A Representation Theory Perspective on the Repurposing of Personal Technologies for Work-Related Tasks

Individuals often blur the line between technologies used for personal means and those used to complete work-related tasks. The increasing level of capabilities offered by personal technologies presents opportunities to repurpose them for work. With guidance from representation theory, we describe how cross-context representational fidelity predicts repurposing intentions across domains of use (e.g., personal to work-related). An empirical study of 311 full-time employees demonstrates that congruence between prior technology use and potential work use increases an individual’s belief that a technology can be useful for work purposes. Furthermore, we show that, in repurposing situations, usefulness is also influenced by an individual’s confidence in using the technology on a work device(s). These findings, among others, shed new light on our understanding of the influence of experience on repurposing technologies for use in the professional domain.