Working College Students’ Time Pressure and Work-School Conflict: Do Boundary Permeability and Dispositional Mindfulness Matter?

Although working college students are experiencing increasing demands on their time, the influence of time pressure on students’ work-school experience has been under-studied in the extant career development literature. Drawing on boundary theory and conservation of resources theory, the present research investigates the degree to which work or school time pressure is associated with working college students’ work-school conflict through work-school boundary permeability. Moreover, this study considers dispositional mindfulness as an individual resource that buffers the relationships above. Using a sample of 222 working college students in a large and diverse public university in the United States, we find support that work and school time pressures predict higher work-school conflict through work-school boundary permeability. Results also suggest that dispositional mindfulness moderates the indirect relationship among school time pressure, school-to-work boundary permeability, and school-to-work conflict. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Metatony, S-constituent linkage, and cognate objects

We examine metatony and its grammatical conditioning in an under described Edoid language of West Africa. In Emai, metatony on verbs is signaled by perfective suffix -í with underlying high tone. With a following adjunct, tone on this suffix is high and retained. When clause final, -í is retained but with low tone. When followed by a verb argument, the -í suffix is prohibited. Verbs with a following S-constituent exhibit metatonic asymmetry. Class one verbs prohibit suffix -í, treating S-constituents as verb arguments. Class two verbs require high tone -í, as if their S-constituent were an adjunct. When these same class two verbs occur with an immediately following cognate object nominal, they prohibit suffix -í. We interpret this asymmetric behavior of class two verbs in terms of boundary permeability (Berg 2014). We posit that class two forms are transitive and that their S-constituent derives historically from a complex Noun S-constituent structure that has become truncated and assumed a simple S-constituent form, having lost its erstwhile “cognate object noun.” It is thus the strict boundary for transitivity imposed by perfective suffix -í that signals a weakened status of S-constituents with class two verbs.

Exploring the Impact of Flexible and Permeable Work-Life Boundaries in a Mobile World

Work-life boundaries are often studied on a segmentation-integration continuum, which fails to consider that boundaries can be multidimensional. A flexible boundary allows work to be completed at different times and locations, whereas a permeable boundary allows for the integration of work and personal demands. This chapter examines boundary flexibility, home boundary permeability, and work boundary permeability as separate constructs, positing eight possible boundary configurations. In this exploratory research, differences in demographics, technology usage, work-family conflict, and work and life satisfaction for 65 knowledge workers who maintain different levels of boundary flexibility and permeability are examined. This research offers a new boundary configuration framework, which should guide future research and organizational policy.

Denominal verb formationin English and Modern Greek

Cross-linguistically, there are different patterns for denominal verb formation and languages show preferences for certain patterns (cf. McIntyre, 2015). In this paper, I focus on denominal verb formation in English and Modern Greek. The analyzed data come from the TenTen corpora (Sketch Engine, Kilgariff et al., 2014). The first aim is to quantify the use of the patterns of denominal verb formations in both languages. The results of the analysis corroborate the findings of previous analyses, such as the strong preference for conversion for denominal verb formation in English and for suffixation in Modern Greek. However, the present paper aims to go a step further. The second aim is to discuss why English and Modern Greek show these preferences. I propose that the preferences can be explained if we correlate the parameters of inflectional marking, word order/configurationality, system of lexical category assignment and boundary permeability.

Re-Defining Work-Life Boundaries

Technology has radically changed the way we live and work. This chapter explores the boundaries that knowledge workers employ to delineate work and personal time and the resulting outcomes. Based on scholarly research, the author proposes redefining the work-life boundary into three dimensions: flexibility, work boundary permeability, and home boundary permeability. While no longer able to control the time and place factors that once defined our work and personal time, employees can use behavioral and communicative tactics to maintain balance. These individual policy decisions and potential work-life balance tools are discussed. Organizations can support new boundary controls through education, support, and training. Finally, technology has resulted in cultural and societal changes, which may continue to be supported through national policy.