Page 156 - WHERE WE WORK - Schlegelmilch

General discussion
To return to the introductory discussion of the spatiality of work settings for digital workers, the studies in this dissertation urge scholars and practitioners to consider physical settings more prominently because they enable and hinder professionals in conducting their work. Thereby, I contribute to the broader conversation of understanding work in the digital age (Barley & Kunda, 2001; Colbert et al., 2016; Orlikowski, 2016) where digital knowledge workers are able to organize their work in a mobile and remote manner irrespective of a particular location (e.g., Aguinis & Lawal, 2013; Ashford et al., 2007; Barley et al., 2017; Colbert et al., 2016). Before I address the overarching research question, I provide a brief overview of the key findings from each empirical study. Now, in this last chapter 5, I will consider the overall implications for theory by consolidating the findings from the three empirical studies (see Table 5.1 and Table 5.2 for an overview). The aim is to broaden our understanding of how place matters in digital work and what the implications for theory and practice are.
5.1 Key findings and overall research question
Each study provides a different but complementary piece of the puzzle to explain the interaction between workers and their physical environments. I elaborate below on how each of the chapters helps to understand the physical places of digital work in general as well as the particular challenges associated with each degree of spatiality of
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