ArticlePDF Available

Pardon the Interruption: An Integrative Review and Future Research Agenda for Research on Work Interruptions

October 2019
Journal of Management

DOI:10.1177/0149206319887428

Authors:

Harshad Puranik

University of Illinois Chicago

Joel Koopman

Texas A&M University

Heather C. Vough

George Mason University

Work interruptions are ubiquitous in today’s workplaces due to the proliferation of technology, and a growing emphasis on collaboration and open workspaces. Although a large body of research on interruptions has accumulated over the last two decades, this research is scattered across disciplines, with little integration. While this fragmentation indicates the complex nature of interruptions, it has also led to inconsistencies in how interruptions are defined and studied. Such differences reduce generalizability of results, lead to conflicting findings, and hinder knowledge development. We present here an integrative review of prior research on work interruptions, based on an analysis of 247 publications. As part of the review, we examine prior definitions of interruption and advance a new integrative definition that can anchor a range of future research. We also discuss and summarize the assumptions and implications of the different investigative approaches used to study interruptions. An awareness of these approaches can help scholars better align their theory and investigative approach to adequately capture constructs/ relationships of interest. We then synthesize theory and research, across disciplines, to present a process-based model that comprehensively captures our current understanding of how, when, and why work interruptions affect employees in different ways. Lastly, we highlight several avenues in need of more research attention and provide recommendations on how to advance the work interruption literature ahead meaningfully. Our review can act as an important reference for scholars new to interruption research, as well as for established interruption researchers looking to move their research in new directions.

…

Figures - uploaded by Harshad Puranik

Content may be subject to copyright.

Content uploaded by Harshad Puranik

Content may be subject to copyright.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review

Pardon the interruption: An integrative review and future research agenda for research on

work interruptions

Harshad Puranik

University of Illinois at Chicago

Joel Koopman

Texas A&M University

Heather C. Vough

George Mason University

University of Cincinnati

Acknowledgements: We gratefully thank Action Editor Christopher Rosen and four anonymous

reviewers for their helpful guidance. We also want to thank Suzanne Masterson, Jaime Windeler,

Bina Ajay, and Shivangi Kane-Puranik for their helpful comments on previous versions of this

manuscript. The first author would like to acknowledge the receipt of the University of Cincinnati

Graduate School Dean's Fellowship (2018-19).

Corresponding author: Harshad Puranik, University of Illinois at Chicago

Email: hpuranik@uic.edu

This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been

through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to

differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi:

10.1177/0149206319887428

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 1

ABSTRACT

Work interruptions are ubiquitous in today’s workplaces due to the proliferation of technology,

and a growing emphasis on collaboration and open workspaces. Although a large body of

research on interruptions has accumulated over the last two decades, this research is scattered

across disciplines, with little integration. While this fragmentation indicates the complex nature

of interruptions, it has also led to inconsistencies in how interruptions are defined and studied.

Such differences reduce generalizability of results, lead to conflicting findings, and hinder

knowledge development. We present here an integrative review of prior research on work

interruptions, based on an analysis of 247 publications. As part of the review, we examine prior

definitions of interruption and advance a new integrative definition that can anchor a range of

future research. We also discuss and summarize the assumptions and implications of the different

investigative approaches used to study interruptions. An awareness of these approaches can help

scholars better align their theory and investigative approach to adequately capture constructs/

relationships of interest. We then synthesize theory and research, across disciplines, to present a

process-based model that comprehensively captures our current understanding of how, when,

and why work interruptions affect employees in different ways. Lastly, we highlight several

avenues in need of more research attention and provide recommendations on how to advance the

work interruption literature ahead meaningfully. Our review can act as an important reference for

scholars new to interruption research, as well as for established interruption researchers looking

to move their research in new directions.

Keywords: work interruption; task interruption; distraction; disruption; intrusion

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 2

PARDON THE INTERRUPTION: AN INTEGRATIVE REVIEW AND FUTURE

RESEARCH AGENDA FOR RESEARCH ON WORK INTERRUPTIONS

Work interruptions abound in today’s workplaces. Coworkers drop by unexpectedly to

seek help, provide updates, or socialize, and supervisors check in on work or assign new tasks

(Mark, Gonzalez & Harris, 2005; Perlow, 1999). Moreover, the volume and the unpredictability

of emails, texts, phone calls, and instant messages can get overwhelming (e.g., González &

Mark, 2004; Rosen, Simon, Gajendran, Johnson, Lee & Lin, 2019; Sonnentag, Reinecke, Mata &

Vorderer, 2018). If this sounds like your typical workday, you are not alone. Leroy and Glomb

(2018: 380) note that “completing tasks without interruptions has become a luxury” for today’s

employees. Wajcman and Rose (2011) recently documented an average of 86 daily workplace

interruptions, and Spira and Feintuch (2005) noted that the average 2.1 hours of daily work

interruptions faced by knowledge workers cost the U.S. economy $588 billion annually. Beyond

financial losses, interruptions also affect employee performance, attitudes, emotions, and well-

being (e.g., Baethge & Rigotti, 2013; Hunter, Clark & Carlson, 2019; Jett & George, 2003).

Despite vital implications for organizations, the previous review of interruptions in the

field of management was 16 years ago (Jett & George, 2003). The workplace has changed

significantly since then; indeed, this review came four years before the first iPhone. Beyond the

spread of technology in workplaces, an increased emphasis on collaboration and open offices has

made interruptions highly pervasive today (Mark, 2015). It is no wonder then that a large body of

research on interruptions has emerged in the past two decades. But this research is spread across

disciplines with little integration, as scholars focus on theories and outcomes aligned most with

their disciplines. While this proliferation of research reveals the complexity of the interruption

construct, it has also led to inconsistencies in how interruptions are defined and studied. This has

resulted in independent and scattered pools of knowledge, each giving a unique, but incomplete,

view of interruptions. Ultimately, the fragmented state of the extant literature prevents a holistic

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 3

understanding of interruptions and hinders future research. Thus, the interruption literature will

benefit from an integrative review that synthesizes prior findings and channels future research by

acting as a comprehensive guide of what has been done and what needs to be done in this area.

We present here a review that accomplishes this goal and makes several contributions to

the literature. First, based on an analysis of prior work interruption definitions across disciplines,

we advance a definition that not only integrates these disparate streams of research, but also

draws precise boundaries around the construct. Thus, we lay a common foundation to anchor

future interruption research. Second, to help interruption scholars better align their theory with

investigative approach, we review prior approaches to studying work interruptions. For each

approach, we summarize the underlying assumptions and their implications for the study of

interruption-related theoretical topics and study designs. Third, we synthesize findings related to

the sources, mediators, outcomes, and moderators of work interruptions, across theoretical and

disciplinary boundaries, to present an integrative process-based model that explains when, how,

and why interruptions affect employees in different ways. Fourth, we highlight several avenues

in need of additional research, with recommendations on how to advance the literature further.

By synthesizing research across multiple disciplines, our review is broader in scope and

more comprehensive than prior reviews that are either domain specific (e.g., healthcare

interruptions: Biron, Loiselle & Lavoie‐Tremblay, 2009b; Grundgeiger & Sanderson, 2009;

Hopkinson & Jennings, 2013; Raban & Westbrook, 2014; Rivera-Rodriguez & Karsh, 2010; IT

interruptions: McFarlene & Latorella, 2002; Rissler, Nadj, Adam & Maedche, 2017; Trafton &

Monk, 2007), or focused mainly on defining and classifying work interruptions (e.g., Brixey,

Robinson, Johnson, Johnson, Turley & Zhang, 2007; Jett & George, 2003; Sasangohar, Donmez,

Trbovich & Easty, 2012). Overall, we intend for our review to serve as a comprehensive

reference for scholars new to research on work interruptions, as well as for established work

interruption scholars looking to move their research in new directions.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 4

For the purpose of our review, we obtained research publications (journal/conference

papers, books, and book chapters) by searching research databases (e.g., Google Scholar and

Web of Science) using relevant terms (‘interruption,’ ‘intrusion,’ ‘distraction,’ ‘disruption’),

coupled with the descriptors ‘work,’ ‘task,’ and ‘workplace.’ We identified two foundational

articles in the field of management (Jett & George, 2003; Perlow, 1999) and several more from

other disciplines (e.g., Adamczyk & Bailey, 2004; Altmann & Trafton, 2002; Chisholm,

Collison, Nelson & Cordell, 2000; Czerwinski, Horvitz & Wilhite, 2004; Gillie & Broadbent,

1989; González & Mark, 2004; Mark et al., 2005; McFarlane & Latorella, 2002; Speier,

Valacich & Vessey, 1999; Westbrook, Woods, Rob, Dunsmuir & Day, 2010). We then searched

for research publications focused on work/task interruption that cited the above articles, and

further checked the reference lists from these publications as well. This resulted in a total of 247

publications that were then coded for theory, definition, antecedents, mediators, outcomes,

moderators, and methodology. This helped us identify themes to organize the below review.

DEFINITIONS AND APPROACHES TO STUDYING WORK INTERRUPTIONS

The proliferation of differing definitions and approaches to studying work interruptions is

a major reason the interruption literature is not well integrated. We address these issues by first

presenting an analysis of prior definitions of work interruption. Our review shows that scholars

have focused on five attributes (see Table 1). We assess each attribute with two questions: Is it

critical, or ancillary, to the core experience of a work interruption? And, does it help delineate

work interruption from other constructs? Following this, we advance a new definition based on

our analysis. We then classify the different approaches to studying interruptions as varying along

two dimensions, and discuss the implications of each dimension for the study of interruptions.

Defining Work Interruption

Suspension of an Ongoing Work Task’s Execution. This is a core element of prior

interruption definitions and is said to occur in two ways—suspension of behavioral performance

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 5

of a task (e.g., Biron, Lavoie‐Tremblay & Loiselle, 2009a; Van Den Berg, Roe, Zijlstra &

Krediet, 1996) or suspension of attentional focus from the task (e.g., Myers, McCarthy,

Whitlatch & Parikh, 2016; Sanderson & Grundgeiger, 2015). We posit that both constitute an

interruption, and this helps us address an ongoing debate about interruptions versus distractions.

The crux of this debate is that while there is wide agreement that suspending behavioral

performance of a task interrupts it (e.g., Mitchell, Harman, Lee & Lee, 2008), there is a group of

scholars who consider the suspension of only attentional focus from an ongoing task, defined as

distraction, to be different from an interruption (e.g., Flynn, Barker, Gibson, Pearson, Berger &

Smith, 1999; Hickam et al., 2003). For example, consider an employee who is unable to focus on

a task because he/she is distracted by loud coworker conversations. In this case, even if the

employee’s attentional resources are diverted away from the task, at a behavioral level, he/she

can still continue working on the task. Since the behavioral execution of the task can continue in

this case, this group of scholars would not consider this case to be a work interruption (Speier,

Vessey & Valacich, 2003). As per them, suspending a task’s behavioral performance is a

necessary condition for an interruption to occur (Relihan, O'brien, O'hara & Silke, 2010).

Another group of scholars, however, view distractions and work interruptions as

overlapping constructs. They consider the suspension of the behavioral performance of a task to

be a sufficient, but not necessary, condition for an interruption to occur; instead, distractions or

lapses of attentional focus from ongoing work constitute an interruption as well (Fisher, 1998;

Jett & George, 2003). The reason is that attentional resources diverted by distracting stimuli

cannot be applied to the ongoing task, thus interfering with its execution (Beal, Weiss, Barros &

MacDermid, 2005). So, even if the behavioral execution of the ongoing task can ostensibly

continue during a distraction, lapses of attentional focus from the task interrupt its overall

performance (Fletcher, Potter & Telford, 2018; Jett & George, 2003; Wilkes, Barber & Rogers,

2018). We concur with this view, and position distraction as a specific type of work interruption

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 6

involving the suspension of only attentional focus from an ongoing task.

Taken together, we submit that suspension of the behavioral performance of a task, or

one’s attentional focus from it, both interrupt the task. Also, since these two processes co-occur

and are closely intertwined during most interruptions (e.g., Li, Magrabi & Coiera, 2012), a

definition that accounts for both these occurrences better captures the real-world experience of

being interrupted. Hence, we posit that work interruptions involve the suspension of the

behavioral performance of a task, or suspension of attentional focus from the task, or both.

Unexpectedness. While some scholars see work interruptions as necessarily unexpected

occurrences (e.g., Brixey et al., 2007; Speier et al., 1999), others do not (e.g., Andreasson,

Lindblom & Thorvald, 2017; Chisholm et al., 2000). Jett and George (2003) included both

unexpected and expected events as interruptions in their typology (see also: Couffe & Michael,

2017; Fletcher et al., 2018; Wilkes et al., 2018). In contrast, Brixey et al. (2007) argued that

unexpectedness is integral to the interruption experience, and others have also similarly stressed

the unplanned nature of work interruptions (e.g., O'Conaill & Frohlich, 1995; Rivera, 2014).

We see interruptions as necessarily unexpected—an attribute that we posit differentiates

them from other constructs. We argue that considering both expected and unexpected events as

interruptions conflates interruptions with constructs such as task-switching and multi-tasking,

and allows any discrete action to be considered an interruption, which is untenable. For instance,

consider task-switching. While interruptions can involve switching of tasks, Baethge, Rigotti and

Roe (2015: 309) have differentiated interruptions from pre-planned task-switches that occur at

meaningful breakpoints within a task “after (sub)actions are closed and mental resources have

been released.” For example, if you plan a coffee break after reading this section and execute this

plan, then this preplanned switching of tasks will not amount to an interruption of your work

(Kim, Park & Headrick, 2018). Another instance where task-switching will not be a work

interruption is when a task is switched after its completion (Dabbish, Mark & González, 2011).

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 7

With regard to multi-tasking—simultaneous execution of two or more tasks (González &

Mark, 2004)—research does show that work interruptions can at times involve multi-tasking

(Kirchberg, Roe & Van Eerde, 2015). However, similar to the above argument, Szumowska and

Kossowska (2017) did not consider multi-tasking of two tasks that were pre-defined and hence

expected by their study participants to be interruptions. It was only when these participants were

unexpectedly asked to work on a third task that these authors considered an interruption to have

occurred. Thus, while work interruptions can at times involve task-switching or multi-tasking,

not all instances of task-switching or multi-tasking are interruptions. Instead, we suggest that

unexpectedness is the core attribute that determines whether an event is an interruption or not.

Interrupting Task. Some definitions stress the presence of an interrupting task as a

necessary condition for a work interruption to occur, implying that work interruptions involve

both the suspension of an ongoing task and switching to another task (e.g., Brixey et al., 2007;

Couffe & Michael, 2017; Li et al., 2012). We think this condition is unnecessary because, while

other tasks can interrupt work, this may not always be the case (Fisher, 1998). For example, one

of the authors sat through a mandatory but unexpected computer restart following an IT update

while writing this section, but did not start work on another task (e.g., impediments and waiting

time: Weigl, Müller, Vincent, Angerer & Sevdalis, 2012). Thus, it is possible that employees are

interrupted without the need to perform a second task during the work interruption.

Further, the necessity of an interrupting task for the occurrence of a work interruption is

incompatible with interruptions that involve the suspension of only attentional focus from an

ongoing task. For instance, loud coworker conversations may interrupt work (Jett & George,

2003; Wilkes et al., 2018), but employees do not always initiate another task in such cases. Thus,

while interruptions can involve an interrupting task, we do not see this as a defining attribute.

Intention to Resume the Interrupted Task. Some scholars view the intention to return

to the interrupted task after the interruption as a defining feature of a work interruption (e.g.,

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 8

Baethge et al., 2015; Boehm-Davis & Remington, 2009; Couffe & Michael, 2017). Indeed,

people often form such intentions when interrupted (Trafton, Altmann, Brock & Mintz, 2003).

But this may not always be the case—some interruption sources (e.g., unexpected face-to-face

interactions) provide little opportunity and time to reflect on post-interruption activities (Nees &

Fortna, 2015). Further, an interruption’s unexpectedness may make it difficult for interrupted

individuals to predict how the interruption will unfold, and when, and how, they can resume the

interrupted task (Perlow, 1999). Hence, we suggest that while an intention to resume the

interrupted task may occur when interrupted, it need not be a defining feature of an interruption.

Internal-External Interruptions. Scholars also often include in their definitions whether

the source of a work interruption is external or internal to the interrupted person. While some

stress that work interruptions are caused by only external stimuli such as emails, phone calls etc.

(e.g., O'Conaill & Frohlich, 1995; Speier et al., 1999), others suggest that internal factors such as

one’s own thoughts, pain, fatigue etc. can also lead to work interruptions (e.g., Fisher, 1998;

Gatzounis, Schrooten, Crombez & Vlaeyen, 2014). We agree with the latter view, and omit the

descriptor of the origin of a work interruption’s source from our definition to decouple the work

interruption from its antecedents. Our position is that the core experience of a work interruption

involves the unexpected suspension of an ongoing task’s execution, irrespective of whether this

is caused by sources internal or external to the interrupted person (e.g., Grundgeiger &

Sanderson, 2009). Thus, the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ descriptors of an interruption’s causes are

antecedents to the core experience of a work interruption and unnecessary for defining it.

Summary. By analyzing the pros and cons of the five attributes commonly found in

definitions of work interruption, we have made explicit some disagreements in the literature. We

submit that two attributes—suspension of an ongoing task’s execution and the unexpectedness of

its occurrence—are necessary to defining an interruption and delineating it from other constructs.

In contrast, the other three attributes—presence of an interrupting task, an intention to resume the

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 9

interrupted task, and whether the interruption source is internal or external—add unnecessary

conditions to the definition. Hence, we advance the following definition of a work interruption:

A work interruption is an unexpected suspension of the behavioral performance of,

and/or attentional focus from, an ongoing work task

Approaches to Studying Work Interruptions

Scholars also vary widely in their approaches to studying interruptions. An awareness of

these approaches is crucial, as they have implications for the scope of theoretical questions

studied, as well as for effective study design. Recently, Grundgeiger and colleagues (2016) noted

that a common issue in the research on interruptions and their outcomes is the poor fit between

theoretical questions and investigative approaches. For example, these authors noted that when

studies on the forgetting of interrupted tasks rely only on self-reports of whether participants

forgot to resume the interrupted task, they capture only those interruptions that the participants

subsequently remembered when providing the self-report. Instead, an observation method, where

external observers note whether the interrupted tasks were resumed or not, might yield greater

domain coverage. That being said, there are instances in which self-reports may be more

effective than observations. For instance, Fletcher et al. (2018) noted that studies focused on

stress caused by work interruptions that rely only on observations do not capture interrupted

persons’ appraisal of the interruption, thus leaving unmeasured a key theoretical driver of stress.

In sum, poor fit between theoretical questions and investigative approaches can lead to

incomplete construct coverage, and possibly incorrect or inadequate conclusions. To help

scholars avoid this situation, we review extant approaches to studying work interruptions, and

explain their underlying assumptions and implications for interruption-related theoretical topics

and study designs. Our review shows that approaches to studying interruptions can be described

using two dimensions: (a) objective–subjective and (b) episodic–frequency, as explained below.

Objective–Subjective. This dimension reflects whether participants’ assessments of an

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 10

interruption are captured or not. An objective approach assumes an event that halts ongoing work

to be interruptive by its very occurrence, and does not incorporate participant assessments (e.g.,

Foroughi, Malihi & Boehm-Davis, 2016a; Monk & Kidd, 2008). Put differently, the interruptive

nature of an event is decided by the researcher and not the participant, and so, it is necessary that

researchers are able to clearly observe the work interruptions. Hence, this approach is seen in

experiments where work interruptions are externally induced by confederates or online tasks

interrupting participants in the middle of a given task (e.g., Mansi & Levy, 2013; Monk, Trafton

& Boehm-Davis, 2008). It is also seen in field studies where work interruptions are noted by

observing participants either directly or indirectly via video recordings (e.g., Flynn et al., 1999;

Weigl, Müller, Zupanc, Glaser & Angerer, 2011).

Since this approach does not capture participants’ subjective experience, it is suitable for

studying those work interruptions that are externally observable by the researcher (e.g., Brumby,

Cox, Back & Gould, 2013; Monk & Kidd, 2008), but not those where only attentional focus on a

task is suspended without an observable behavioral change. Further, this approach is also less

suitable for the study of emotional and stress reactions to work interruptions as it does not

capture interrupted persons’ appraisal of the interruption, which is theoretically a more proximal

and meaningful predictor of these reactions than just the occurrence of the work interruption

(Fletcher et al., 2018; Lazarus, 1991). Generally, the objective approach is useful to study how

observable interruptions of a sequence of work activities affect objectively measurable outcomes

such as task resumption and completion times, errors, and task performance (e.g., Altmann &

Trafton, 2007; Altmann, Trafton & Hambrick, 2014; Monk, 2004).

A subjective approach, in contrast, captures interrupted persons’ subjective assessment of

the interruption (Fletcher et al., 2018). Thus, the research participant, and not the researcher,

decides the interruptive nature of an event. Researchers use surveys, diaries, logs, and interviews

to capture participants’ assessment of work interruptions (e.g., Perlow, 1999; Rosen et al., 2019;

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 11

Sonnentag et al., 2018). This diversity of method helps the study of not only work interruptions

that are observable to the researcher, but also those where only attentional focus on a task is

suspended, without any observable behavioral change. Also, the focus on participants’ appraisal

of work interruptions makes this approach well-suited to study attitudinal, emotional, and stress

reactions to interruptions (e.g., Fletcher et al., 2018; Hunter et al., 2019; Lin, Kain & Fritz,

2013). A drawback, however, is that the act of capturing the subjective experience of participants

can itself become an interruption. Adjustments in study design (e.g., administering surveys in

non-work hours) can offset this issue, but may come at other costs (e.g., retrospective bias).

Episodic–Frequency. This dimension reflects whether scholars focus on the effects of

individual interruption episodes, or on the aggregate effect of multiple interruptions together.

Studies with an episodic approach presume that the content of each interruption may differ (e.g.,

Butts, Becker & Boswell, 2015). This assumption leads to study designs where scholars study

individual interruption episodes in experimental setups (e.g., Cades, Werner, Boehm-Davis,

Trafton & Monk, 2008; Monk et al., 2008), or in field studies by asking participants to recall a

specific interruption episode (e.g., Leroy & Glomb, 2018; Russell, Woods & Banks, 2017). An

episodic approach helps scholars zoom in on the content of a specific work interruption and

unpack how the attributes of the tasks, the people, and the context of that interruption episode

affect its outcomes (e.g., Butts et al., 2015; Hodgetts & Jones, 2006; Pankok Jr et al., 2017).

However, this event-level focus makes the episodic approach less suitable to study the

cumulative effect of multiple interruptions, commonly seen in today’s workplaces.

A frequency approach instead focuses on the aggregate effect of multiple interruptions,

rather than on the experience of any one interruption. The assumption is that interruptions are

similar in content and that their impact is the result of their combined effect (e.g., Sonnentag et

al., 2018). This assumption results in study designs such as experimental studies with multiple

interruptions (e.g., Mansi & Levy, 2013), observational studies where frequency of interruptions

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 12

is noted by observing participants (e.g., Westbrook et al., 2010), or field studies that use

interruption scales with frequency anchors (e.g., 1=Never to 7=Most of the time: Parke,

Weinhardt, Brodsky, Tangirala & DeVoe, 2018). Regarding research topics, given the large

number of daily workplaces interruptions (Wajcman & Rose, 2011), this approach is useful to

study the aggregate effect of multiple interruptions occurring over a day/week/month (e.g.,

Hunter et al., 2019; Lin et al., 2013; Rosen et al., 2019). It can also be used to note the trend and

distribution of workplace interruptions (e.g., Weigl et al., 2012; Westbrook, Raban, Walter &

Douglas, 2018), which can serve as an input for improving work-flows to manage interruptions.

The focus on aggregate effects, however, makes it difficult to isolate and study the attributes of

the interrupted/interrupting tasks or the interrupter involved in any one work interruption.

Summary. Knowing the assumptions and implications of the above dimensions will help

scholars combine them to design studies that adequately capture the construct/relationship of

interest. For instance, returning to our earlier example, scholars interested in the number of

interrupted tasks forgotten by participants may benefit by combining the objective and frequency

approaches. As another example, an episodic approach may help in the study of the attributes of

the interrupter or the interrupting task by isolating these attributes. This can be merged with an

objective approach to study observable attributes (e.g., interrupting task duration) or a subjective

approach to study attributes based on participants’ assessments (e.g., interpersonal liking of

interrupter). Alternately, scholars interested in the study of how multiple interruptions occurring

over a period of time affect employee stress may benefit by combining the subjective and

frequency approaches. It is also possible for scholars to combine the episodic and frequency

approaches to focus on the content of multiple episodes of specific types of interruptions and

evaluate the relative frequency and impact of one type versus another. Overall, our exposition of

the above dimensions will act as a template that guides interruption scholars in selecting an

approach that maximizes the alignment between theory and investigative approach.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 13

INTEGRATIVE PROCESS-BASED MODEL OF WORK INTERRUPTIONS

We present our review and synthesis of the prior research on the sources, mediators,

outcomes, and moderators of work interruptions as a process-based model in Figure 1. This

model incorporates scholarship from multiple disciplines to provide an integrative accounting of

work interruption research. In so doing, we link the approaches described above to the theoretical

lenses applied in extant scholarship. The result is a comprehensive depiction of the state of the

literature that advances understanding of how, why, and when interruptions affect employees.

Sources of Work Interruptions

Sources of interruption are the stimuli or causes that initiate an interruption (Rivera-

Rodriguez & Karsh, 2010). There are broad (e.g., Jett & George, 2003; Jin & Dabbish, 2009), as

well as domain-specific (e.g., manufacturing: Andreasson et al., 2017; healthcare: Chisholm,

Dornfeld, Nelson & Cordell, 2001; pharmacy: Flynn et al., 1999; IT: Rissler et al., 2017)

typologies of interruption sources. However, the most common classification is based on whether

a source lies outside (external) or inside (internal) the interrupted person (e.g., Fisher, 1998;

González & Mark, 2004; Mark et al., 2005; Miyata & Norman, 1986). While scholars have noted

the presence of both external and internal sources of interruptions, our review shows that most

prior research has focused exclusively on the external sources of interruptions. As a result, the

nature, experience, and outcomes of internal sources of interruptions are poorly understood.

Hence, we discuss internal sources as a future research topic in a later section. Reflecting the

current state of the literature, our review here is limited to external sources of interruption.

Scholars have documented various external sources of interruptions such as face-to-face

interactions (e.g., Nees & Fortna, 2015), emails (e.g., Jackson, Dawson & Wilson, 2003), phone

calls/texts (e.g., Grandhi & Jones, 2015), instant messenger chats (e.g., Gupta, Li & Sharda,

2013), equipment failures/work delays (e.g., Cai, Gong, Lu & Zhong, 2017), and distracting

workplace stimuli (e.g., Oldham, Kulik & Stepina, 1991). The distribution and use of these

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 14

sources varies across workplaces—emails and instant messages are common for knowledge

workers and telecommuters (e.g., Fonner & Roloff, 2012; Sykes, 2011), equipment failures are

seen in manufacturing setups (e.g., Cai et al., 2017), and face-to-face meetings, phone calls, and

pagers are common for healthcare workers (e.g., Biron et al., 2009a; Weigl et al., 2011).

These sources of interruption also vary in attributes such as their channel of interaction

(i.e. direct or via technology) (McFarlane & Latorella, 2002), the sensory cues associated with

them (Lu, Wickens, Prinet, Hutchins, Sarter & Sebok, 2013), their information richness (Chong &

Siino, 2006), and the flexibility they provide in deciding when to engage with the interruption

(Nees & Fortna, 2015). Wajcman and Rose (2011) noted that the attributes of different sources of

interruptions combined with organizational norms to shape how employees prioritized these

sources. For instance, based on their organizational norms, employees in their study prioritized

cell phone calls over landline calls, and both were viewed to be more important than emails.

Although this hierarchy may vary by organizations, it can shape the occurrence of interruptions.

Overall, scholars have noted a variety of stimuli that can interrupt work. Our review,

however, indicates that these sources are usually studied separately (e.g., email interruptions), or

the focus is on their overall frequency. Very few studies have compared the effects of different

interruption sources (e.g., face-to-face vs. virtual interruptions: Nees & Fortna, 2015; instant

message vs. email interruptions: Tan & Richardson, 2011). As a result, the complex interplay

among these sources in today’s dynamic workplaces is poorly understood—a point we return to

in the future research section. Next, we focus on what happens after the above sources interrupt

an ongoing work activity, in terms of the mediators and outcomes of a work interruption.

Mediating Mechanisms and Outcomes of Work Interruptions

Scholars have explored different mediators that transmit the effect of an interruption onto

various outcomes (see Figure 1). Our review shows that the outcomes of work interruptions,

studied in prior research, can be grouped into two broad categories—performance and well-

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 15

being. The former category is about an interruption’s effect on the performance of the interrupted

task and includes indicators of this effect such as errors, task resumption time, quality of work

etc. The latter category is about the interruption’s effect on the interrupted person and includes

indicators of this effect such as satisfaction, stress, emotional exhaustion, physical distress etc.

Regarding mediators, our review shows that research has used three broad theoretical

frameworks—cognitive, self-regulatory, and affective—to explain the mediating mechanisms of

an interruption. We review and integrate the theory and research related to mediators under each

framework and make explicit how different mediators are linked to the two types of outcomes

stated above. Thus, we describe the mechanisms that link interruptions to relevant outcomes.

Cognitive Pathway. Cognitive mediators are the most widely studied in prior research.

This stream of research adopts an ability-based focus to explore how the cognitive implications of

an interruption affect the performance of the interrupted task. Usually, since externally observable

and objectively measurable variables such as errors or task resumption/completion time are used

as indicators of the impact of an interruption’s cognitive demands, most studies adopt an objective

approach within experimental setups to unpack these effects. Theoretically, the most widely used

theory is the memory for goals theory that focuses on the memory-based suspension (activation)

of the goals of the interrupted (interrupting) task during an interruption (Altmann & Trafton,

2002; Trafton et al., 2003). Multiple studies have shown that the suspended interrupted task goals

decay from memory during a work interruption, leading to longer time for the resumption and

completion of the interrupted task, more errors, and lower performance (e.g., Altmann & Trafton,

2007; Altmann et al., 2014; Cades et al., 2008; Hodgetts & Jones, 2006; Monk et al., 2008).

A second group of studies focus on interruptions’ impact on attentional resources of the

interrupted person. Scholars have used the distraction-conflict theory (e.g., Baron, 1986) to argue

that the division of attentional resources between the interrupted and the interrupting task can

cause attentional conflict and high mental workload that negatively affect the quality of task

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 16

performance, especially on complex tasks (Gupta et al., 2013; Speier et al., 1999, 2003; Tan &

Richardson, 2011). The theory of attention residue also focuses on attentional division during an

interruption and theorizes that people have a tendency to cognitively linger on the interrupted

task, even after stopping it and starting a new task (Leroy, 2009). Such attention residue on the

interrupted task reduces the amount of attentional resources available to perform the interrupting

task, negatively affecting its performance (Leroy & Glomb, 2018; Leroy & Schmidt, 2016).

Lastly, scholars have focused on why people forget/remember to resume the interrupted

task (Grundgeiger et al., 2013). The prospective memory theory (Einstein & McDaniel, 1990,

1996) suggests that on being interrupted, people often form an intention of resuming the

interrupted task after the interruption (Dodhia & Dismukes, 2009). They then devote attentional

resources to monitoring these prospective intentions (Smith, 2003), and can cognitively retrieve

and execute these intentions on encountering cues related to these intentions (Cook, Meeks,

Clark‐Foos, Merritt & Marsh, 2014). The cognitive load of an interruption, however, can cause a

failure in these processes, leading to the forgetting of the interrupted task (McDaniel, Einstein,

Graham & Rall, 2004; Rummel, Wesslein & Meiser, 2017). In sum, studies on cognitive

mediators have adopted an ability-based focus to show that the cognitive toll of interruptions

usually impairs interrupted persons’ ability to perform the interrupted task efficiently.

Self-regulatory Pathway. Instead of an ability-based focus like above, self-regulatory

researchers focus on the motivational and energetic effects of work interruptions on both

performance and well-being outcomes. These studies can be grouped into two groups. The first

group focuses on work interruptions’ impact on the self-regulatory process in terms of the effect

on the goal progress of the interrupted task. Scholars use the control theory of self-regulation

(Carver & Scheier, 1990) and action regulation theory (Hacker, 2003), which posit a monitoring

system that compares one’s current state with a desired state. Negative discrepancies between

states imply low goal progress and have further motivational implications. For instance, Beck,

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 17

Scholer and Hughes (2017) recently showed that interruptions impeded the rate of goal progress

on the interrupted task and were associated with frustration and low enthusiasm that led to

lowered effort, goal commitment, and performance. Relatedly, Rosen et al. (2019) showed that

leaders’ rating of daily email interruptions was linked to low goal progress, which led them to

cut back on daily leadership behaviors. Given the importance of people’s assessment of their

own goal progress and how it is affected by work interruptions, studies under this framework

usually adopt a subjective approach, often with a frequency focus. For example, employees in

Parke et al.’s (2018) study provided a subjective rating of the frequency of daily work

interruptions they encountered, which tended to weaken the positive relationship between daily

planning and job engagement. Over time, the hampered goal progress due to multiple work

interruptions can lead to high time pressure and subsequent irritation (Baethge & Rigotti, 2013;

Perlow, 1999). Overall, work interruptions were found to impede goal progress on the

interrupted task and thus impair self-regulation toward one’s work goals (Mitchell et al., 2008).

The second group of studies focus on work interruptions’ energetic implications and draw

on conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989) and ego-depletion theory (Baumeister &

Vohs, 2007). Interruptions are positioned as events that can deplete the limited store of self-

regulatory resources due to the need to unexpectedly halt work, understand and address the

interruption, and re-engage with the interrupted activity (Freeman & Muraven, 2010). Further,

self-regulatory resource depletion due to interruptions has the potential to cause anxiety,

emotional exhaustion, and physical distress (Lin et al., 2013). Scholars have also used the

compensatory cost model (Hockey, 1997) to posit that the extra effort needed to regulate around

interruptions to continue striving toward work goals can lead to unwanted compensatory costs

such as emotional exhaustion, low job satisfaction, and low situational well-being (Baethge &

Rigotti, 2015; Pachler, Kuonath, Specht, Kennecke, Agthe & Frey, 2018; Russell et al., 2017).

Thus, while interruptions’ unexpectedness adversely affects goal progress on the interrupted

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 18

task, the extra effort needed in regulating around interruptions can take a toll on well-being.

Affective Pathway. Since interruptions affect work goals, they have the potential to

trigger affective reactions (Frijda, 1986). While the above two approaches discuss affect briefly,

the focus is only on negative emotion as an outcome (e.g., Bailey & Konstan, 2006). But because

affect and emotions have ‘control precedence’ and divert resources away from an ongoing task

onto the affective/emotional state, these factors represent alternate mediators that can transmit

the effect of interruptions onto employee attitudes and behaviors (Frijda, 1986). Thus, to gain a

complete understanding of the interruption experience, a focus on affective mediators is crucial.

Mandler (1964) laid the foundation of this stream of research via interruption theory that

posits anxiety as a response to interruptions. Since people’s assessment of an event and their

internal affective states play a key role in affect-based theories, studies on affective reactions to

interruptions usually adopt a subjective approach with either a frequency focus (when studying

broad affect) or an episodic focus (when studying discrete emotions). More recently, scholars

have used affective events theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), which posits that goal-relevant

work events can trigger affective reactions, as an overarching framework (e.g., Sonnentag et al.,

2018). As one example, Hunter et al. (2019) showed that daily family interruptions that hamper

work elicited negative affect, which was positively related to work-family conflict. However, the

same interruptions also triggered positive affect to the extent that they helped family goals.

Scholars have also used appraisal theory of emotions (Lazarus, 1991), which posits that

people’s appraisals of an event shape their affective reactions. Zohar and colleagues (2003) used

this theory to show that goal hindering (enhancing) events cause negative (positive) affect, and

Butts et al. (2015) used this theory to study the emotions triggered by email interruptions in non-

work hours. Using an episodic approach, they found that email interruptions could lead to anger

or happiness, depending on their length and tone, and anger was further related to work-family

conflict. Overall, while affective reactions are crucial, more research on discrete emotions

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 19

elicited by interruptions will add precision to our predictions and can help explain why the same

interruption leads to different outcomes, based on the emotion elicited (Frijda, 1986).

Summary. A look across the above three frameworks leads to several high-level

conclusions. First, work interruptions are complex events with cognitive, self-regulatory, and

affective implications for interrupted employees. Past research suggests that work interruptions

tend to burden one’s limited memory and attentional resources, impede goal progress on the

interrupted task, and trigger affective reactions. Typically, the cognitive mechanism is linked to

performance outcomes, the affective mechanism to well-being outcomes, and the self-regulatory

mechanism to both. However, while these relationships have been generally emphasized, it is

possible that cognitive mechanisms affect wellbeing outcomes and affective mechanisms affect

performance outcomes. As one example, Tams, Thatcher, Grover and Pak (2015) linked mental

workload (a cognitive mediator) arising from interruptions to stress. Further exploration of these

possible connections is thus a fruitful future research avenue that can expand our current

understanding of the relationships between mediators and outcomes shown in Figure 1. Our

review also showed that despite some studies indicating positive outcomes of interruptions in the

form of positive affect, overall, past research has generally stressed that work interruptions tend

to harm interrupted individuals’ performance and well-being.

Second, our review uncovered several imbalances in the extant interruption research. Not

only have studies focused heavily on external interruption sources at the expense of internal

sources, but the focus has also mainly been on the interrupted task and person. That is, although

the interrupting task and person are key constituents of an interruption, they are usually relegated

to being design elements in lab studies or boundary conditions. As we note in the future research

section, studies on the interrupter (e.g., Rivera, 2014) and the interrupting task (e.g., Leroy &

Schmidt, 2016) can broaden our understanding of interruptions. In terms of outcomes, how

interruptions affect team- and organization- level outcomes has been largely ignored in favor of

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 20

studying individual level outcomes. Taken together, we feel this lopsided focus of research on

work interruptions is a key reason for the heavy skew of past findings toward negative outcomes.

Third, despite the possible involvement of other people, the quality of social interaction

and the relational context of an interruption have been mostly ignored in prior work. Thus, the

scope of outcomes has been limited to performance/well-being outcomes, with interpersonal/

relational consequences remaining unexplored. In sum, our review presents a complex and

multifaceted view of interruptions, and suggests that this view may still be incomplete due to the

imbalance in prior interruption research—a point we return to in the future research section.

Moderators of the Occurrence and Impact of Work Interruptions

Many of the above relationships are subject to moderators that explain when, and for

whom, these effects are more or less intense. Moderators thus add nuance to our understanding

of work interruptions and their outcomes. As seen in Figure 1, our review reveals that these

moderators can be organized based on whether they reflect the attributes of the context, the tasks,

or the people involved in an interruption. Below, we elaborate more on the research on how these

attributes moderate the cognitive, self-regulatory, and affective pathways described above.

Contextual Attributes. Various contextual attributes have been studied to understand

when the sources of interruptions lead to a work interruption. For instance, workplace layouts

with open offices and collocation of coworkers typically lead to more inopportune interactions

and hence more work interruptions (Chong & Siino, 2006; Mark, 2015; Mark et al., 2005). The

work processes of an organization also matter—Perlow (1999) found that high interdependence,

coupled with a competitive reward system, prompted employees to interrupt each other more

frequently. Relatedly, Perlow and Weeks (2002) showed that employees in an individualistic

culture tended to view help requests as work interruptions. Another factor is organizational

polychronicity—the extent to which employees feel their organization values multi-tasking

(Mattarelli, Bertolotti & Incerti, 2015). Employees in highly polychronic organizations may

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 21

engage in more simultaneous work activities, increasing the possibility of interrupting each

other. Contextual attributes also tend to influence the relationship between cognitive mediators

and subsequent outcomes. For instance, placing cues such as markings or signals that indicate the

progress made on the task before it was interrupted can help the resumption of that task after the

interruption by reminding people where they left the task when they were interrupted

(Grundgeiger et al., 2013; Trafton, Altmann & Brock, 2005).

Interrupted Task Attributes. The attributes of the interrupted task make up another set

of moderators, studied mainly in relation to interruptions’ impact on mediators. With regard to

cognitive processes, complexity of the interrupted task is a key moderator, since interruption of

more complex tasks leads to greater information processing burden and high mental workload

(e.g., Gupta et al., 2013; Tan & Richardson, 2011). The timing of when a task is interrupted is

also crucial, because the mental workload during an activity made of several subtasks fluctuates

constantly. It is lowest between two subtasks rather than in the middle of a subtask, making the

interruptions near the former point cognitively less taxing (e.g., Bailey & Iqbal, 2008; Bailey &

Konstan, 2006). Further, the regulatory framing of the interrupted task affects the attention

residue or the extent to which thoughts about the interrupted task persist even after it has been

stopped. Leroy and Schmidt (2016) found that participants found it easier to switch attention on

being interrupted, leading to low attention residue, when the interrupted task was promotion-

focused, and its completion was framed as helping them achieve their goals successfully.

While the above moderators affect cognitive mediators, stage of completion of the task

impacts self-regulatory mechanisms. Since motivation increases as one nears the completion of a

task, suspending the task on being interrupted near its completion requires more self-control and

causes more self-regulatory depletion than if interrupted earlier (Freeman & Muraven, 2010).

Interrupting Task Attributes. Although not always the case, people can be interrupted

by another task that needs to be performed. Studies have mainly emphasized the impact of the

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 22

attributes of interrupting tasks for the cognitive mediators. Like above, the complexity of the

interrupting task increases mental workload during a work interruption (Hodgetts & Jones, 2006;

Monk et al., 2008), and its regulatory framing affects attention residue. Here, however,

interrupting tasks that are prevention-focused and whose non-completion is framed as leading to

failure, make it easier to switch attention, leading to lower attention residue (Leroy & Schmidt,

2016). The duration of an interruption is also crucial as longer duration leads to greater decay of

the goals related to the interrupted task, increasing the time needed to resume and complete that

task (Foroughi, Werner, McKendrick, Cades & Boehm-Davis, 2016b; Monk & Kidd, 2008).

The effects of other interrupting task attributes in relation to cognitive mediators are

equivocal. Some scholars linked the similarity of the interrupting and interrupted tasks to fewer

errors (Eatchel, Kramer & Drews, 2012), while others did not find this effect (Pankok Jr et al.,

2017; Speier et al., 1999), and still others found the opposite effect (Edwards & Gronlund, 1998).

Mark, Gudith and Klocke (2008) suggested that variations in how similarity was operationalized

could have led to mixed results, but there is scope to probe these effects further. Findings about

interrupting task frequency are also mixed. While some scholars found that the frequency of the

interrupting task negatively affects performance on the interrupted task (Gupta et al., 2013; Parke

et al., 2018), others reported that it caused people to perform the interrupted task faster, but at a

cost to their well-being (Monk, 2004; Zijlstra, Roe, Leonora & Krediet, 1999). To reconcile

these findings, Baethge et al. (2015) advanced an inverted-U relationship, arguing that while the

psychological activation due to work interruptions may initially benefit performance, an increase

in interruption frequency may take a toll on the interrupted person and hinder performance.

For the self-regulatory pathway, Rosen et al. (2019) showed that the centrality of the

interrupting task to the core work of the interrupted person is an important moderator. In their

study, the negative impact of email interruptions on the goal progress of interrupted leaders was

less severe when emails were a central rather than a peripheral aspect of the leader’s core work.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 23

While this is a crucial finding, there is scope to further explore how interrupting task attributes

can moderate not only the self-regulatory but also the affective pathway as this can help predict

when these pathways are likely to be more or less severely experienced. As one example, while

simplicity-complexity of the interrupting task was shown to moderate the cognitive pathway, it

can also have implications for the other two pathways. Being interrupted by simple tasks that the

employee can complete quickly and easily may lead to a perception of goal progress and related

positive affect, as compared to when one is interrupted by complex, time-consuming tasks.

Interrupted Person Attributes. Apart from the attributes of an interruption’s tasks, the

attributes of the person who is interrupted also matter for all stages of our model. Starting with

the link between the sources and work interruption, researchers have shown that certain attributes

can help employees prevent workplace stimuli from interrupting them. For example, people high

in stimulus-screening ability and need for closure can weed out unnecessary workplace stimuli

and prevent them from becoming interruptions (Oldham et al., 1991; Szumowska & Kossowska,

2017). Similarly, Russell et al. (2017) showed that conscientiousness helped employees resist

checking emails in the middle of a task, thus preventing the emails from interrupting them.

Scholars have also studied how these attributes shape the relationship of an interruption

with its mediators. Starting with cognitive mediators, research indicates that high working

memory capacity can buffer the decay of interrupted task goals during interruptions, leading to

quicker task resumption and less post-interruption errors (e.g., Foroughi et al., 2016b; Westbrook

et al., 2018). Related to affective mediators, Zohar et al. (2003) found that employees with higher

workload experienced more negative affect following goal hindering events.

Finally, interrupted person attributes also affect the link between mediators and outcomes

of work interruptions. For the cognitive pathway, Tams et al. (2015) showed that interruption

self-efficacy—belief about one’s ability to be successful, despite interruptions—buffered the

negative impact of mental workload due to interruptions on stress. Mark et al. (2008) found that

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 24

task completion time was shorter for people high in openness to experience and the need for

personal structure. For the self-regulatory pathway, people vary in their temperament and

resilience to the negative task-based effects of work interruptions (Van Den Berg et al., 1996;

Zide, Mills, Shahani-Denning & Sweetapple, 2017). In a study on leaders, Rosen et al. (2019)

showed that high self-control attenuated the negative effect of low goal progress due to email

interruptions on leader behavior. Pachler et al. (2018) showed that trait polychronicity—a

preference for doing multiple tasks together—reduced the negative impact of interruptions on

daily job satisfaction. Lastly, in a study on nurses, Baethge and Rigotti (2015) found a three-way

interaction effect of job tenure, alertness, and interruptions on well-being, such that the negative

effect of interruptions on well-being was strongest for nurses with short tenure and low alertness.

Interrupter Attributes. The attributes of the person doing the interrupting have not been

widely studied as moderators (Rivera-Rodriguez & Karsh, 2010). The few studies that have been

done indicate that people respond differently to interruptions from supervisors than to those by

peers. In a study on cognitive processes, Gupta et al. (2013) found that instant messenger

interruptions from supervisors, as opposed to peers, were given more importance, took up more

time, and led to lower task quality. Relatedly, theory posits that employees may feel less able to

delay interruptions from supervisors than from others (Rennecker & Godwin, 2005). With regard

to affective mediators, Butts et al. (2015) showed that emotional reaction to email interruptions in

non-work hours was shaped by whether the sender was a supervisor, and whether the supervisor

was abusive such that people experienced more anger when interrupted by an abusive supervisor.

Summary. Research on moderators of work interruptions adds nuance to our

understanding of how interruptions occur, and how they translate to final outcomes. Several

trends are apparent here. First, contextual attributes play a key role in shaping the occurrence of

interruptions, indicating that targeting an organization’s context can help manage the prevalence

of interruptions. However, research is still needed to explore how contextual attributes shape the

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 25

mediators and outcomes of interruptions. For example, since interruptions by coworkers are

situated in the broader context of team interactions or organizational communication norms, it

would be useful to examine how these aspects shape the experience of interruptions. Further,

since leaders tend to influence employee attitudes, researchers can also examine how leader

preference for time management or multitasking shapes employee response to interruptions.

Second, our review shows that attributes of the interrupted person are crucial moderators

of all the stages of our model, with implications for all the three mediating pathways. Overall,

past research has shown that employees differ in their sensitivity to both the occurrence and

impact of work interruptions. This suggests that employees may potentially respond differently

to various interruption management interventions, depending on the mechanism(s) targeted.

Third, research has exposed the complexity of interruptions by explaining how attributes

of the interrupted and interrupting tasks shape the cognitive impact of interruptions. Yet, this

research is limited mainly to the cognitive pathway. Scholars can expand the focus onto studying

how these attributes shape the motivational and affective impact of interruptions as well, since it

is possible that different attributes of these task (e.g., complexity, duration etc.) can shape the

impact of an interruption on employee goal progress or affect in important ways.

Fourth, while some studies have examined the moderating effect of interrupters’

attributes, there is scope for more research in this area. Moreover, the impact of the interrupter’s

relationship with the interrupted person also needs to be unpacked further. Since interruptions

tend to be embedded within this relationship, it may play a crucial role in shaping the responses

to interruptions. Finally, beyond studying different moderators in isolation, the literature will

also benefit from considering the interplay among the different moderators revealed in our

review. Overall, Figure 1 integrates prior findings across theoretical and disciplinary boundaries

to provide a comprehensive view of the causes, experiences, and outcomes of work interruptions.

Next, we turn to a discussion of how to meaningfully advance the interruption literature ahead.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 26

FUTURE RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS

Building further on the trends evident in our review, we have identified several broad

focus areas for future research. Table 2 provides a summary of the critical observations and also

lists future research recommendations related to each focus area. As noted previously, there are

several ways in which research on interruptions is lopsided, giving precedence to some aspects

of interruptions over other parallel aspects. Hence, we call for a more balanced approach to

studying interruptions that focuses on (a) internal sources of interruptions in addition to external

sources, (b) the interrupting task in addition to the interrupted task, (c) the interrupting person in

addition to the interrupted person and (d) the positive, in addition to the negative, outcomes of

interruptions. We also call for an enhanced focus on the social/relational aspects of interruptions,

the higher level effects of interruptions, and the complexity of workplace interruptions.

Internal Sources of Interruptions

Scholars have indicated that people at times interrupt themselves due to causes that are

internal to them such as mindwandering, rumination, pain, exhaustion, or prioritizing of other

tasks/activities (e.g., Adler & Benbunan-Fich, 2013; Fisher, 1998; Gatzounis et al., 2014; Jin &

Dabbish, 2009). But research on these sources remains sparse due to the difficulty of isolating

and measuring them. Scholars usually equate self-initiated task switches to internally caused

interruptions (e.g., Dabbish et al., 2011). Yet, as we have argued, not all task switches are work

interruptions. Also, while some internal sources from past research such as mindwandering or

pain originate within the interrupted person (e.g., Fisher, 1998; Gatzounis et al., 2014), other

‘internally’ caused interruptions may have more ambiguous origin. For example, Jin and Dabbish

(2009) viewed the suspension of a task on recalling something in response to an external cue or

stimulus to be an internally caused interruption, and Fletcher et al. (2018) viewed work

interruptions caused by discrepancies in one’s expectations and environmental conditions to be

internally caused. Are such interruptions that are self-initiated, but in response to an external cue

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 27

or condition, internally or externally caused? In this regard, Iqbal and Horvitz (2007) suggested

that stopping a task within 15 seconds of receiving or being exposed to an external cue can be

considered to be an externally caused interruption, while stopping the task after 15 seconds will

be an internally caused interruption. However, we lack theoretical basis for this cut-off, and as

such, there is less clarity, and hence scope for future research, on how interruptions caused by

internal sources differ from those caused by external sources in their experience and outcomes.

Scholars have already begun unpacking this complexity, and initial studies have yielded

interesting findings. For instance, internally caused interruptions, as compared to externally

caused ones, were associated with quicker resumption of the interrupted task (Cades, Werner,

Boehm-Davis & Arshad, 2010), but were also linked to longer overall time of completion for the

interrupted task (Katidioti, Borst, van Vugt & Taatgen, 2016). There is substantial scope to build

further on these studies and clarify how internally and externally caused interruptions differ or

overlap. For instance, scholars can study whether the attributes of the internal/external sources

moderate the experience of being interrupted. As one example, scholars can explore whether

internal sources provide more autonomy as they originate inside the interrupted employees, and

how this autonomy affects the experience of the interruption.

An additional point is that at times internal causes of interruption (e.g., mind-wandering

or rumination) may emerge from the outcomes (e.g., depletion) of prior interruptions. This points

to the possibility of ‘interruption cycles,’ where prior interruptions lead to subsequent internally

triggered interruptions (Dabbish et al., 2011). Future scholars can examine when (e.g., high daily

workload) and for whom (e.g., employees with low self-control) such work interruption cycles

are more or less likely to occur and how they shape the interruption experience. A focus on such

cycles can also aid the agenda of understanding the relationship between external sources of

initial interruptions (e.g., receiving email in the morning), and internal sources of subsequent

interruptions (e.g., rumination about the email in the afternoon). Overall, we call for more

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 28

research on what, why, and when internal causes interrupt work and how this affects employees.

Interrupting Task

Interruptions are often triggered by interrupting tasks that can be more urgent than the

ongoing task (Perlow, 1999). Thus, the outcome of the interrupting task will also have crucial

implications for employees, but these tasks have been largely overlooked in prior research. We

suggest two areas for research in this regard: (a) exploring factors that influence performance on

the interrupting task (e.g., Leroy & Schmidt, 2016), and (b) studying the combined effect of the

interrupting and interrupted tasks on employee outcomes. Scholars can adopt a multi-goal

perspective to model the simultaneous impact of the interrupting and the interrupted tasks on

employee outcomes (e.g., Hunter et al., 2019). As one example, Sonnentag et al. (2018) showed

that while online messages interrupted ongoing work and elicited negative affect, responding

quickly to these online messages led to a feeling of responsiveness and positive affect. More

such studies taking a broader perspective on work interruptions are needed.

Interrupter

Interruptions by other people usually occur at the convenience of the interrupter, but not

necessarily the interrupted person. The interrupter can thus benefit by gaining help or resources

(Rivera, 2014). But apart from work on when interrupters are considerate in interrupting others

(e.g., Romero, Szóstek, Kaptein & Markopoulos, 2007), questions about the interrupter remain

mostly unanswered. For example, when do interruptions harm or benefit the interrupter? Are

people aware that they are interrupting others? What attributes make people more or less likely

to interrupt others? Research on help/information seeking could provide guidance here as it

shows that employees seek help from, and possibly interrupt, coworkers to boost their own

performance, creativity, and satisfaction (Geller & Bamberger, 2012; Mueller & Kamdar, 2011).

Scholars can explicitly focus on instances where help-seekers interrupt others and examine how

such episodes unfold and affect the interrupter. They can also examine traits like extraversion,

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 29

self-monitoring, and agreeableness that could shape one’s tendency of interrupting others.

Bright Side of Interruptions

Despite the heavy emphasis on the negative outcomes of work interruptions in prior

research, scholars have also hinted at possible positive outcomes. For instance, interruptions can

at times provide key information that boosts interrupted employees’ goal progress, thus

positively affecting the self-regulatory pathway (e.g., Jett & George, 2003). Future scholars can

unpack when this is likely to happen. Perhaps the goal-boosting value of interruptions is high

early in the life of a work project when things are more uncertain and tentative. Apart from the

interrupted person, interruptions can also bring self-regulatory benefits for the interrupter by

providing access to crucial information that boosts their goal progress (Rivera, 2014). The

cognitive mediators of work interruptions can also at times lead to positive outcomes. Speier et

al. (1999) showed that the attentional narrowing due to interruptions helped decision making on

simple tasks. It is also possible that the attentional diversion caused by work interruptions

provides variety and intellectual stimulation to employees engaged in monotonous jobs, thus

serving as a source of job enrichment (Baethge et al., 2015). Interruptions can also satisfy

different high-level needs of interrupted employees, depending on their content. For example,

being interrupted for help/feedback may satisfy the need for competence, and having an

enjoyable chat with the interrupter may satisfy the relatedness need, leading to positive affect

and increased wellbeing (Gagné & Deci, 2005). An episodic approach will help scholars unpack

the impact of the specific content of work interruption episodes on interrupted employees’ needs.

Thus, interruptions can have positive effects in a variety of ways. Scholars must explore

how the valence, general affective nature, or goal pursuit implications of interruptions positively

affect the cognitive, self-regulatory, and affective pathways from our model. Overall, a focus on

the bright side will add much needed nuance to our understanding of interruptions’ outcomes.

Social and Relational Dynamics and Interpersonal Outcomes of Work Interruptions

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 30

Building on the previous point, while interruptions often involve social interaction and

are embedded in the relational dynamics of the workplace, these factors are rarely examined. Our

review points to several reasons. First, lab studies cannot recreate these complex dynamics, nor

do these studies vary the social interaction quality between participants and the confederate (e.g.,

Conard & Marsh, 2016; Zijlstra et al., 1999). Second, in field studies, the social interaction

during an interruption is often ignored, or is impossible to capture due to a frequency approach

that focuses on the frequency rather than content of interruptions (e.g., Baethge & Rigotti, 2013;

Wilkes et al., 2018). Third, most interruption research focuses on performance and well-being

outcomes, while ignoring interpersonal outcomes (e.g., Lin et al., 2013; Parke et al., 2018).

Although initial evidence shows that relational factors such as interdependence and the

interrupter’s hierarchical level can shape the experience of an interruption (Gupta et al., 2013;

Perlow, 1999), there is room for much more insight in this space. First, scholars need to expand

their focus onto the quality of interaction during an interruption. Work on interpersonal justice

could be helpful here (e.g., Colquitt, 2001). For instance, do the parties to an interruption adhere

to, or violate, interpersonal justice rules such as respect or propriety, and how does this affect an

interruption’s outcomes? Second, scholars can explore the effects of interpersonal closeness or

exchange relationship with an interrupter with questions such as do interruptions from family

members differ from those by coworkers? In this case again, an episodic approach will help

scholars isolate these social/relational dynamics. Third, given leaders’ influence on employees

(Avolio, Walumbwa & Weber, 2009), does a leader’s leadership style or time management

preference shape employee attitudes toward interruptions? Lastly, scholars also need to expand

their focus onto interpersonal responses such as citizenship, incivility, and emotion regulation as

possible outcomes of interruptions. For instance, given that interruptions can trigger negative

emotions, does the interrupted person engage in surface acting to avoid showing these emotions?

Moving Beyond the Individual Level

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 31

Although interruptions are individual level events, their effects can manifest at higher

levels of analysis (Addas & Pinsonneault, 2013). Research indicates that work interruptions can

lead to team level information sharing and benefit team flexibility, but can also increase

coordination burden (Okhuysen & Eisenhardt, 2002; Tremblay, Vachon, Lafond & Kramer,

2012; Zellmer-Bruhn, 2003). More work is needed, however, to completely understand the team

level implications of work interruptions. For instance, how are the communication patterns

within and between teams affected by work interruptions? Are virtual teams affected differently

than non-virtual teams? How are interruptions shaped by team cohesion, conflict, and politics?

It could also be that while work interruptions harm the goal progress of an individual, they

may benefit the team via knowledge sharing, or by providing information to an interrupting team

member at a critical time. It is also possible that norms around when and how interruptions occur,

and who is interrupted emerge in teams. For instance, Oldroyd and Morris (2012) noted that star

employees face more interruptions for help due to their elevated status, leading to information

overload and decreased engagement. It is crucial to examine norms around work interruptions and

the effect of a fit/misfit between these norms and individual interruption handling preferences. In

sum, there is substantial scope for future research on higher level effects of work interruptions.

Complexity of Workplace Interruptions

Over time, research has moved from studying static, linear tasks in the lab to studying

workplace interruptions (e.g., Baethge et al., 2015). Yet, interruptions from different sources are

either studied separately (e.g., email interruptions) or are clubbed together to focus on their

frequency. This hides the interplay of multiple, nested, and simultaneous interruptions common

in today’s dynamic workplaces, due to which the complexity of workplace interruptions is not

well understood (Werner & Holden, 2015). One way of addressing this issue is by using

methodologies that capture this complexity. Scholars have recently used microworld simulations

(e.g., Tremblay et al., 2012), the dual perspectives method where the interrupter and interrupted

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 32

person are observed together (e.g., McCurdie, Sanderson & Aitken, 2017), social network

analysis (e.g., McCurdie, Sanderson & Aitken, 2018), and socio-technical system approaches

(e.g., Rivera, 2014; Werner & Holden, 2015) for this purpose. We call for more studies using

these approaches to unpack the dynamic interplay among different sources of work interruptions.

Another largely unexplored aspect of work interruptions’ complexity is the impact of

their distribution. While the effects of work interruptions’ mean level have been widely studied,

the impact of their distribution is less explored. Some work interruptions occur more regularly

(e.g., unexpected emails) than others (e.g., video conferences). Mean-based research might

suggest that the former are more impactful than the latter. But it is possible that people develop

standardized responses to frequently occurring work interruptions, as opposed to less routine

work interruptions. The repeated execution of these responses can help people adapt to chronic

work interruptions, in turn, making these interruptions less disruptive. In that case, infrequent

interruptions would have more impact on employee outcomes. Apart from variation in sources,

the distribution of interruptions may also vary based on the time of the day/week or stage of a

project. Thus, scholars can study how this variance in interruptions affects different outcomes.

Another avenue for future research is the agency of the interrupted employee. Past

research largely considers people to be passive recipients of interruptions, with little recourse but

to react to them. Lab participants have little choice but to attend to interruptions imposed on

them (e.g., Zijlstra et al., 1999), and field studies focus on reactions after interruption occurrence

(e.g., Parke et al., 2018). However, employees can seek to actively manage work interruptions

(Wajcman & Rose, 2011). Assuming employee agency in this experience expands the outcomes

to proactive behaviors and job-crafting. Given the increasing autonomy about the time and place

of work, employees can proactively craft their jobs to manage how, when, and by whom they are

interrupted. For example, they may use artifacts such as closed doors, do-not-disturb signs, post-

it notes, headphones or ear buds, and even flow lights to manage the experience and impact of

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 33

interruptions (e.g., González & Mark, 2004; Sykes, 2011; Züger et al., 2017). They may even

time their arrival/departure from the workplace, choose specific work shifts or work locations,

and manage coworker interactions and relationships to regulate exposure to interruptions (Chong

& Siino, 2006). Overall, we call for more research on the agency of interrupted employees.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

Given their impact on daily work life, research on interruptions has practical relevance.

Our review uncovered two somewhat competing types of practical advice in the interruption

literature. The first is the elimination, or at least minimization, of work interruptions, based on

studies that view work interruptions as stressors (e.g., Baethge & Rigotti, 2013; Lin et al., 2013;

Perlow, 1999). The second is the acceptance and active management of work interruptions to

reduce their disruptive effects while preserving their benefits (Jett & George, 2003). We feel the

latter is more realistic, as removal of all work interruptions is not feasible in today’s dynamic

workplaces (Leroy & Glomb, 2018). Further, as we have noted, work interruptions can at times

have beneficial effects that organizations may lose out on if they prioritize only elimination of

work interruptions. Thus, appropriate management of workplace interruptions is warranted.

For employees, this could mean anticipating interruptions and adding back-up plans that

ensure goal progress, despite interruptions (Parke et al., 2018). They can also use practices such

as marking the interrupted task’s progress or making ready-to resume plans before engaging with

the interruption to ensure quick resumption of work post-interruption (e.g., Leroy & Glomb,

2018; Trafton et al., 2005). There is also continued refinement of different features of

applications and software to reduce their disruptive effects and increase flexibility of handling

interruptions (e.g., Dabbish & Kraut, 2008; Hodgetts, Tremblay, Vallières & Vachon, 2015;

McFarlane, 2002). For example, email platforms now allow one to organize, batch, and respond

to emails, and also snooze alerts (e.g., Addas & Pinsonneault, 2018; Mark, Iqbal, Czerwinski,

Johns, Sano & Lutchyn, 2016). Also relevant in today’s workplaces is the management of social

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 34

media activity to reduce its disruptive impact. For example, there is software that blocks social

media websites during work hours (e.g., Chang, 2017; Mark, Czerwinski & Iqbal, 2018).

Managers can play a key role in the management of work interruptions in several ways.

First, they can adopt ready-to-use solutions or redesign workspaces to control interruptions’

disruptive effects, while still ensuring collaboration (e.g., Sykes, 2011; Wiberg & Whittaker,

2005; Züger et al., 2017). Second, managers can shape employee attitudes toward interruptions

in a beneficial way (Donmez, Matson, Savan, Farahani, Photiadis & Dafoe, 2014). For example,

they can frame help requests as learning opportunities rather than interruptions (Perlow &

Weeks, 2002). Further, training employees on work interruptions’ disruptive effects, and

promoting team identification can make them considerate when interrupting each other (Cades,

Boehm-Davis, Trafton & Monk, 2011; Dabbish & Kraut, 2004). Third, it is crucial for managers

to empower employees to manage work interruptions on their own terms because people differ in

their resilience to work interruptions (Mark et al., 2016; Zide et al., 2017). Moreover, fostering a

multi-goal outlook can highlight a work interruption’s contribution to the interrupting task and

thus alleviate the negative reactions due to hindered goal progress on the interrupted task (Hunter

et al., 2019). In sum, we recommend that instead of a ‘reductionist’ approach, organizations must

focus on better management of workplace interruptions (Relihan et al., 2010).

CONCLUSION

In today’s dynamic workplaces, work interruptions are widespread and inevitable. In our

review, we have advanced an integrative definition of work interruption, reviewed the different

approaches to studying this construct, organized findings from prior research, and presented

avenues for future research. While there has been substantial research on interruptions that has

yielded a great deal of knowledge about interruptions’ experience and outcomes, there is also a

great deal we still do not know. Based on our review, we call for a balanced approach to studying

work interruptions that unpacks the complexity of this widely occurring workplace phenomenon.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 35

REFERENCES

Adamczyk, P. D., & Bailey, B. P. 2004. If not now, when?: The effects of interruption at

different moments within task execution. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on

Human Factors in Computing Systems: 271-278.

Addas, S., & Pinsonneault, A. 2013. IT interruptions and coordination effectiveness in software

development groups: A conceptual, multilevel model. Proceedings of the SIGCHI

Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: 1-5.

Addas, S., & Pinsonneault, A. 2018. E-Mail interruptions and individual performance: Is there a

silver lining? Management Information Systems Quarterly, 42: 381-405.

Adler, R. F., & Benbunan-Fich, R. 2013. Self-interruptions in discretionary multitasking.

Computers in Human Behavior, 29: 1441-1449.

Altmann, E. M., & Trafton, J. G. 2002. Memory for goals: An activation-based model. Cognitive

Science, 26: 39-83.

Altmann, E. M., & Trafton, J. G. 2007. Timecourse of recovery from task interruption: Data and

a model. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14: 1079-1084.

Altmann, E. M., Trafton, J. G., & Hambrick, D. Z. 2014. Momentary interruptions can derail the

train of thought. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143: 215-226.

Andreasson, R., Lindblom, J., & Thorvald, P. 2017. Interruptions in the wild: Portraying the

handling of interruptions in manufacturing from a distributed cognition lens. Cognition,

Technology & Work, 19: 85-108.

Avolio, B. J., Walumbwa, F. O., & Weber, T. J. 2009. Leadership: Current theories, research,

and future directions. Annual Review of Psychology, 60: 421-449.

Baethge, A., & Rigotti, T. 2013. Interruptions to workflow: Their relationship with irritation and

satisfaction with performance, and the mediating roles of time pressure and mental

demands. Work and Stress, 27: 43-63.

Baethge, A., & Rigotti, T. 2015. Three-way interactions among interruptions/multitasking demands,

occupational age, and alertness: A diary study. Work, Aging and Retirement, 1: 393-410.

Baethge, A., Rigotti, T., & Roe, R. A. 2015. Just more of the same, or different? An integrative

theoretical framework for the study of cumulative interruptions at work. European

Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 24: 308-323.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 36

Bailey, B. P., & Iqbal, S. T. 2008. Understanding changes in mental workload during execution

of goal-directed tasks and its application for interruption management. Transactions on

Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 14: 21-28.

Bailey, B. P., & Konstan, J. A. 2006. On the need for attention-aware systems: Measuring effects

of interruption on task performance, error rate, and affective state. Computers in Human

Behavior, 22: 685-708.

Baron, R. S. 1986. Distraction-conflict theory: Progress and problems. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.),

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology: 1-40. New York: Academic Press.

Baumeister, R. F., & Vohs, K. D. 2007. Self‐Regulation, ego depletion, and motivation. Social

and Personality Psychology Compass, 1: 115-128.

Beal, D. J., Weiss, H. M., Barros, E., & MacDermid, S. M. 2005. An episodic process model of

affective influences on performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90: 1054-1068.

Beck, J. W., Scholer, A. A., & Hughes, J. 2017. Divergent effects of distance versus velocity

disturbances on emotional experiences during goal pursuit. Journal of Applied

Psychology, 102: 1109-1123.

Bellandi, T., Cerri, A., Carreras, G., Walter, S., Mengozzi, C., Albolino, S., Mastrominico, E.,

Renzetti, F., Tartaglia, R., & Westbrook, J. 2018. Interruptions and multitasking in

surgery: A multicentre observational study of the daily work patterns of doctors and

nurses. Ergonomics, 61: 40-47.

Biron, A. D., Lavoie‐Tremblay, M., & Loiselle, C. G. 2009a. Characteristics of work interruptions

during medication administration. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 41: 330-336.

Biron, A. D., Loiselle, C. G., & Lavoie‐Tremblay, M. 2009b. Work interruptions and their

contribution to medication administration errors: An evidence review. Worldviews on

Evidence‐Based Nursing, 6: 70-86.

Boehm-Davis, D. A., & Remington, R. 2009. Reducing the disruptive effects of interruption: A

cognitive framework for analysing the costs and benefits of intervention strategies.

Accident Analysis & Prevention, 41: 1124-1129.

Brixey, J. J., Robinson, D. J., Johnson, C. W., Johnson, T. R., Turley, J. P., & Zhang, J. 2007. A

concept analysis of the phenomenon interruption. Advances in Nursing Science, 30: E26-E42.

Brumby, D. P., Cox, A. L., Back, J., & Gould, S. J. J. 2013. Recovering from an interruption:

Investigating speed− accuracy trade-offs in task resumption behavior. Journal of

Experimental Psychology: Applied, 19: 95-107.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 37

Butts, M. M., Becker, W. J., & Boswell, W. R. 2015. Hot buttons and time sinks: The effects of

electronic communication during nonwork time on emotions and work-nonwork conflict.

Academy of Management Journal, 58: 763-788.

Cades, D. M., Boehm-Davis, D. A., Trafton, J. G., & Monk, C. A. 2011. Mitigating disruptive

effects of interruptions through training: What needs to be practiced? Journal of

Experimental Psychology: Applied, 17: 97-109.

Cades, D. M., Werner, N., Boehm-Davis, D. A., Trafton, J. G., & Monk, C. A. 2008. Dealing

with interruptions can be complex, but does interruption complexity matter: a mental

resources approach to quantifying disruptions. Proceedings of the Human Factors and

Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting: 398-402.

Cades, D. M., Werner, N. E., Boehm-Davis, D. A., & Arshad, Z. 2010. What makes real-world

interruptions disruptive? Evidence from an office setting. Proceedings of the Human

Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting: 448-452.

Cai, X., Gong, J., Lu, Y., & Zhong, S. 2017. Recover overnight? Work interruption and worker

productivity. Management Science, 1: 28-57.

Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. 1990. Origins and functions of positive and negative affect: A

control-process view. Psychological Review, 97: 19-35.

Chang, H. J. 2017. Facebook interruptions in the workplace from a media uses perspective: A

longitudinal analysis. In M. Friedrichsen and Y. Kamalipour (Eds.), Digital

transformation in journalism and news media: 319-337. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Chisholm, C. D., Collison, E. K., Nelson, D. R., & Cordell, W. H. 2000. Emergency department

workplace interruptions: Are emergency physicians “interrupt‐driven” and

“multitasking”? Academic Emergency Medicine, 7: 1239-1243.

Chisholm, C. D., Dornfeld, A. M., Nelson, D. R., & Cordell, W. H. 2001. Work interrupted: a

comparison of workplace interruptions in emergency departments and primary care

offices. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 38: 146-151.

Chong, J., & Siino, R. 2006. Interruptions on software teams: A comparison of paired and solo

programmers. Proceedings of the 20th Anniversary Conference on Computer Supported

Cooperative Work: 29-38.

Colquitt, J. A. 2001. On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a

measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86: 386-400.

Conard, M. A., & Marsh, R. F. 2016. Self-efficacy matters more than interruptions in a

sequential multitasking experiment. Psicológica, 37: 15-34.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 38

Cook, G. I., Meeks, J. T., Clark‐Foos, A., Merritt, P. S., & Marsh, R. L. 2014. The role of

interruptions and contextual associations in delayed‐execute prospective memory.

Applied Cognitive Psychology, 28: 91-103.

Couffe, C., & Michael, G. A. 2017. Failures due to interruptions or distractions: A review and a

new framework. American Journal of Psychology, 130: 163-181.

Czerwinski, M., Horvitz, E., & Wilhite, S. 2004. A diary study of task switching and

interruptions. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing

Systems: 175-182.

Dabbish, L., & Kraut, R. 2008. Research note—awareness displays and social motivation for

coordinating communication. Information Systems Research, 19: 221-238.

Dabbish, L., & Kraut, R. E. 2004. Controlling interruptions: Awareness displays and social

motivation for coordination. Proceedings of the 2004 ACM Conference on Computer

Supported Cooperative Work: 182-191.

Dabbish, L., Mark, G., & González, V. M. 2011. Why do I keep interrupting myself?:

Environment, habit and self-interruption. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on

Human Factors in Computing Systems: 3127-3130.

Dodhia, R. M., & Dismukes, R. K. 2009. Interruptions create prospective memory tasks. Applied

Cognitive Psychology, 23: 73-89.

Donmez, B., Matson, Z., Savan, B., Farahani, E., Photiadis, D., & Dafoe, J. 2014. Interruption

management and office norms: Technology adoption lessons from a product

commercialization study. International Journal of Information Management, 34: 741-750.

Eatchel, K. A., Kramer, H., & Drews, F. 2012. The effects of interruption context on task

performance. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual

Meeting: 2118-2122.

Edwards, M. B., & Gronlund, S. D. 1998. Task interruption and its effects on memory. Memory,

6: 665-687.

Einstein, G. O., & McDaniel, M. A. 1990. Normal aging and prospective memory. Journal of

Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 16: 717-726.

Einstein, G. O., & McDaniel, M. A. 1996. Retrieval processes in prospective memory:

Theoretical approaches and some new empirical findings. In M. Brandimonte, G. O.

Einstein and M. A. McDaniel (Eds.), Prospective memory: Theory and applications: 115-

141. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 39

Eyrolle, H., & Cellier, J. M. 2000. The effects of interruptions in work activity: Field and

laboratory results. Applied Ergonomics, 31: 537-543

Fisher, C. D. 1998. Effects of external and internal interruptions on boredom at work: Two

studies. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 19: 503-522.

Fletcher, K. A., Potter, S. M., & Telford, B. N. 2018. Stress outcomes of four types of perceived

interruptions. Human Factors, 60: 222-235.

Flynn, E. A., Barker, K. N., Gibson, J. T., Pearson, R. E., Berger, B. A., & Smith, L. A. 1999.

Impact of interruptions and distractions on dispensing errors in an ambulatory care

pharmacy. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 56: 1319-1325.

Fonner, K. L., & Roloff, M. E. 2012. Testing the connectivity paradox: Linking teleworkers'

communication media use to social presence, stress from interruptions, and

organizational identification. Communication Monographs, 79: 205-231.

Foroughi, C. K., Malihi, P., & Boehm-Davis, D. A. 2016a. Working memory capacity and errors

following interruptions. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 5: 410-414.

Foroughi, C. K., Werner, N. E., McKendrick, R., Cades, D. M., & Boehm-Davis, D. A. 2016b.

Individual differences in working-memory capacity and task resumption following

interruptions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition,

42: 1480-1488.

Freeman, N., & Muraven, M. 2010. Don’t interrupt me! Task interruption depletes the self’s

limited resources. Motivation and Emotion, 34: 230-241.

Frijda, N. H. 1986. The emotions: Studies in emotion and social interaction. New York:

Cambridge University Press.

Gagné, M., & Deci, E. L. 2005. Self‐determination theory and work motivation. Journal of

Organizational Behavior, 26: 331-362.

Gatzounis, R., Schrooten, M. G. S., Crombez, G., & Vlaeyen, J. W. S. 2014. Interrupted by pain:

An anatomy of pain-contingent activity interruptions. Pain, 155: 1192-1195.

Geller, D., & Bamberger, P. A. 2012. The impact of help seeking on individual task

performance: The moderating effect of help seekers' logics of action. Journal of Applied

Psychology, 97: 487-497.

Gillie, T., & Broadbent, D. 1989. What makes interruptions disruptive? A study of length,

similarity, and complexity. Psychological Research, 50: 243-250.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 40

González, V. M., & Mark, G. 2004. Constant, constant, multi-tasking craziness: Managing

multiple working spheres. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in

Computing Systems: 113-120.

Grandhi, S. A., & Jones, Q. 2015. Knock, knock! who׳ s there? Putting the user in control of

managing interruptions. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 79: 35-50.

Grundgeiger, T., Dekker, S., Sanderson, P., Brecknell, B., Liu, D., & Aitken, L. M. 2016.

Obstacles to research on the effects of interruptions in healthcare. BMJ Quality and

Safety, 25: 392-395.

Grundgeiger, T., & Sanderson, P. 2009. Interruptions in healthcare: Theoretical views.

International Journal of Medical Informatics, 78: 293-307.

Grundgeiger, T., Sanderson, P. M., Beltran Orihuela, C., Thompson, A., MacDougall, H. G.,

Nunnink, L., & Venkatesh, B. 2013. Prospective memory in the ICU: The effect of visual

cues on task execution in a representative simulation. Ergonomics, 56: 579-589.

Gupta, A., Li, H., & Sharda, R. 2013. Should I send this message? Understanding the impact of

interruptions, social hierarchy and perceived task complexity on user performance and

perceived workload. Decision Support Systems, 55: 135-145.

Hacker, W. 2003. Action regulation theory: A practical tool for the design of modern work

processes? European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 12: 105-130.

Healey, A. N., Primus, C. P., & Koutantji, M. 2007. Quantifying distraction and interruption in

urological surgery. BMJ Quality and Safety, 16: 135-139.

Hickam, D. H., Severance, S., Feldstein, A., Ray, L., Gorman, P., Schuldheis, S., Hersh, W. R.,

Krages, K. P., & Helfand, M. 2003. The effect of health care working conditions on

patient safety. Evidence Report/Technology Assessment Number 74: 1-206. Rockville,

MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Hobfoll, S. E. 1989. Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress.

American Psychologist, 44: 513-524.

Hockey, G. R. J. 1997. Compensatory control in the regulation of human performance under stress

and high workload: A cognitive-energetical framework. Biological Psychology, 45: 73-93.

Hodgetts, H. M., & Jones, D. M. 2006. Interruption of the Tower of London Task: Support for a

goal-activation approach. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 135: 103-115.

Hodgetts, H. M., Tremblay, S., Vallières, B. R., & Vachon, F. 2015. Decision support and

vulnerability to interruption in a dynamic multitasking environment. International

Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 79: 106-117.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 41

Hopkinson, S. G., & Jennings, B. M. 2013. Interruptions during nurses' work: A state‐of‐the‐

science review. Research in Nursing & Health, 36: 38-53.

Hunter, E. M., Clark, M. A., & Carlson, D. S. 2019. Violating work-family boundaries:

Reactions to interruptions at work and home. Journal of Management, 45: 1284-1308.

Iqbal, S. T., & Horvitz, E. 2007. Disruption and recovery of computing tasks: field study, analysis,

and directions. SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: 677-686.

Jackson, T., Dawson, R., & Wilson, D. 2003. Reducing the effect of email interruptions on

employees. International Journal of Information Management, 23: 55-65.

Jett, Q. R., & George, J. M. 2003. Work interrupted: A closer look at the role of interruptions in

organizational life. Academy of Management Review, 28: 494-507.

Jin, J., & Dabbish, L. A. 2009. Self-interruption on the computer: A typology of discretionary

task interleaving. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in

Computing Systems: 1799-1808.

Katidioti, I., Borst, J. P., van Vugt, M. K., & Taatgen, N. A. 2016. Interrupt me: External

interruptions are less disruptive than self-interruptions. Computers in Human Behavior,

63: 906-915.

Kim, S., Park, Y., & Headrick, L. 2018. Daily micro-breaks and job performance: General work

engagement as a cross-level moderator. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103: 772-786.

Kirchberg, D. M., Roe, R. A., & Van Eerde, W. 2015. Polychronicity and multitasking: A diary

study at work. Human Performance, 28: 112-136.

Lazarus, R. S. 1991. Emotion and adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press.

Leroy, S. 2009. Why is it so hard to do my work? The challenge of attention residue when switching

between work tasks. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109: 168-181.

Leroy, S., & Glomb, T. M. 2018. Tasks interrupted: How anticipating time pressure on

resumption of an interrupted task causes attention residue and low performance on

interrupting tasks and how a “ready-to-resume” plan mitigates the effects. Organization

Science, 29: 380-397.

Leroy, S., & Schmidt, A. M. 2016. The effect of regulatory focus on attention residue and

performance during interruptions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision

Processes, 137: 218-235.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 42

Li, S. Y. W., Magrabi, F., & Coiera, E. 2012. A systematic review of the psychological literature

on interruption and its patient safety implications. Journal of the American Medical

Informatics Association, 19: 6-12.

Lin, B. C., Kain, J. M., & Fritz, C. 2013. Don’t interrupt me! An examination of the relationship

between intrusions at work and employee strain. International Journal of Stress

Management, 20: 77-94.

Lu, S. A., Wickens, C. D., Prinet, J. C., Hutchins, S. D., Sarter, N., & Sebok, A. 2013.

Supporting interruption management and multimodal interface design: three meta-

analyses of task performance as a function of interrupting task modality. Human Factors,

55: 697-724.

Mandler, G. 1964. The interruption of behavior. Nebraska symposium on motivation, 12: 163-219.

Mansi, G., & Levy, Y. 2013. Do instant messaging interruptions help or hinder knowledge workers’

task performance? International Journal of Information Management, 33: 591-596.

Mark, G. 2015. Multitasking in the digital age. San Rafael, CA: Morgan & Claypool.

Mark, G., Czerwinski, M., & Iqbal, S. T. 2018. Effects of individual differences in blocking

workplace distractions. Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in

Computing Systems: 1-12.

Mark, G., Gonzalez, V. M., & Harris, J. 2005. No task left behind?: Examining the nature of

fragmented work. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in

Computing Systems: 321-330.

Mark, G., Gudith, D., & Klocke, U. 2008. The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress.

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: 107-110.

Mark, G., Iqbal, S. T., Czerwinski, M., Johns, P., Sano, A., & Lutchyn, Y. 2016. Email duration,

batching and self-interruption: Patterns of email use on productivity and stress.

Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: 1717-1728.

Mattarelli, E., Bertolotti, F., & Incerti, V. 2015. The interplay between organizational

polychronicity, multitasking behaviors and organizational identification: A mixed-

methods study in knowledge intensive organizations. International Journal of Human-

Computer Studies, 79: 6-19.

McCurdie, T., Sanderson, P., & Aitken, L. M. 2017. Traditions of research into interruptions in

healthcare: A conceptual review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 66: 23-36.

McCurdie, T., Sanderson, P., & Aitken, L. M. 2018. Applying social network analysis to the

examination of interruptions in healthcare. Applied Ergonomics, 67: 50-60.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 43

McCurdie, T., Sanderson, P., Aitken, L. M., & Liu, D. 2017. Two sides to every story: The Dual

Perspectives Method for examining interruptions in healthcare. Applied Ergonomics, 58:

102-109.

McDaniel, M. A., Einstein, G. O., Graham, T., & Rall, E. 2004. Delaying execution of intentions:

Overcoming the costs of interruptions. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18: 533-547.

McFarlane, D. C. 1997. Interruption of people in human-computer interaction: A general

unifying definition of human interruption and taxonomy. Technical Report - NRL Formal

Report NRL/ FR/5510—97-9870. Washington, DC: US Naval Research Lab.

McFarlane, D. C. 2002. Comparison of four primary methods for coordinating the interruption of

people in human-computer interaction. Human-Computer Interaction, 17: 63-139.

McFarlane, D. C., & Latorella, K. A. 2002. The scope and importance of human interruption in

human-computer interaction design. Human-Computer Interaction, 17: 1-61.

Mitchell, T. R., Harman, W. S., Lee, T. W., & Lee, D. Y. 2008. Self-regulation and multiple

deadline goals. In R. Kanfer, G. Chen and R. D. Pritchard (Eds.), Work motivation: Past,

present, and future:197-231. New York: Routledge.

Miyata, Y., & Norman, D. A. 1986. Psychological issues in support of multiple activities. In D.

A. Norman and S. W. Draper (Eds.), User centered system design: New perspectives on

human-computer interaction: 265-284. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Monk, C. A. 2004. The effect of frequent versus infrequent interruptions on primary task resumption.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting: 295-299.

Monk, C. A., & Kidd, D. G. 2008. The effects of brief interruptions on task resumption.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting: 403-407.

Monk, C. A., Trafton, J. G., & Boehm-Davis, D. A. 2008. The effect of interruption duration and

demand on resuming suspended goals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 14:

299-313.

Mueller, J. S., & Kamdar, D. 2011. Why seeking help from teammates is a blessing and a curse:

A theory of help seeking and individual creativity in team contexts. Journal of Applied

Psychology, 96: 263-276.

Myers, R. A., McCarthy, M. C., Whitlatch, A., & Parikh, P. J. 2016. Differentiating between

detrimental and beneficial interruptions: A mixed-methods study. BMJ Quality and

Safety, 25: 881-888.

Nees, M. A., & Fortna, A. 2015. A comparison of human versus virtual interruptions.

Ergonomics, 58: 852-856.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 44

O'Conaill, B., & Frohlich, D. 1995. Timespace in the workplace: Dealing with interruptions.

Conference Companion on Human Factors in Computing Systems: 262-263.

Okhuysen, G. A., & Eisenhardt, K. M. 2002. Integrating knowledge in groups: How formal

interventions enable flexibility. Organization Science, 13: 370-386.

Oldham, G. R., Kulik, C. T., & Stepina, L. P. 1991. Physical environments and employee

reactions: Effects of stimulus-screening skills and job complexity. Academy of

Management Journal, 34: 929-938.

Oldroyd, J. B., & Morris, S. S. 2012. Catching falling stars: A human resource response to social

capital's detrimental effect of information overload on star employees. Academy of

Management Review, 37: 396-418.

Pachler, D., Kuonath, A., Specht, J., Kennecke, S., Agthe, M., & Frey, D. 2018. Workflow

interruptions and employee work outcomes: The moderating role of polychronicity.

Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 23: 417-427.

Pankok Jr, C., Zahabi, M., Zhang, W., Choi, I., Liao, Y. F., Nam, C. S., & Kaber, D. 2017. The

effects of interruption similarity and complexity on performance in a simulated visual-

manual assembly operation. Applied Ergonomics, 59: 94-103.

Parke, M. R., Weinhardt, J. M., Brodsky, A., Tangirala, S., & DeVoe, S. E. 2018. When daily

planning improves employee performance: The importance of planning type,

engagement, and interruptions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103: 300–312.

Perlow, L., & Weeks, J. 2002. Who's helping whom? Layers of culture and workplace behavior.

Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23: 345-361.

Perlow, L. A. 1999. The time famine: Toward a sociology of work time. Administrative Science

Quarterly, 44: 57-81.

Raban, M. Z., & Westbrook, J. I. 2014. Are interventions to reduce interruptions and errors

during medication administration effective?: A systematic review. BMJ Quality and

Safety, 23: 414-421.

Relihan, E., O'brien, V., O'hara, S., & Silke, B. 2010. The impact of a set of interventions to

reduce interruptions and distractions to nurses during medication administration. Quality

& Safety in Health Care, 19 (5): 1-6.

Rennecker, J., & Godwin, L. 2005. Delays and interruptions: A self-perpetuating paradox of

communication technology use. Information and Organization, 15: 247-266.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 45

Rissler, R., Nadj, M., Adam, M., & Maedche, A. 2017. Towards an integrative theoretical

framework of IT-mediated interruptions. 25th European Conference on Information

Systems (ECIS): 1950-1967.

Rivera-Rodriguez, A. J., & Karsh, B. T. 2010. Interruptions and distractions in healthcare:

Review and reappraisal. BMJ Quality & Safety, 19: 304-312.

Rivera, A. J. 2014. A socio-technical systems approach to studying interruptions: Understanding

the interrupter's perspective. Applied Ergonomics, 45: 747-756.

Romero, N., Szóstek, A. M., Kaptein, M., & Markopoulos, P. 2007. Behaviours and preferences

when coordinating mediated interruptions: Social and system influence. In Bannon L.J.,

Wagner I., Gutwin C., Harper R.H.R. and S. K. (Eds.), ECSCW 2007: 351-370. London:

Springer.

Rosen, C. C., Simon, L. S., Gajendran, R. S., Johnson, R. E., Lee, H. W., & Lin, S.-H. J. 2019.

Boxed in by your inbox: Implications of daily e-mail demands for managers’ leadership

behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104: 19-33.

Rummel, J., Wesslein, A. K., & Meiser, T. 2017. The role of action coordination for prospective

memory: Task-interruption demands affect intention realization. Journal of Experimental

Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 43: 717-735.

Russell, E., Woods, S. A., & Banks, A. P. 2017. Examining conscientiousness as a key resource

in resisting email interruptions: Implications for volatile resources and goal achievement.

Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 90: 407-435.

Sanderson, P. M., & Grundgeiger, T. 2015. How do interruptions affect clinician performance in

healthcare? Negotiating fidelity, control, and potential generalizability in the search for

answers. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 79: 85-96.

Sasangohar, F., Donmez, B., Trbovich, P., & Easty, A. C. 2012. Not all interruptions are created

equal: Positive interruptions in healthcare. Proceedings of the Human Factors and

Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting: 824-828.

Smith, R. E. 2003. The cost of remembering to remember in event-based prospective memory:

Investigating the capacity demands of delayed intention performance. Journal of

Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29: 347-361.

Sonnentag, S., Reinecke, L., Mata, J., & Vorderer, P. 2018. Feeling interrupted—Being

responsive: How online messages relate to affect at work. Journal of Organizational

Behavior, 39: 369-383.

Speier, C., Valacich, J. S., & Vessey, I. 1999. The influence of task interruption on individual

decision making: An information overload perspective. Decision Sciences, 30: 337-360.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 46

Speier, C., Vessey, I., & Valacich, J. S. 2003. The effects of interruptions, task complexity, and

information presentation on computer‐supported decision‐making performance. Decision

Sciences, 34: 771-797.

Spira, J. B., & Feintuch, J. B. 2005. The cost of not paying attention: How interruptions impact

knowledge worker productivity. New York: Basex.

Sykes, E. R. 2011. Interruptions in the workplace: A case study to reduce their effects.

International Journal of Information Management, 31: 385-394.

Szumowska, E., & Kossowska, M. 2017. Motivational rigidity enhances multitasking performance:

The role of handling interruptions. Personality and Individual Differences, 106: 81-89.

Tams, S., Thatcher, J., Grover, V., & Pak, R. 2015. Selective attention as a protagonist in

contemporary workplace stress: Implications for the interruption age. Anxiety, Stress, &

Coping, 28: 663-686.

Tan, M. K. S., & Richardson, A. 2011. Please do not disturb: Managing interruptions and task

complexity. Proceedings of the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems: 1-15.

Trafton, J. G., Altmann, E. M., & Brock, D. P. 2005. Huh, what was I doing? How people use

environmental cues after an interruption. Proceedings of the Human Factors and

Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting: 468-472.

Trafton, J. G., Altmann, E. M., Brock, D. P., & Mintz, F. E. 2003. Preparing to resume an

interrupted task: Effects of prospective goal encoding and retrospective rehearsal.

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 58: 583-603.

Trafton, J. G., & Monk, C. A. 2007. Task interruptions. In D. A. Boehm-Davis (Ed.), Reviews of

human factors and ergonomics (vol. 3): 111-126. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and

Ergonomics Society.

Tremblay, S., Vachon, F., Lafond, D., & Kramer, C. 2012. Dealing with task interruptions in

complex dynamic environments: Are two heads better than one? Human Factors, 54: 70-83.

Van Den Berg, P. T., Roe, R. A., Zijlstra, F. R. H., & Krediet, I. 1996. Temperamental factors in

the execution of interrupted editing tasks. European Journal of Personality, 10: 233-248.

Wajcman, J., & Rose, E. 2011. Constant connectivity: Rethinking interruptions at work.

Organization Studies, 32: 941-961.

Weigl, M., Müller, A., Vincent, C., Angerer, P., & Sevdalis, N. 2012. The association of

workflow interruptions and hospital doctors' workload: A prospective observational

study. BMJ Quality and Safety, 21: 399-407.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 47

Weigl, M., Müller, A., Zupanc, A., Glaser, J., & Angerer, P. 2011. Hospital doctors' workflow

interruptions and activities: An observation study. BMJ Quality & Safety, 20: 491-497.

Weiss, H. M., & Cropanzano, R. 1996. Affective events theory: A theoretical discussion of the

structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work. Research in

Organizational Behavior, 18: 1-74.

Werner, N. E., & Holden, R. J. 2015. Interruptions in the wild: Development of a sociotechnical

systems model of interruptions in the emergency department through a systematic review.

Applied Ergonomics, 51: 244-254.

Westbrook, J. I., Raban, M. Z., Walter, S. R., & Douglas, H. 2018. Task errors by emergency

physicians are associated with interruptions, multitasking, fatigue and working memory

capacity: a prospective, direct observation study. BMJ Quality and Safety, 27: 655-663.

Westbrook, J. I., Woods, A., Rob, M. I., Dunsmuir, W. T. M., & Day, R. O. 2010. Association of

interruptions with an increased risk and severity of medication administration errors.

Archives of Internal Medicine, 170: 683-690.

Wiberg, M., & Whittaker, S. 2005. Managing availability: Supporting lightweight negotiations to

handle interruptions. Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 12: 356-387.

Wilkes, S. M., Barber, L. K., & Rogers, A. P. 2018. Development and validation of the

Workplace Interruptions Measure. Stress and Health, 34: 102–114.

Zellmer-Bruhn, M. E. 2003. Interruptive events and team knowledge acquisition. Management

Science, 49: 514-528.

Zide, J. S., Mills, M. J., Shahani-Denning, C., & Sweetapple, C. 2017. Work interruptions

resiliency: Toward an improved understanding of employee efficiency. Journal of

Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 4: 39-58.

Zijlstra, F. R. H., Roe, R. A., Leonora, A. B., & Krediet, I. 1999. Temporal factors in mental

work: Effects of interrupted activities. Journal of Occupational and Organizational

Psychology, 72: 163-185.

Zohar, D., Tzischinski, O., & Epstein, R. 2003. Effects of energy availability on immediate and

delayed emotional reactions to work events. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88: 1082-1093.

Züger, M., Corley, C., Meyer, A. N., Li, B., Fritz, T., Shepherd, D., Augustine, V., Francis, P.,

Kraft, N., & Snipes, W. 2017. Reducing interruptions at work: A large-scale field study

of flowlight. Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing

Systems: 61-72.

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 48

Table 1

Review of Prior Definitions of Work Interruptions

Source

Definition/description of a work interruption

Attributes referred to as defining features of a work interruption

Suspension of an

ongoing work task’s

execution

Unexpect

edness

Interrupting

task

Intention to

resume

interrupted

task

External/

internal

cause of

interruption

Behavioral

Attentional

Andreasson et

al. (2017: 87)

Any event that causes the current activity, i.e. the primary task, to stop temporarily and

requests or forces the person’s attention towards a new task, i.e. the interruption task.

✓

Not

mentioned

Baethge et al.

(2015: 309)

An interruption is a temporary suspension of a person’s goal-directed action (Brixey et

al., 2007, p. E30). Being interrupted means that the person stops the execution of an

action before a chosen goal or sub-goal (task goals are typically broken down into sub-

goals that can be executed successively or at separate time intervals) is reached, with the

intention of resuming the action at a later point in time (cf. Altmann & Trafton, 2002).

✓

Not

mentioned

Bellandi et al.

(2018: 41)

Any temporary diversion from the current task performed within in individual’s main

activity, due to an external intervention that moves the professional’s attention to a

secondary task until the main task is resumed or forsaken.

✓

External

Biron et al.

(2009a: 331)

A break in task activity, evidenced by cessation of a task.

✓

Not

mentioned

Boehm-Davis

& Remington

(2009: 1125)

Suspension of one stream of work prior to completion, with the intent of returning to

and completing the original stream of work.

✓

Not

mentioned

Brixey et al.

(2007: E38)

A break in the performance of a human activity initiated by a source internal or external

to the recipient, with occurrence situated within the context of a setting or a location.

This break results in the suspension of the initial task by initiating the performance of an

unplanned task with the assumption that the initial task will be resumed.

✓

Either

Chisholm et al.

(2000: 1240)

Any event that briefly required the attention of the subject but did not result in switching

to a new task.

✓

Not

mentioned

Chong & Siino

(2006: 30)

Any instance in which workers turn attention away from their primary work task, either

on their own or in response to others’ actions.

✓

Either

Couffe &

Michael

(2017: 165)

A primary task is suspended temporarily; there is the intention to return to and complete

it; the new task (i.e., interruption task) is introduced by an event, unanticipated or not;

and the event can be either external or internal to the person.

✓

Either

Dabbish et al.

(2011: 3127)

Self-interruptions involve abandoning an ongoing task prior to completion, and

changing focus to a different task without prompting by an external event or entity.

✓

Internal

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 49

Source

Definition/description of a work interruption

Attributes referred to as defining features of work interruptions

Suspension of an

ongoing work task’s

execution

Unexpect

edness

Interrupting

task

Intention to

resume

interrupted

task

External/

internal

cause of

interruption

Behavioral

Attentional

Fletcher et al.

(2018: 224)

Events or stimuli with either an internal or an external impetus that may result in

concurrent or sequential multitasking with a primary task.

✓

Either

González &

Mark

(2004: 118)

An internal interruption refers to self-initiated switching among working spheres. An

external interruption is a condition in the environment that motivates switching.

✓

Either

Healey et al.

(2007: 136)

We defined distraction as observed behaviour such as orienting away from a primary task

or verbally responding to a secondary task. We defined interruption as a distraction

resulting in a break in primary task activity.

✓

Not

mentioned

Jett & George

(2003: 495)

Intrusion: An unexpected encounter initiated by another person that interrupts the flow

and continuity of an individual's work and brings that work to a temporary halt.

✓

External

Jett & George

(2003: 497-498)

Breaks: Planned or spontaneous recesses from work on a task that interrupt the task’s

flow and continuity.

✓

Either

Jett & George

(2003: 500)

Distractions: Psychological reactions triggered by external stimuli or secondary

activities that interrupt focused concentration on a primary task.

✓

External

Jett & George

(2003: 502)

Discrepancies: Perceived inconsistencies between one’s knowledge and expectations

and one’s immediate observations that are perceived to be relevant to both the task at

hand and personal well-being.

✓

Not

mentioned

Li et al.

(2012: 6)

A secondary activity that requires one’s attention and stops interaction with the primary

task.

✓

Not

mentioned

Lin et al.

(2013: 78)

Temporary halts in task-related behavior due to the onset of a demand or secondary task

(Eyrolle & Cellier, 2000).

✓

Not

mentioned

Mark et al.

(2005: 322)

External interruptions are those that stem from events in the environment… Internal

interruptions are those in which one stops a task of their own volition.

✓

Either

McCurdie et al.

(2017: 104-105)

A diversion of attention from the current task due to an attention request from an

external source (person, phone, device), briefly or for an extended amount of time,

which may or may not result in switching to a new task.

✓

External

McFarlane

(1997: 67)

The process of coordinating abrupt change in people’s activities.

✓

Not

mentioned

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 50

Source

Definition/description of a work interruption

Attributes referred to as defining features of work interruptions

Suspension of an

ongoing work task’s

execution

Unexpect

edness

Interrupting

task

Intention to

resume

interrupted

task

External/

internal

cause of

interruption

Behavioral

Attentional

Miyata &

Norman

(1986: 268)

External interruptions result from events in the environment. Internal interruptions come

from our own thought processes-new ideas that draw attention from the current activity.

Interruptions introduce new tasks on top of the ongoing activity, often unexpectedly.

✓

Either

Myers et al.

(2016: 883)

Anything that takes your attention away from a task or communication activity that you

were already engaged in as part of your job

✓

Not

mentioned

O'Conaill &

Frohlich

(1995: 262)

A synchronous interaction which was not initiated by the subject, was unscheduled and

resulted in the recipient discontinuing their current activity.

✓

External

Relihan et al.

(2010: 2)

Interruption: An external factor causing the cessation of productive activity before a

current task is complete. Distraction: A stimulus from an external source that results in

an observable response, but not the cessation of activity

✓

External

Rivera

(2014: 748)

Unplanned break in workflow caused by an external source (i.e. the interrupter)

✓

External

Sanderson &

Grundgeiger

(2015: 86)

An interruption occurs when an event leads a person to remove their attention fully but

temporarily from a primary, or current, task to another task, and then move their

attention back to the primary task

✓

Not

mentioned

Sasangohar et

al. (2012: 826)

Externally or internally generated, usually unexpected events that may cause a break in

the primary task (if they don’t, they are merely distractions), diverting attention to a

related or unrelated secondary task, which can have both negative and positive effects on

the interrupter’s or the interrupted person’s main task.

✓

Either

Speier et al.

(1999: 339)

"Externally generated, randomly occurring, discrete event that breaks continuity of

cognitive focus on a primary task" (Corragio, 1990, p. 19)

✓

External

Van Den Berg

et al.

(1996: 236)

Externally generated, temporary cessation in the current flow of behavior, typically meant

for the subject to execute activities that belong to a secondary set of actions. The activities

of their primary task are resumed after a certain lapse of time.

✓

External

Weigl et al.

(2011: 492)

An intrusion of an unplanned and unscheduled task, causing a discontinuation

of tasks, a noticeable break or task switch behaviour

✓

Not

mentioned

Westbrook et

al. (2018: 656)

An observable external stimulus resulting in a change in a physician’s task

✓

External

Zijlstra et al.

(1999: 169)

Events which result in the cessation and postponement of an ongoing activity. Typical for

interruptions is that the main activity is resumed after a certain lapse of time.

✓

Not

mentioned

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 51

Table 2

Work Interruptions: Critical Assessment and Future Research Recommendations

Focus area

Critical observations about prior research related to the focus area

Key questions/recommendations for future research on the focus area

Internal

sources of

interruption

• Despite noting the presence of internal sources of interruptions,

theoretical and empirical research on the nature, experience, and

outcomes of internal sources of interruption remains sparse

• Build theory around the nature and characteristics of ‘internal’ sources of interruptions

• Explore similarities/differences between internally and externally triggered interruptions

• Examine the possibility of ‘interruption cycles’

Interrupting

task

• Included as design elements in lab studies or as boundary conditions

• The effect of interruption on interrupting tasks is mostly unexplored

• How are interrupting tasks affected by interruptions? What factors influence this effect?

• How do interrupted and interrupting tasks jointly affect employee outcomes?

Interrupter

• Despite sporadic studies, systematic investigation of who

interrupts, and how they are affected by the interruption is lacking

• When are interruptions harmful or beneficial for the interrupter? Why?

• What influences the decision to interrupt others? Do interrupters realize they are

interrupting others? How does this affect their behavior and experience of interruption?

Bright side

of work

interruptions

• While theory indicates positive interruption outcomes, most studies

focus only on negative outcomes—leading to interruptions being

viewed as undesirable occurrences that need to be eliminated

• When, why, and how do interruptions benefit the interrupted and interrupting tasks?

• When, why, and how do interruptions benefit the interrupted and interrupting persons?

• Do interruptions lead to positive non-task outcomes (e.g., cohesion)? When and why?

Social and

relational

dynamics

and

interpersonal

outcomes

• Lack of focus on the social/relational dynamics and interpersonal

outcomes related to a work interruption

• Social interaction/relationship between the interrupter and the

interrupted ignored in experimental and observational studies

• Most field studies use frequency-based items that club interruptions

from different people and prevent the study of relational dynamics

(e.g., ‘I am frequently interrupted by others:’ Lin et al., 2013)

• How does an interruption’s quality of social interaction affect interruption outcomes?

• How do relationships affect the experience of interrupting and being interrupted? How

do leaders shape employee attitudes toward interruptions?

• Do work interruptions have interpersonal consequences? When and why do work

interruptions lead to positive versus negative interpersonal responses?

• An episodic approach will help isolate and study the relational context of an interruption

Moving

beyond the

individual

level

• Almost all prior interruption research resides at the individual level

• Incomplete understanding of interruptions’ impact at the team and

organization level

• How do interruptions influence intra and inter team communication patterns and affect

collaboration, team performance, team cohesion, team identification etc.?

• How do shared team norms about interruptions develop? What impact does a fit/misfit

between individual interruption handling preference and team interruption norms have?

Complexity

of modern

workplaces

• Lack of focus on the complex interplay of multiple, nested, and

simultaneous interruptions in today’s dynamic workplaces

• Lack of focus on how interruption dispersion affects outcomes

• Employees as passive recipients of interruptions who respond

after interruptions occur. Employee agency not examined.

• Use methodologies that can capture the complexity/interplay of various interruptions (e.g.,

microworld simulations, Dual Perspectives Method, socio-technical system approach etc.)

• How does the variance in work interruptions impact employees? How do employees

manage chronic versus less regular interruptions?

• How do employees agentically shape the occurrence and experience of interruptions?

RUNNING HEAD: Work Interruptions Review 52

Figure 1

Integrative Process-based Model of Sources, Mediators, Outcomes, and Moderators of Work Interruptions

Note: a. For the second and third stage moderators, the letter(s) in the parenthesis indicate the pathway that these variables moderate. C = Cognitive pathway, SR = Self-

regulatory pathway, and A = Affective pathway.

b. While work can also be interrupted by factors internal to the employees (e.g., mindwandering) (e.g., Fisher, 1998), due to the sparse research on internal sources,

the nature, experience, and outcomes of interruptions caused by internal sources are poorly understood. Hence, we discuss internal sources as a future research topic in

the text. Thus, the mediators, outcomes, and moderators shown above are related to external sources of interruptions, reflecting the current state of the literature.

The Double‐Edged‐Sword Effect of Constant Connectivity on Work Performance: Roles of Perceived Value, Work–Life Balance, and Work–Family Conflict

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2025
J MANAGE STUD

Constant connectivity through smartphone use represents a major societal challenge, particularly in relation to work performance and work–nonwork boundaries. This research leverages an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, crisis settings, and a cross‐cultural approach (France and the United Kingdom) to specify the impacts of smartphone use on work performance and work–life interfaces, before and during the COVID‐19 crisis, among large samples of employees (NPilot = 229; N1 = 938; N2 = 1042). An empirical test of this integrative model shows that smartphone use influences work performance directly, work–life balance negatively mediates this relationship, and work–family conflict moderates it. It advances knowledge by considering both dimensions of work performance, generic task performance and adaptive performance, which is crucial for adapting to technologies and crises. This research also emphasizes the need to consider the context in which smartphone use affects work performance, notably in situations marked by high pressure, such as crises that become chronic. By introducing the marketing concept of perceived value as a mediator, this research shows that utilitarian value improves work performance while hedonic value decreases it, thus advancing the scholarly conversation and helping to manage constant connectivity.

Managing Daily Work Intrusions: An Intervention to Reduce Attention Residue and Exhaustion

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2025

The proliferation of technology-mediated work practices and the growing emphasis on open and multilocational work have highlighted the importance of navigating and managing work interruptions. Work interruptions are omnipresent in contemporary work environments and have accumulated abundant attention from scholars and managers during the past decades. Despite this attention, research only scarcely explored strategies employees could utilize to manage the growing number of work interruptions. Building on self-regulation theory, we propose that intrusions relate to exhaustion through attention residue but that an employee-centered planning intervention (i.e., writing ready-to-resume plans) mitigates this process. We tested our predictions in an experimental field study utilizing a daily diary methodology (N = 50 × 4 = 200 occasions). The findings demonstrate that employees experience greater attention residue and higher levels of exhaustion on days when intrusions are more prevalent. We argue that the findings imply that the intervention facilitates self-regulation processes. The intervention reduces attention residue and attenuates the daily association between attention residue and exhaustion. The findings advance the literature on work interruptions and attention residue by demonstrating that writing about task progress reduces attention residue and limits the depleting effects of persisting thoughts regarding the interrupted task.

The dark side of after-hours technology-mediated interruptions for supervisors: the roles of information overload and IT experience

Article

Full-text available

May 2025
CURR PSYCHOL

Existing research on after-hours technology-mediated interruptions (TMI) has primarily focused on the interruptees. This study shifts the focus from the interruptees to the interrupters (i.e., supervisors) and explores how supervisors’ after-hours TMI affects their psychological and behavioral outcomes. Integrating the conservation of resources (COR) theory and work-life interface literature, the study tests the mediating role of information overload and the moderating effect of IT experience. Analyzing experience sampling data from 113 participants over 10 working days, the results reveal that supervisors’ after-hours TMI is positively associated with information overload, which in turn increases both work and nonwork exhaustion and reduces performance in both areas. Moreover, the relationship between after-hours TMI and information overload is moderated by IT experience, i.e., when supervisor have higher levels of IT experience, the relationship is lower (vs. higher). In conclusion, this study reveals how and when supervisors’ after-hours TMI negatively impacts their own psychological and behavioral outcomes.

The Relationship Between the Digital Clinical Practice Environment, Unmet Expectations and the Successful Transition of Nursing Students: A Cross‐Sectional Study

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2025
Int J Nurs Pract

Aims This study investigates how unmet expectations in the digital clinical practice environment for elderly care impact the negative affect and turnover intentions of students majoring in elderly care and examines the moderating role of proactive personality traits. Methods A cross‐sectional study was conducted between December 2022 and March 2023. Participants included 609 nursing students from 16 schools in Anhui Province, China, who met inclusion criteria and consented to participate. They completed the Digital Technology Unmet Expectations Scale, Negative Affect Scale, Proactive Personality Scale and Turnover Intention Scale. Data analysis was performed using SPSS and SmartPLS. Results Unmet expectations regarding digital technology were identified as significant barriers to the successful transition of elderly care students into the workforce. However, no moderating effects of proactive personality were found on the relationships between unmet expectations concerning system quality and negative affect, unmet expectations regarding information quality and negative affect or unmet expectations regarding system quality and turnover intention. Conclusion Findings suggest that unmet expectations related to digital technology in the clinical training environment hinder the transition of elderly care students to the workforce. It is essential to implement measures to facilitate a smoother transition for students in this field. Summary What Is Already Known About This Topic? The high rate of nursing student turnover is one of the major reasons for the shortage of elderly care nurses. The turnover intention of nursing students is influenced by many factors. Few studies have examined the mechanism of unmet expectations in the digital clinical practice environment of elderly care on the turnover intentions of students. What This Paper Adds? Extends the application of the Stimulus‐Organism‐Response (S‐O‐R) model to explore the relationship between digital technology use and turnover intentions in the nursing field. This study shows that unmet expectations regarding digital technology in the clinical practice environment affect the successful transition of students to the workforce. Expands understanding of the application of proactive personality traits in nursing, exploring their moderating role in digital technology and turnover intentions. The Implications of This Paper: This study highlighted the importance of the digital clinical practice environment for nursing students in elderly care.

Digital Detox Research: An Analysis of Applied Methods and Implications for Future Studies

Chapter

Full-text available

May 2025

The development and increasing use of technology worldwide can lead to potential negative consequences for individuals’ well-being and productivity. To counteract negative consequences, both scientific research and practice have shown increasing interest in digital detox research, a rising phenomenon of abstinence and temporary or complete disengagement from digital technologies. To lay a foundation for future research, we conducted a systemic literature review with a focus on the methodological aspects of the existing empirical digital detox studies. Our literature search process revealed a total of 65 studies. Our analyses of this literature basis revealed five different research fields (communication, education, tourism, well-being and health, work environment), and we analyzed the empirical studies in these fields regarding applied research approach, research method, and sample size. This review provides methodological insights to advance the scientific inquiry on digital detox research, a relatively nascent, yet increasingly relevant research topic.

Building a Resilient Organization Through Informal Networks: Examining the Role of Individual, Structural, and Attitudinal Factors in Advice-Seeking Tie Formation

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2025

Modern organizations operate not only through formal structures but also through informal networks, which play a critical role in fostering a resilient organization. This study focused on informal advice networks within organizations as a key mechanism for strengthening contextual resilience, one of the core components of organizational resilience. By analyzing the activation of informal advice networks, this study conceptualized advice-seeking networks as a critical informal system that enhances contextual resilience and examined the individual, structural, and attitudinal factors influencing their formation. Specifically, we hypothesized that employees with higher levels of Machiavellianism are more likely to engage in advice-seeking behaviors, whereas the relationship between Machiavellianism and advice-seeking behaviors is moderated by betweenness centrality and organizational commitment, such that the positive effect of Machiavellianism on advice-seeking is weaker when betweenness centrality or organizational commitment is high. To empirically test these hypotheses, we conducted a network survey of employees at the headquarters of a life insurance company in Seoul, South Korea, and analyzed the data using an Exponential Random Graph Model (ERGM). The findings provide empirical support for all hypotheses. Based on these results, we discussed the theoretical contributions and practical implications of the study, along with its limitations.

Boundary Control and Work-Life Balance: The Mediating Role of Interruptions and Moderating Effect of an Office Space

Article

May 2025

Drawing on boundary theory, this study examined how boundary control influences satisfaction with work-life balance through interruptions among involuntary remote workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we investigated whether family intrusions and nonwork task distractions mediate the boundary control–work-life balance relationship and whether having a home office moderates these effects. In Study 1 (N = 130), we tested the mediating role of nonwork task distractions among behavior analysts across two time points. Study 2 ( N = 278), using a Mechanical Turk sample across three time points, extended these findings by examining both family intrusions and the moderating role of home office access. Results from both studies showed that nonwork task distractions mediated the relationship between boundary control and satisfaction with work-life balance. Study 2 further revealed that family intrusions mediated this relationship and that access to a home office conditionally moderated the indirect effects of boundary control via both mediators. These findings highlight the complex role of interruptions in remote work settings and suggest that access to a dedicated office space can mitigate interruptions' negative impacts. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed to inform decisions around the adoption or discontinuation of remote work practices.

How Do Digital Business Professionals Manage Work Interruptions? A Pilot Study on Coping Strategies

Chapter

May 2025

Leadership Styles, Knowledge Transfer, and Interruptions: Unpacking Critical Dynamics in Remote Software Teams

Chapter

May 2025

Exploring Interruptions and Task Resumption Strategies for Designing Digital Home Health Assessments

Chapter

Apr 2025

Normal Aging and Prospective Memory

Article

Full-text available

Jul 1990

We develop a laboratory paradigm for studying prospective memory and examine whether or not this type of memory is especially difficult for the elderly. In two experiments, young and old subjects were given a prospective memory test (they were asked to perform an action when a target event occurred) and three tests of retrospective memory (short-term memory, free recall, and recognition). From the perspective that aging disrupts mainly self-initiated retrieval processes, large age-related decrements in prospective memory were anticipated. However, despite showing reliable age differences on retrospective memory tests, both experiments showed no age deficits in prospective memory. Moreover, regression analyses produced no reliable relation between the prospective and retrospective memory tasks. Also, the experiments showed that external aids and unfamiliar target events benefit prospective memory performance. These results suggest some basic differences between prospective and retrospective memory.

Boxed In by Your Inbox: Implications of Daily Email Demands for Managers' Leadership Behaviors

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2018

Over the past 30 years, the nature of communication at work has changed. Leaders in particular rely increasingly on email to communicate with their superiors and subordinates. However, researchers and practitioners alike suggest that people frequently report feeling overloaded by the email demands they experience at work. In the current study, we develop a self-regulatory framework that articulates how leaders’ day-to-day email demands relate to a perceived lack of goal progress, which has a negative impact on their subsequent enactment of routine (i.e., initiating structure) and exemplary (i.e., transformational) leadership behaviors. We further theorize how two cross-level moderators — centrality of email to one’s job and trait self-control — impact these relations. In an experience sampling study of 48 managers across 10 consecutive workdays, our results illustrate that email demands are associated with a lack of perceived goal progress, to which leaders respond by reducing their initiating structure and transformational behaviors. The relation of email demands with leader goal progress was strongest when email was perceived as less central to performing one’s job, and the relations of low goal progress with leadership behaviors were strongest for leaders low in trait self-control.

On the Dimensionality of Organizational Justice: A Construct Validation of a Measure

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2001

Jason A. Colquitt

This study explores the dimensionality of organizational justice and provides evidence of construct validityfor a new justice measure. Items for this measure were generated by strictly following the seminal works in the justice literature. The measure was then validated in 2 separate studies. Study 1 occurred in a university setting, and Study 2 occurred in a field setting using employees in an automobile parts manufacturing company. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a 4-factor structure to the measure, with distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice as distinct dimensions. This solution fit the data significantly better than a 2- or 3-factor solution using larger interactional or procedural dimensions. Structural equation modeling also demonstrated predictive validity for the justice dimensions on important outcomes, including leader evaluation, rule compliance, commitment, and helping behavior.

Daily Micro-Breaks and Job Performance: General Work Engagement as a Cross-Level Moderator

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2018

Despite the growing research on work recovery and its well-being outcomes, surprisingly little attention has been paid to at-work recovery and its job performance outcomes. The current study extends the work recovery literature by examining day-level relationships between prototypical microbreaks and job performance as mediated by state positive affect. Furthermore, general work engagement is tested as a cross-level moderator weakening the indirect effects of microbreaks on job performance via positive affect. Using multisource experience sampling method, the authors collected two daily surveys from 71 call center employees and obtained objective records of daily sales performance for two consecutive weeks (n = 632). Multilevel path analysis results showed that relaxation, socialization, and cognitive microbreaks were related to increased positive affect at work which, in turn, predicted greater sales performance. However, breaks for nutrition-intake (having snacks and drinks) did not show significant effects. Importantly, microbreaks had significant indirect effects on job performance via positive affect only for workers who had lower general work engagement, whereas the indirect effects did not exist for workers who had higher general work engagement. Furthermore, Bayesian multilevel analyses confirmed the results. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

Task errors by emergency physicians are associated with interruptions, multitasking, fatigue and working memory capacity: A prospective, direct observation study

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2018

Background Interruptions and multitasking have been demonstrated in experimental studies to reduce individuals’ task performance. These behaviours are frequently used by clinicians in high-workload, dynamic clinical environments, yet their effects have rarely been studied. Objective To assess the relative contributions of interruptions and multitasking by emergency physicians to prescribing errors. Methods 36 emergency physicians were shadowed over 120 hours. All tasks, interruptions and instances of multitasking were recorded. Physicians’ working memory capacity (WMC) and preference for multitasking were assessed using the Operation Span Tas (OSPAN) and Inventory of Polychronic Values. Following observation, physicians were asked about their sleep in the previous 24 hours. Prescribing errors were used as a measure of task performance. We performed multivariate analysis of prescribing error rates to determine associations with interruptions and multitasking, also considering physician seniority, age, psychometric measures, workload and sleep. Results Physicians experienced 7.9 interruptions/hour. 28 clinicians were observed prescribing 239 medication orders which contained 208 prescribing errors. While prescribing, clinicians were interrupted 9.4/hour. Error rates increased significantly if physicians were interrupted (rate ratio (RR) 2.82; 95% CI 1.23 to 6.49) or multitasked (RR 1.86; 95% CI 1.35 to 2.56) while prescribing. Having below-average sleep showed a >15-fold increase in clinical error rate (RR 16.44; 95% CI 4.84 to 55.81). WMC was protective against errors; for every 10-point increase on the 75-point OSPAN, a 19% decrease in prescribing errors was observed. There was no effect of polychronicity, workload, physician gender or above-average sleep on error rates. Conclusion Interruptions, multitasking and poor sleep were associated with significantly increased rates of prescribing errors among emergency physicians. WMC mitigated the negative influence of these factors to an extent. These results confirm experimental findings in other fields and raise questions about the acceptability of the high rates of multitasking and interruption in clinical environments.

Psychological Issues in Support of Multiple Activities

Chapter

Jan 1986

E-Mail Interruptions and Individual Performance: Is There a Silver Lining?

Article

Feb 2018

Interruption of work by e-mail and other communication technologies has become widespread and ubiquitous. However, our understanding of how such interruptions influence individual performance is limited. This paper distinguishes between two types of e-mail interruptions (incongruent and congruent) and draws upon action regulation theory and the computer-mediated communication literature to examine their direct and indirect effects on individual performance. Two empirical studies of sales professionals were conducted spanning different time frames: a survey study with 365 respondents and a diary study with 212 respondents. The results were consistent across the two studies, showing a negative indirect effect of exposure to incongruent interruptions (interruptions containing information that is not relevant to primary activities) through subjective workload, and a positive indirect effect of exposure to congruent interruptions (interruptions containing information that is relevant to primary activities) through mindfulness. The results differed across the two studies in terms of whether the effects were fully or partially mediated, and we discuss these differences using meta-inferences. Technology capabilities used during interruption episodes also had significant effects: rehearsing (fine-tuning responses to incoming messages) and reprocessing (reexamining received messages) were positively related to mindfulness, parallel communication (engaging in multiple e-mail conversations simultaneously) and leaving messages in the inbox were positively related to subjective workload, and deleting messages was negatively related to subjective workload. This study contributes to research by providing insights on the different paths that link e-mail interruptions to individual performance and by examining the effects of using capabilities of the interrupting technology (IT artifact) during interruption episodes. It also complements the experimental tradition that focuses on isolated interruptions. By shifting the level of analysis from specific interruption events to overall exposure to interruptions over time and from the laboratory to the workplace, our study provides realism and ecological validity.

Tasks Interrupted: How Anticipating Time Pressure on Resumption of an Interrupted Task Causes Attention Residue and Low Performance on Interrupting Tasks and How a “Ready-to-Resume” Plan Mitigates the Effects

Article

May 2018

This paper explores the attention regulation challenges brought by interruptions. In contrast to much of the research on interruptions that looks at the effects on the interrupted task, this paper examines the difficulty of focusing attention and performing well on interrupting tasks. Integrating research on attention residue, time pressure, and implementation intention, we predict that when people anticipate resuming their interrupted work under time pressure, they will find it difficult to switch their attention to the interrupting task, leading to attention residue and low performance. A ready-to-resume intervention, in which one briefly reflects on and plans one’s return to the interrupted task, mitigates this effect such that attention residue is reduced and performance on the interrupting task does not suffer. Data collected across four studies support these hypotheses. The e-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2017.1184 .

Effects of Individual Differences in Blocking Workplace Distractions

Conference Paper

Apr 2018

Information workers are experiencing ever-increasing online distractions in the workplace, and software to block distractions is becoming more popular. We conducted an exploratory field study with 32 information workers in their workplace using software to block online distractions for one week. We discovered that with online distractions blocked, participants assessed their focus and productivity to be significantly higher. Those who benefited most were those who reported being less in control of their work, associated with personality traits of lower Conscientiousness and Lack of Perseverence. Unexpectedly, those reporting higher control of work experienced a cost of higher workload with online distractions blocked. Those who reported the greatest increase in focus with distractions blocked were those who were more susceptible to social media distractions. Without distractions, people with higher control of work worked longer stretches without physical breaks, with consequently higher stress. We present design recommendations to promote focus for our observed coping behaviors.

Applying social network analysis to the examination of interruptions in healthcare

Article

Sep 2017
APPL ERGON

Examinations of interruptions in healthcare often focus on a single clinical discipline, and solutions are targeted accordingly. This approach does not take into account the inter-disciplinary dependencies and other sociotechnical aspects that make up the healthcare work system, and suggested solutions may not meet the needs of all stakeholders. In this article a sociotechnical systems perspective is used to uncover the interdependencies between 16 unique work roles that result in interruptions in an intensive care unit (ICU). By applying social network analysis techniques to data collected using the Dual Perspectives Method, we identified targeted systems-based interventions that may reduce unnecessary interruptions while avoiding unintended consequences that impose additional burden on ICU staff. The rich insights gained into the interruptive communication patterns in the ICU work system stand in contrast to findings that would have otherwise been obtained by focusing only on a single clinical discipline or a single perspective.

Pardon the Interruption: An Integrative Review and Future Research Agenda for Research on Work Interruptions

Abstract and Figures

Recommended publications

Employee Performance Appraisal: Based on the Theory of Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Workplace Energy Use Feedback in Context

Influence Tactics: Conceptualization, Review, and Recommendations for Future Research

Research progress of laser crystals in China