The Wireless Leash Is Elastic: An Information Processing Model on the Relationship Between Employees’ Need for Closure, Perceived Information Richness, and After-Hour Mobile Connectivity

Research Overview
Staying “connected” and being able to respond to messages at any time has become a societal expectation nowadays. The pervasiveness of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and mobile devices is a major contribution to this trend (Bayer et al., 2016). In an organisational context, work-related ICT usage leads to an increase in after-hour communication demands, yielding the question of how employees negotiate between constant availability and periods of disconnection outside work hours. Drawing on the dominating role of smartphones in sustaining employees’ “reachability”, the current study focuses on employees’ decision-making processes in after-hour mobile connectivity, i.e., employees’ connectivity behaviours through smartphones to actively or passively communicate with colleagues or clients outside regular business hours (van Zoonen et al., 2023).

Existing literature has well documented antecedents (e.g., Yue, 2022) and psychological and behavioural outcomes of after-hour connectivity (e.g., Mannion & Nolan, 2021; Wang et al., 2024; van Zoonen et al., 2023). However, how employees decide to engage in after-hour connectivity and the cognitive mechanisms underlying their decision-making processes remain underexplored. This study, grounded in Media Richness Theory, Channel Expansion Theory, and Need for Closure, proposes an information processing model to explicate employees’ decision-making in after-hour connectivity via smartphones. The model posits two distinct actions in after-hour connectivity – 1) phone checking upon receiving work notifications and 2) deciding (not) to respond. We assume that the activation of these actions is dependent on individuals’ evaluations of information richness (media and content richness) and their Need for Closure (NFC), a personality construct depicting individuals’ desire to eradicate ambiguity and uncertainty for a definite answer (Kruglanski, 1990). Based on an extensive literature review, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H1: Employees have a higher intention to check work-related messages during after-hours when they are sent through a medium with low (vs. high) richness.
H2: Employees have a higher intention to respond to work-related messages during after-hours when they are sent through a medium with low (vs. high) richness.
H3: Employees have a higher intention to respond to work-related messages during after-hours when the perceived richness of message content is low (vs. high).
H4: The effect of perceived media richness on employees’ intention to check work-related messages during after-hours is moderated by employees’ Need for Closure.
H5: The effect of perceived media richness on employees’ intention to respond to work-related messages during after-hours is moderated by employees’ Need for Closure.
H6: The effect of perceived content richness on employees’ intention to respond to work-related messages during after-hours is moderated by their Need for Closure.

Study 1
An online experiment (n = 284) with a 2x2 factorial design was employed to investigate how perceived media richness (Email vs. WeChat) and content richness (High vs. Low) during after-hour work connectivity affect message checking and responding intentions. Participants in the Email or WeChat condition viewed a phone notification stimulus from the two apps, and then a message with varied richness level depicting the same work demand from the supervisor. Manipulation checks were successful for perceived media richness (F(1, 282) = 3.98, p < .05) and content richness (F(1, 280) = 22.91, p < .001). Two-way ANOVA results showed significant main effects of media richness on both checking intentions (F(1, 282) = 8.56, p < .01, M_Email = 5.21, M_WeChat = 4.67) and responding intentions (F(1, 282) = 9.20, p < .01, M_Email = 5.18, M_WeChat = 4.60), while content richness had no significant effect. A moderation analysis using SPSS 27.0 PROCESS Macro (Hayes, 2017) revealed that higher Need for Closure decreases employees’ intention to check messages but increases their intention to directly respond. Consequently, H1, H2, H4 and H5 are supported.

Schemes for Further Studies
Study 1 revealed that both employees’ message checking and responding intentions are associated with the medium instead of the message, and NFC seems to be a crucial moderator in the decision-making process. This ongoing project aims to conduct three additional studies to test the hypothesised information processing model. Study 2 will take a within-subject design, in which each subject experiences all conditions, i.e., stimulus with rich and lean messages through both email and instant messenger (WeChat). In Study 3, we will measure participants’ NFC baseline level using survey items and we will manipulate NFC in a lab setting through noise (e.g., continuous phone vibrations and notification sounds) and time pressure (e.g., “urgent” cues in notifications). Study 3 aims to examine if altered NFC levels affect phone checking behaviours. Study 4 will adopt a within-subject cross-lagged design with a two-week interval to enhance robustness of confirmed hypotheses in previous studies and reduce common method bias. We will measure participants’ NFC level and perceived media richness at T1, and measure perceived information richness and phone checking and responding intentions after two weeks (at T2) to test the stability of relations.

Research Prospect
Explicating employees’ cognitive mechanisms in after-hour connectivity may yield both theoretical and managerial implications in terms of how employees’ cognitive status influence employee-organisation relations in after-hour communications. This provides insights for effective communication strategies and policies that help both employees and organisations to establish reciprocal communication dynamics and work-life boundaries.