Detailing a Spectrum of Motivational Forces Shaping Nomadic Practices

Self Cite

This paper presents the results of a qualitative study exploring the technologically-mediated practices of work/life balancing, blurring and boundary-setting of a cohort of professionals in knowledge-intensive roles in Sheffield, a regional city in Northern England. It contributes to a growing body of CSCW research on the complex interweaving of work and non-work tasks, demands and on the boundaries that can be supported or hindered by digital technologies. In the paper, we detail how a cohort of 26 professionals in knowledge-intensive roles devise diverse strategies for handling work and non-work in light of a set of interconnected forces, and we argue that boundary dissolving and work-life blurring, and not just boundary setting and Bbalancing^, are essential resources within such strategies. We also show how boundary sculpting pertains not only to work pervading personal spheres of life, but also the opposite, and that establishing, softening and dissolving boundaries are practiced to handle situations when the personal seeps into professional life.

Section: Background and Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Work to Life and Back Again: Examining the Digitally-Mediated Work/Life Practices of a Group of Knowledge Workers

Ciolfi

Lockley

2018

Self Cite

“…The dynamic nature of modern-day knowledge work can also be seen in the transitional infrastructuring practices that individuals take on to accommodate their professional needs. This literature, extensively developed by CSCW scholars, showcases, among other things, how workers appropriate spaces for productivity (Brown and O'Hara 2003;Koroma et al 2014;Perry et al 2001), produce personalized infrastructures (Erickson and Jarrahi 2016;Jarrahi et al 2017;Pipek and Wulf 2009;Rossitto et al 2014), and strategize to accommodate non-standardized professional circumstances (de Carvalho et al 2017;Jarrahi and Nelson 2018). While this work forms an important backdrop to this study's understanding of flexibility, we do not review it extensively here as our ultimate argument relates less to developing our understanding of these key practices as it does with the acknowledgement that these practices form a backdrop against which worker disposition plays out.…”

Section: Knowledge Work As a Dynamic Sociotechnical Territorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Flexible Turtles and Elastic Octopi: Exploring Agile Practice in Knowledge Work

Erickson

Menezes

Raheja

et al. 2019

This paper takes as its starting place the rich context of many knowledge workers today-highly distributed, increasing project focused, typically atypical days, infrastructural-and attempts to push past extant descriptions of their practices as 'flexible'. Using empirical data informed by a practice theory lens, we expand the understanding of flexibility with regard to work by augmenting how worker disposition, as well as the ability to engage with agility in dynamic circumstances, should be considered as a factor when examining and designing for this population. We make several contributions of interest to the wider CSCW community. First, we distinguish between those who showcase flexible practices and those who proactively orient around flexibility. We call this second group 'elastic workers'. Second, we raise new questions for us as scholars and designers keen to exploit the conceptual and pragmatic intersection of technology and work. These questions create opportunities to explore different methods for understanding complex phenomena such as flexibility, as well as understanding how we might design for this phenomenon with more foresight in the future.

“…Issues of how technology-mediated nomadicity (de Carvalho et al 2017) and always-on connectivity shape the desired boundaries between work and personal life have so far been left with lesser attention within CSCW. Glamorous narratives of being able to work anywhere (Czarniawska 2014), often associated with promises of individual empowerment and flexibility are now increasingly questioned .…”

Section: Nomadic Work Practices and Critical Perspectives On Working mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By discussing Hoffice, we illustrate how narratives of Bflexible^forms of knowledge work (Barley and Kunda 2006;Bourne and Forman 2013;de Carvalho et al 2017;Gregg 2013;Liegl 2014;, detached from the here and now of office spaces, call for taking on a broaderand partially differentset of research issues. While flexible work arrangements (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co-Creating the Workplace: Participatory Efforts to Enable Individual Work at the Hoffice

Rossitto

Lampinen

2018

This paper analyzes the self-organizing network Hofficea merger between the words home and officethat brings together people who wish to co-create temporary workplaces. The Hoffice concept entails a co-working methodology, and a set of practices inherent in opening up one's home as a temporary, shared workplace, with the help of existing social media platforms, particularly Facebook. We discuss both the practices of co-creating temporary workplaces, particularly for workers who lack a stable office and orchestrate flexible work arrangements, and the values and rhetoric enshrined in Hoffice. We collected our research materials through interviews, participant observation, and workshops. Our findings draw attention to i) the practical arrangement of Hoffice events, ii) the participatory efforts to get individual work done, and 3) the co-creation of an alternative social model that encourages trust, self-actualization, and openness. To conclude, we discuss how Hoffice is already making change for its members, and how this is indicative of a politics of care. We contribute to research on computersupported collaborative work (CSCW) by highlighting grassroots efforts to create alternative ways of organizing nomadic work and navigating non-traditional employment arrangements.