Page 46 - WHERE WE WORK - Schlegelmilch

Moving between places
work independent of pre-defined locations (Colbert et al., 2016).
2.3 Data and methodology
Digital nomads are a new phenomenon of how professionals organize for work that differs from other phenomena in the extant literature, such as mobile knowledge workers or expats. Therefore, exploration is of value. We iterated between the data and existing theory, which is in line with the inductive approach (Eisenhardt, 1989). Our initial focus was to find out how nomadic workers create temporary work environments in their hypermobile setting. During the initial rounds of analyzing the data, the theory of affordances emerged as a suitable lens, and we decided to change our research question to accommodate the new focus.
2.3.1 Data sources
This article is grounded in data that we collected from a qualitative exploratory study of digital nomads between October 2015 and November 2017. The primary unit of analysis was located at the level of affordances, and through interviews and observations, we focused on the lived experience and natural field data (Silverman, 2011). We collected 45 semi- structured interviews (English, Dutch, or German) and ca. 124 hours of observation (Table 2.2).
Early in the data collection, we discovered that we wanted to focus on the extreme end of the digital nomads’ mobility (Reichenberger, 2017) because this allowed us to gain a more in-depth understanding of the phenomenon (Eisenhardt, 1989; Jahnukainen, 2012). Thus, we decided to focus our attention on informants who fit the following description: mobile professionals who work despite of changing locations, using digital technology to do so, and traveling for pleasure (rather than business). Using these criteria, we sampled our respondents through a snowball strategy using our personal network, social media (Facebook, Twitter), designated internet platforms (nomadlist.com), and field visits. While the contact via our
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