Page 226 - WHERE WE WORK - Schlegelmilch

WHERE WE WORK
Digital technologies enable us to work 'anywhere, anytime' – at least that’s what many assume. What receives less attention is the fact that all digital work is still conducted by workers within a physical environment. In this doctoral dissertation, I research what role the physical workplace plays in digitally enabled work and draw conclusions for theory and practice. My first study about digital nomads shows that we need to extend our understanding of the term “workplace” to mean that a workplace is not a given but created by the worker through interacting with the physical environment. The second study finds that transitioning to remote work intensifies close relationships between employees but dilutes looser relationships even further. In the third study, I show that when workers in an open office can access work-related information about their colleagues, they are able to share more ideas. However, this positive impact is reduced if they work remotely some of the time due to the reduced access to information. Building on these three studies, this doctoral dissertation concludes that people in research and business need to take the physical environment of digital work into account. This is because a place can hinder or support the workers' interactions to create and maintain the physical, social and digital aspects of a workplace. This dissertation can also inform managers to make more deliberate choices about the where and how of work, to ultimately achieve more flexibility for workers and companies.