Interruptions and Task Transitions: Understanding Their Characteristics, Processes, and Consequences

Abstract

Frequent interruptions and task transitions are an inescapable reality of modern organizational life, yet the relevant research spans across numerous seemingly disconnected domains that paint an incomplete and often inconsistent picture regarding the detrimental and/or beneficial consequences of such transitions, thus undermining the potential for this body of research to inform theory and practice. In this review we review research relevant to interruptions as intrusions, breaks, distractions, discrepancies, as well as relevant work on multitasking and multiple goal self-regulation. In so doing, we identify ambiguities in the existing literature, shed light on shared and unshared features across studies and fields to bring some coherence and start reconciling existing knowledge. At a theoretical level, our review reveals that behaviors on a task and the related interruptions and task transitions cannot be fully understood without taking into account the system of goals, within which they are embedded. We highlight that how people decide what to pay attention to and when to stop a goal pursuit to engage in another have important emotional, cognitive and performance implications and provide directions for advancing knowledge on interruptions and task transitions.