The role of self and place in the digital world: Challenges for hybrid work and virtual collaboration

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Type and Duration

PhD-Thesis, September 2020 until January 2023 (finished)

Coordinator

Hilti Chair of Business Process Management

Main Research

Business Process Management

Field of Research

Digital Innovation

Description

Managers claim that the future will be characterized by hybrid ways of working, which means that employees will be more flexible in terms where to accomplish their tasks and when. So, remote work is expected to become a new normal for a great portion of knowledge workers. On its own, the research on remote work is not new. Various studies have been conducted to understand and assess the impact of remote work on employees' well-being, relationships with peers and work-family relationships. However, little is known about the challenges associated with the work from home (home office) in the context of hybrid work. Specifically, there is lack of understanding how employees perceive emerging spatial arrangements and associated working practices, i.e., how they orient themselves in the collapsed organizational, domestic, and cyberspaces.

So, in the current research project we focus on how individuals perceive the self and the place in new working contexts. We elaborate on the existing theories and frameworks and suggest advancement of the notions of the need for place and the need for self. We extend the understanding of the need for place as a need for a reference point for memories to sustain the self, and group identity and culture. In my research, I heavily rely on textual analysis using machine learning techniques.