et al. (2016) called for a more differentiated investigation of which implications telecommuting has for different groups of the heterogeneous workforce and work modes. Following their call, this thesis focuses on a group perceiving themselves as more productive during the EWFH phase. Members of this group might have in common that they are provided with appropriate technology and not involved in child care (Bockstahler et al. 2020; Mattern et al. 2021; Wu and Chen 2020) during the EWFH phase. While existing COVID-19 literature focuses more on interactions within teams in the EWFH setting (Oz and Crooks 2020; Waizenegger et al. 2020), this thesis focuses on an opposite work mode, where KWs engage besides from interactions: DIW.
Thus, the research questions this thesis answers are:
RQ1: How does enforced working from home allow KWs to engage in deep individual work?
RQ2: How is deep individual work linked to the increase of productivity?
To answer RQ1, this thesis applies the lens of affordance (Gibson 1979). Waizenegger et al. (2020) stated that the office’s affordances to interact with co-workers are withdrawn and suggested that non-work-related affordances fill this gap. Thus, they proposed that the affordances of the home conflict with work. This paper questions this suggestion and investigates how the home might afford DIW and, thus, does not conflict with work by nature. Moreover, the subsequent analysis seeks for the effects of interactions happening in the virtual environment (VE) (Waizenegger et al. 2020) on DIW. Hence, to assess RQ1 the affordances of the home and the VE will be considered by, first, consulting the EWFH literature for findings in the context of DIW. Second, two interviews with KWs perceiving themselves as more productive during the EWFH phase will be conducted and discussed through the lens of affordance. Finally, this thesis relates these findings to productivity to answer RQ2 and to build a bridge of relevance for the obtained results. This work contributes to the EWFH literature and shows traces for future research to examine the role of DIW for knowledge work further and to gain practical insights on how to facilitate DIW and utilize WFH best possible.
First, this thesis gives a theoretical context of the fundamental terms and constructs of DIW, KW productivity, EWFH and affordance theory. After explaining the methodical approach of the literature review, the interview conduction and analysis, the EWFH literature will be discussed critically in the context of DIW. Subsequently, the results of the interviews will be presented and discussed concerning previous literature. Finally, the findings from previous literature and the interviews regarding DIW are related to the construct of KW productivity.
To explore the origins of time famine at work, Perlow (1999) observed and interviewed a software engineering team of 17 members for nine months. When she noted a vicious circle between a crisis mentality, rewarding individual heroics, and constant interruptions among developers resulting in time famine, she called for a systematic approach to assess how collaborating teams utilize their time. Boell et al. (2016) analyzed the online comments on a newspaper article about a company banning telecommuting. They juxtaposed the seemingly contradicting experiences and postulated research to investigate the role of WFH regarding various work activities. They point in a similar direction to Perlow (1999) by calling for a similar framework to systematize work activities. As such framework is helpful for the analysis of DIW in EWFH settings, this thesis suggests a starting point for such a framework: The work mode of DIW is classified along the continuous dimensions of the KW’s state of mind (Newport 2016, sec. Introduction) and co-worker interaction.
The dimension “state of mind” has two polar modes when facing a task (inspired by Newport (2016)): A deep mode and a shallow mode. The deep mode refers to the state of mind in distraction-free phases of high concentration, where an individual exhausts her or his cognitive abilities. The shallow mode refers to the state of mind in cognitively not demanding situations, where the individual follows an often applied logic. There is a continuum between these two polar modes, allowing all intermediate states of mind inbetween them. The various work modes are adapted in different situations: Firstly, tasks of high complexity require a rather deep mode, as they are cognitively demanding. Tasks of low complexity are performed in a rather shallow mode. Moreover, the deeper the state of mind, the more set-up time is needed before an individual starts making progress with the current task (Golden and Gajendran 2019). The shallow mode does not need a long set-up time and can be seen as the basic mode, where one usually makes progress on the task right after beginning. As an individual has to take on some time to dive into a task requiring a rather deep mode, an engagement into a deep mode is only rewarding when working for a relatively long uninterrupted phase on this task.
The other dimension to classify the work mode of DIW is the interaction with co-workers. This thesis considers this dimension with three states: Synchronous interaction, asynchronous interaction, and no interaction. While synchronous interaction distinguishes by the fact that participants send/receive information to/from each other simultaneously, asynchronous interaction refers to participants sending and receiving information from each other not simultaneously. If a KW is not involved in an interaction, she or he is in the state of no interaction. A state of no interaction does not imply a state of no communi cation. While others see individual work (IW) as a state of no communication (Vartiainen et al. 2007, p. 6), the understanding of this thesis is that communication is possible in all work modes, as communication is happening constantly when using communication technology (e.g., when working individually on a shared document). Interaction is a form of communication in which all interacting participants influence other participants by sending information and are influenced by other participants by receiving information.
The combination of the two dimensions, “state of mind” and “interaction with co-workers” results in six continuous work modes (Figure 1). DIW is the combination of a rather deep state of mind and no interaction with co-workers.
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Figure 1 Differentiation of work modes based on KW’s state of mind and the degree of KW’s interaction with co-workers
Consequently, three conditions for KWs to engage in DIW can be formulated: (1) The KW has the ability to concentrate (Schwartz and Kaplan 2001). A KW who cannot concentrate is not capable of engaging in DIW this time. (2) The desired task is suitable for DIW. If a task does not require DIW, there is no reason to engage in DIW as it is more demanding than shallow individual work. It would not even be possible to engage in DIW when the task does not require it because the trains of thought relating to the task lead down like stairs into a deep state of mind. (3) Long, foreseeable, interruption-free work phases are organizationally admissible. Perlow (1999) observed that KWs are hindered from engaging in DIW by spontaneous interruptions caused by co-workers. Without being sure that an current time slot is long enough to engage in DIW, they shy away from investing set-up time to engage in DIW as they risk being interrupted after a few minutes without having made progress (Perlow 1999). Thus, long, foreseeable, interruption-free work phases are an organizational necessity to engage in DIW. The better a setting fulfills these three requirements, the better a KW can engage in DIW.
Spontaneous synchronous interaction (SSI) is a frequent obstacle for KWs to engage in DIW successfully (Perlow 1999). As synchronous interaction requires the temporary availability of all participants at the same time, SSI are mostly short interactions because it is hard to ensure that participants find the time to engage in a long interaction spontaneously. Short interactions are usually shallow interactions, as the time they take is not long enough to engage in deep synchronous interaction.
This thesis understands collaboration as the alternation of IW and interaction within a group of KWs to reach a common goal (Heerwagen et al. 2004). Considering the productivity of a collaborating group, it is not sufficient to sum up the individual productivity of its members (DeNisi 2000, pp. 125-128), but rather the simplified productivity equation, as understood in this work, contains two more components (inspired by DeNisi 2000, pp. 124-130): First, the productivity of interactions, and, second, a component depicting how friction-less the individual KWs work together. This component serves as a function taking IW and interaction as arguments and returning a degree of friction, causing productivity losses (e.g., when integrating work results of different team members). Thus, DIW relates to productivity in two ways: (1) Higher individual productivity by more productive DIW phases, and (2) when it reduces friction between collaborating individuals. As the subsequent analysis uses productivity as a simple construct, there are three possible ways to increase productivity, given that the other indicators remain equal: (1) Increase the quality of the work results, (2) increase the quantity of the work results, or (3) decrease the work time (Ramirez and Nembhard 2004). This thesis uses the indicator of perceived productivity to link DIW to productivity (Ramirez and Nembhard 2004).
While teleworking refers to working from places except the office supported by communication technology, WFH refers to a form of teleworking where a KW works from a single place, the home (Baruch 2001). WFH gained popularity slowly since 20 years (Kopf 2018). But, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, KWs are advised to work from home primarily (Möhring et al. 2020). Waizenegger et al. (2020) introduces the term “enforced working from home” to refer to the setting, where KWs work from home to hall the spread of COVID-19. This setting is characterized by non-voluntarily and nationwide WFH caused by governmental or organizational regulations, short time to prepare for WFH, partially inconvenient workspaces at home, the adoption of family- and household-related tasks during work, increased anxiety, stress or, insecurity, strongly restricted personal lives, and the limitation of social contact to the own household or virtual encounters (Waizenegger et al. 2020, p. 432). Thus, EWFH differs from WFH outside the pandemic in several terms. First of all, lives besides work changed for many KWs significantly leading to a changed emotional stadium and private matters (Kunze et al. 2020). Secondly, a part of KWs might have other tasks (Wu and Chen 2020) or work short-time (Bundesagentur für Arbeit 2020, p. 9) due to the pandemic. Thirdly, WFH can not be utilized needs-based anymore. Before the outbreak, WFH served for some KWs as a niche to, e.g., engage in DIW (Fonner and Stache 2012). In EWFH settings, the workplace is immutable, and all work is done from home.
Affordance theory is a theory of how animals perceive their environment. Instead of perceiving surfaces and colors, Gibson (1979) suggested that animals perceive objects regarding what the object allows them to do with it (p. 119). Thus, an affordance, referring to Gibson (1979), is a relationship between an object and an animal, which contains what the object offers, provides, or furnishes the animal (p. 119). For the animal, an affordance is a possibility for an action (Stoffregen 2003). Gibson (1979) reasoned that affordances are neither inherent to the object nor the animal (p. 121).
Instead of perceiving the environment as a set of single objects, animals perceive arrangements of objects as a whole (Gibson 1979, pp. 120-121). This thesis calls an arrangement of single objects a setting. A setting is an ontological situation featuring different objects or more granular settings. When a setting affords an action to an animal, Gibson (1979) called the setting a niche affording this action (pp. 120-121). Equally, an affordance of a setting can be seen as an arrangement of affordances. There are different granular levels on which objects or settings are perceived and affordances occur. Moreover, affordances arose as relations between the animal and physical, virtual, social, or any environment the animal can be situated in (Stoffregen 2003). This thesis defines groups of affordances using the referencing settings: (1) The physical setting of the home and (2) the setting of the VE consisting of (application) software.
When an affordance is part of an animal’s perception, the animal occupies the affordance (Gibson 1979). When an animal seizes an affordance’s possibility for an action, it actualizes the affordance (Stoffregen 2003). The actualization of an affordance results in a change of at least one object or setting. Whether an affordance is occupied and actualized by an animal is influenced by the animal’s goal orientation and its knowledge (e.g., habits, norms, rules, or guidelines) on how to utilize objects to reach its goal. An ERM-Model of this thesis’s understanding of the affordance concept can be found in the appendix (Appendix B).
Information systems research has adapted affordance theory to investigate the affordances of technical artifacts (Fromm et al. 2020). However, information systems research often leaves affordances outside the VE unconsidered, although Volkoff and Strong (2017) underline the importance of considering all relevant affordances and their interference. Thus, this paper returns one step far to the origins of affordance theory by also taking affordances of the home beside the VE into account.
This thesis faces two theoretical challenges also noted by Strong et al. (2014): First, there is no standard method to analyze and describe the interference of affordances resulting in superior affordances and their outcomes. The subsequent analysis uses a simple notation to cope with this problem of analyzing multiple interfering affordances, their actualization, and subsequent outputs. The notation covers the triad of the ontological setting, the affordance, and the goal orientation (Figure 2). Second, there is no standard method to analyze the affordances in an organization consisting of several people. Therefore, if a setting an individual KW is situated in is the outcome of an affordance’s actualization by most of her or his co-workers, this actualization is labeled with “M”.
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Figure 2 Notation for the analysis and visualization of interfering affordances
The simplicity and the seeming determinism of this notation might conceal the large number of affordances of the EWFH setting for individual KWs and how their interference results in different outcomes. Therefore, the affordances visualized with this notation are snippets from the entirety of affordances suggested by the EWFH literature and found in the interviews to provide an explanatory approach for the better conditions of the EWFH setting for DIW.
This thesis follows an abductive approach (Saunders et al. 2016, pp. 148-149) to answer the research questions in an exploratory manner. To answer RQ1, the existing literature is reviewed and discussed. Next, two interviews are conducted and analyzed in the context of the existing literature. The method of interviews is chosen as it is well suited for an exploratory data collection (Saunders et al. 2016, pp. 147-148). To answer RQ2, the interviews are examined for the relation of DIW and productivity.
The critical literature review (Saunders et al. 2016, pp. 70-121) discusses findings of the EWFH literature in the context of DIW. For the literature search, the databases AISeL and Scopus were used and expanded by Google Scholar to catch the most recent academic literature. As the body of research is not as large, gray literature was included in the literature review to reach an adequately broad base of literature. The search period was between April and December 2020 as research on EWFH has not been published earlier. Keyword search with the keyword groups “COVID-19” and “WFH” (Table 1), forward search, and backward search were used.
As EWFH only became relevant with the pandemic’s onset, research on it is still at an early stage. Hence, research is rather exploratory and presents observations without giving as broad explanations as pre-COVID-19 literature does. For this reason, pre-COVID- 19 literature on all-remote working, WFH, and DIW was included in the literature review. Therefore, forward and backward search starting from constituent literature known to the author were used. The results were filtered with the keyword groups “WFH” and “IW”.
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Table 1 Keywords used for the literature search
The complete search yield was consolidated by sorting out literature clearly out of scope by its title. Second, the abstract was reviewed whether it is located in the context of EWFH. Third, the paper was scanned for notions and findings related to the three conditions for DIW. The yield of pre-COVID-19-literature was consolidated similarly.
Data collection
Inspired by previous research and the flash analysis’s results, an interview guideline (Appendix C) containing a few questions was developed iteratively: An initial version was tested on two personal contacts and refined for the first interview. Thematic ambiguities occurring during the first interview were taken into account for the second interview by concreting a part of the guideline’s sub-questions.
Data analysis
The interviews’ analysis was inspired by the Qualitative Text Analysis as introduced by Kuckartz (2014) to gain insights regarding the research questions. The interview recordings were transcribed through the MS Stream platform. Using the software MaxQDA, the interviews were read to get a comprehensive idea of what was said (Kuckartz 2014, p. 19). In a second reading, the interviews were coded with an open coding approach (Kuckartz 2014, p. 23) to understand the interviewees’ basic ideas. A third reading was used to consolidate and refine the coding structure (Kuckartz 2014, pp. 75-79). In this step, concrete observations were aggregated inductively to abstract topics and were compared to the deductive main categories previous literature provided to merge them to a hierarchical list of thematic codes as free of overlaps as possible (Figure 3).
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Figure 3 Codes used for the content analysis of the interviews
The literature search yields mainly studies concerning productivity, collaboration, or KWs well-being in EWFH settings (Table 2). Even though these studies do not focus on DIW, they take notice of DIW more or less directly, but without mentioning it explicitly. Most of them did not present DIW as a relevant factor to investigate. This observation suggests that DIW has not yet been explicitly perceived as a relevant factor in the EWFH literature. Particularly, studies focusing on collaboration show indications for DIW, as IW is what happens when no interactions happen. They complement each other like a puzzle. Thus, when knowing how the puzzle pieces of interaction look like, one can make assumptions about the puzzle pieces of IW.
In most studies, the terms “to focus” and “focus time” are not further defined, and it is unclear what the respondents’ understanding of these terms is. Although interaction can be focused as well, the prevailing sentiment is that focus time refers to DIW primarily (e.g., Ashford 2017). Thus, this thesis understands the term “focus time” as time engaged in DIW and “to focus” as to engage in DIW, when the term is not further defined in or by the context.
In the following, recent studies on EWFH will be summarized (Table 2) and their results will be discussed critically in the context of DIW using pre-COVID-19 literature to connect the EWFH literature with DIW. This thesis will investigate the three conditions for DIW separately to structure the literature review and to assess RQ1: (1) The ability to concentrate, (2) the task’s suitability for DIW phases, and (3) the organizational admissibility of long, foreseeable, interruption-free work phases. For each condition, different affordances and settings from existing EWFH literature will be discussed and related to each other. Finally, the findings on the three conditions will be connected to explain how the EWFH setting might afford DIW. At the end of each subsection, a figure presents the connections between the discussed affordances and settings using the affordance notation (Figure 2).
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Peer pressure and own work style
Manca (2020) interviewed KWs, who moved into an activity-based workplace to find out the impact of this office design, whose elements are partly used in open offices, on social relations, autonomy, and control at work (p. 63). Besides a high dynamic and constant reachability, she found that this office layout entails peer pressure threats and missing control over social interactions (Manca 2020, p. 76). When now considering the EWFH setting, the visibility among team members is lower, and thus, there might be less peer pressure in EWFH settings determining the KW’s individual behavior. Thus, KWs might work without considering others’ judgment on their working style. Therefore, this thesis assumes assumes that the home affords KWs to align their working style as it is most suitable for them, regardless of how others feel about their work style. When this affordance is actualized, it might shift attention from being socially conform to the task itself and thus facilitate concentrating on the tasks.
Hospitality and adjustment of the workplace
Some KWs perceive their workplace in the office as overstimulating (Manca 2020, p. 83), which can hinder concentration (Boell et al. 2016). Stich (2020) reviewed the literature regarding stress in virtual and traditional offices and hence treated aspects of interactions within teams related to stress. He noted that, e.g., social interactions or office politics can be emotionally exhaustive for some KWs when working from office. In general, the bustle in the office is considered as a relevant source of distraction (Perlow 1999). Consequently, KWs value the more comfortable and personal workplace at home (WAH) (Bolisani et al. 2020; Marschall et al. 2020, p. 154-155) including a more tranquil and spacious surrounding, fresh air and sunlight through the window, a closer bathroom, and comfortable clothes (Ford et al. 2020). Moreover, the omission of commuting allowed KWs to sleep more (Ford et al. 2020). Thus, the WAH is for some KWs more hospitable than the workplace in the office (Ford et al. 2020; Marschall et al. 2020, p. 154-155).
Nevertheless, the WAH might be not only more hospitable by nature. KWs reported that the WAH affords them to control and adjust it individually, to create optimal working conditions (Ford et al. 2020). When setting up their workplace, they do not have to bethink organizational guidelines or others’ preferences. Heerwagen et al. (2004) reviewed the literature on how the physical environment influences collaborating teams. They concluded that the control over environmental conditions of the workplace (e.g., visual components, acoustic environment, air quality, and temperature) can facilitate concentration. Thus, the WAH might be more hospitable by nature and affords the KW to make it hospitable.
Schwartz and Kaplan (2001) explained how inhospitable workplaces negatively affect work outcomes and showed the paths to prevent these effects. They stated that KWs’ concentration declines faster in inhospitable workplaces, as more effort is needed to fade out distractions (p. 246). This effort leads to a status of mental fatigue, where KWs are exposed to higher distractibility and impatience is triggered (Schwartz and Kaplan 2001, pp. 246-247). Thus, a more hospitable workplace might afford the KW to concentrate better and longer, as observed in EWFH settings (Bernstein et al. 2020; Bockstahler et al. 2020; Mattern et al. 2021; Mesquita et al. 2020) and thus to avoid mental fatigue.
Restorative measures to recharge concentration
There are cues of further measures to restore concentration (Schwartz and Kaplan 2001, p. 247) in EWFH settings, as KWs reported to take breaks to do sports, engage in family life, or to get some fresh air (Bernstein et al. 2020; Ford et al. 2020; Marschall et al. 2020, p. 155; Singer-Velush et al. 2020). The temporal flexibility that was gained by the omission of commuting and is valued by KWs in EWFH settings (Bolisani et al. 2020; Marschall et al. 2020, p. 155), the higher schedule control, which will be discussed later, and the lowered peer pressure might allow KWs to take more and more flexible breaks (Ford et al. 2020) for restorative measures, even if this is not associated with an exemplary work ethic in the eyes of co-workers or supervisors. Thus, the home might afford the individual KW to pause work for restorative measures. The actualization of this affordance restores the ability to concentrate and expands the capacity to concentrate throughout the workday.
Concentration at the workplace at home
The interference of the home’s affordances to follow one’s own work style, to adjust the WAH, and to perform restorative measures actualized by a KW with work-related goals might result in a setting, which affords the KW to concentrate better or longer (Figure 4).
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Figure 4 Affordances of the WAH, whose actualizations’ interference results in a setting affording the KW to concentrate (affordance notation from Figure 2)
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