How does intensification and mobile rearrangement affect employee commitment

As mobile devices can support an employee's information and networking needs, we propose that they help employees develop a sense of involvement and identification, and thus commitment. We especially want to disentangle the positive and negative effects of three different types of ICT devices on commitment. We contribute to the literature in the following ways. First, we quantify the dual aspects of mobile technology: increased flexibility versus increased overload. Second, we synthesize the literature to understand when and why authors focus more on the positive or negative aspects of ICT usage. For this, we develop literature that examines ICT intensification, i.e., the increased use of technology, and mobile rearrangement, i.e., the increased use of mobile versus nonmobile technology. Third, we provide results in a more contemporary setting, whereas most previous results date back to 2006 or even earlier. Fourth, using media synchronicity theory, we explore mediums other than the dominant theme of e-mail. Regarding the pure intensification aspect, e-mail use is associated with a preferred working style but also with overload, and the same applies to telephone and messaging. In terms of rearrangement, mobile telephone use does not lead to techno-overload, but diminishes flexibility due to higher synchronicity. Both intensification and rearrangement lead to similar results regarding commitment, highlighting a more dominant role of rearrangement in producing commitment changes. Corporate policies should focus especially on rearranged telephone use, rather than limiting themselves to the intensification aspect, and should take the differences between media into account.