Nomadic work and location independence: The role of space in shaping the work of digital nomads

Nash, Caleece; Jarrahi, Mohammad Hossein; Sutherland, Will

doi:10.1002/hbe2.234

Cited by 39 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…In addition, 12 employees, who were sales representatives, were involved in so-called nomadic teleworking. This is characterized by the fact that workers move around and carry out their work activity in different locations outside the company premises [5,55]. Finally, 3 had never formally teleworked from home.…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Qualitative and Longitudinal Study on the Impact of Telework in Times of COVID-19

et al. 2022

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Mandatory teleworking has become a major tool of public authorities for mitigating the spread of COVID-19 when work activity allows it. A lexical and morphosyntactic analysis was performed with 22 employees interviewed at home by phone on two occasions during and after a national lockdown (April 2020 and March 2021). The results indicate that the organizational changes initially implemented became sustainable and highlight a change in work practices. Changes in working time structure were observed and led to a feeling of intensification and/or increase in working hours. The preservation of the professional bond through informal exchanges required a deliberate communicative effort. The lack of face-to-face social relations deprived employees of both their usual ways of working and the meaning they found in them. Finally, the continuation of the health crisis (phase 2) and the multiple reorganizations generated a decrease in wellbeing (mental wear and tear). Employees feared that the company’s management would retain a working model based mainly on remote working.

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Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Qualitative and Longitudinal Study on the Impact of Telework in Times of COVID-19

et al. 2022

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“…Home and mobile working Library and Information Studies (LIS) research into the role that information and information activities play within home and remote working originates in the early 2000s, when the concept of teleworking was still relatively rare (e.g., Fulton, 2000Fulton, , 2002. Since then, studies have kept abreast of changes within modern working environments, including cuts in corporate office space and the improvement of home internet speeds, to encompass studies of mobile working (e.g., Jarrahi & Thomson, 2017) as well as 'nomadic' workplace practices (e.g., Al-Hadi & Al-Aufi, 2019;Nash, Jarrahi & Sutherland, 2021). This means that research has built upon initial preoccupations with access to physical information sources (e.g., Fulton, 2000Fulton, , 2002 to draw attention to the articulation or coordinating information work in which mobile workers engage (Al-Hadi & Al-Aufi, 2019;Jarrahi & Thomson, 2017;Nash, Jarrahi & Sutherland, 2021), as well as the role that a physical environment plays in shaping information interactions (Nash, Jarrahi & Sutherland, 2021).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since then, studies have kept abreast of changes within modern working environments, including cuts in corporate office space and the improvement of home internet speeds, to encompass studies of mobile working (e.g., Jarrahi & Thomson, 2017) as well as 'nomadic' workplace practices (e.g., Al-Hadi & Al-Aufi, 2019;Nash, Jarrahi & Sutherland, 2021). This means that research has built upon initial preoccupations with access to physical information sources (e.g., Fulton, 2000Fulton, , 2002 to draw attention to the articulation or coordinating information work in which mobile workers engage (Al-Hadi & Al-Aufi, 2019;Jarrahi & Thomson, 2017;Nash, Jarrahi & Sutherland, 2021), as well as the role that a physical environment plays in shaping information interactions (Nash, Jarrahi & Sutherland, 2021). Social concerns also play an important part in this research, including how to 'stay in the loop,' and how to remain visible with remotely situated co-workers (Jarrahi & Thomson, 2017).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fractured academic space: digital literacy and the COVID-19 pandemic

Lloyd

Hicks

2023

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PurposeThe study focussed on information literacy practices, specifically on how higher education staff managed the transition from established and routinised in-person teaching, learning and working practices to institutionally mandated remote or hybrid working patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe qualitative study forms part of a broader research project, examining how information literacy and information practices unfolded during the COVID-19 pandemic. Phase Three of this project, which forms the subject of this paper, employed semi-structured interviews to explore the impact of COVID-19 on the workplace and, in particular, the role that technology and digital literacy plays in enabling or constraining information literacy practices necessary for the operationalisation of work.FindingsThe complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a fracturing of workplace information environments and worker information landscapes by disrupting all aspects of academic life. The study recognises that whilst the practice of information literacy is predicated on access to modalities of information, this practice is also shaped by material conditions. This has implications for digital literacy which, in attempting to set itself apart from information literacy practice, has negated the significant role that the body and the corporeal modality play as important sources of information that enable transition to occur. In relation to information resilience, the bridging concept of fracture has enabled the authors to consider the informational impact of crisis and transition on people's information experiences and people's capacity to learn to go on when faced with precarity. The concept of grief is introduced into the analysis.Originality/valueThis study presents original research.

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“…Digital nomad is an umbrella term that refers to professionals who embrace extreme forms of mobile work to combine their interest in travel with the possibility of remote working (Nash et al, 2021). While the term was coined over 20 years ago (Makimoto and Manners, 1997), digital nomadism started to enjoy a higher visibility in the past few years, both on social media and in the general press (see Bonneau and Aroles, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Romanticisation and monetisation of the digital nomad lifestyle: The role played by online narratives in shaping professional identity work

2022

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Some occupations are subject to more complex identity work processes than others. This rings true for those professional endeavours that are relatively poorly known and that cannot rely on institutions as a reference for identification, such as digital nomadism. Digital nomads can broadly be defined as professionals who embrace extreme forms of mobile work to combine their interest in travel with the possibility to work remotely. Building on a two-stage data collection process, this paper proposes a typology that characterises four archetypes of digital nomad lifestyle promoters’ narratives found online and show how these online narratives play a role in the process of identity work of other digital nomads. Our contributions are two-fold. First, we show that while the archetypes act as an important online identity regulatory force, they do so through dis-identification. Second, we explain how identity work for digital nomads involves evaluating discursively available subjectivities and propose a three-step reflexive process that entails (i) interpreting, (ii) dis-identifying and (iii) contextualising. We contend that our findings extend beyond the specific case of digital nomads and shed light onto the intricacies of work identity for ‘new’ occupations that are romanticised and monetised through social media and beyond.

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Nomadic work and location independence: The role of space in shaping the work of digital nomads

Cited by 39 publications

References 57 publications

A Qualitative and Longitudinal Study on the Impact of Telework in Times of COVID-19

A Qualitative and Longitudinal Study on the Impact of Telework in Times of COVID-19

Fractured academic space: digital literacy and the COVID-19 pandemic

Romanticisation and monetisation of the digital nomad lifestyle: The role played by online narratives in shaping professional identity work

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