Corporate merchandise as a way to negotiate boundaries between work and home

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to to investigate the under researched phenomenon of corporate merchandise. My interest lies in finding out how employees use merchandise in their everyday lives – not only in the organizational context but in a broader life context meaning their work as well as free time.

The theoretical framework of this study rests on an idea of the socially constructed character of artifacts where the meaning of a material object is made in social interactions and practices. My interest is in the individual lived experience as I am interested in the way in which the organizational members use the physical objects and try to unravel the social meanings behind that use.

This thesis contributes to existing research on artifacts and material objects in organizations on several levels. Even though both research on organizational artifacts and boundary theory address organizational dress and clothing, they lack research on corporate merchandise specifically. Therefore, this thesis brings the unexplored phenomenon of corporate merchandise into these discussions.

Analysis of the data revealed that the participants of the study use the merchandise in their unique ways. However, these ways of using merchandise could be interpreted as boundary negotiations as the participants tried to negotiate and manage different roles between work and home. During the research process, a gap in the classification of organizational artifacts was identified. I thus propose a division which distinguishes between artifacts essential for work tasks, like laptops or organizational dress, and those that are gifted, such as corporate merchandise.

In conclusion, the findings illustrate the presence of the organization in the everyday lives of people, even in the private sphere of life, and how corporate merchandise is used in the challenging psychological work that organizational members have to do in navigating between different roles between work and home.