Book review: sweat equity: inside the new economy of mind and body by Jason Kelly

As more and more of us spend money on fitness, Sweat Equity: Inside the New Economy of Mind and Body explores the investors and entrepreneurs making money from this booming market. While she would have welcomed more reflection on how this lucrative world is tied in with the rise of the ‘quantified self’, Jason Kelly shines a fascinating light on the US fitness industry in this well-researched, informative and eye-opening book, writes Ella Hafermalz

Working from home: idea that workers who aren’t visible are slacking off is outdated

We need to embrace new ways of managing and relating in the digital workplace, writes Ella Hafermal

The Question of Materiality: Mattering in the Network Society

While materiality is an important concept in IS research, there is little consensus as to how materiality ought to be understood. We find that the term is typically used, often implicitly, to mean physicality or the corporeal existence of objects. Grounded in a widely held folk ontology characteristic of modern Western thinking this view makes intuitive sense to us. It breaks down however when we consider typical entities of concern to IS researcher, such as software or information, or emerging phenomena in the network society, such as online social networks or virtual work. In response to unhelpful distinctions emerging from this view, such as between the “virtual” and “real” world, we put forward a relational view grounded in the emerging sociomateriality research orientation. This alternative position sees materiality not as a pre-given quality of entities but rather as an ongoing achievement of “mattering” situated in practice. We demonstrate with examples how this view enables IS researchers to grasp in more productive ways how materiality is achieved in an increasingly networked society

Hello Computer: Towards a Research Agenda for Conceptualising “Presence” in Human-Computer Engagement

Technological developments are bringing interactive computer agents, such as Apple’s Siri, into our everyday lives and routines. These interactive agents are designed to be the focus of our interactions – we can feel “present” with them. Yet current theories of “presence” in IS do not account for the question of what it means to be present with technology in an experiential sense. In response we draw on existential philosophy in order to generate a research agenda for conceptualising presence in the context of what we term human-computer engagement. We suggest that research from this new perspective requires focusing on the situated interaction rather than an a-priori assessment of the entities involved. We conclude by considering the ethical questions that emerge when technology is experienced as being an independent agent with which one can be present

Negotiating Distance: “Presencing Work” in a Case of Remote Telenursing

Telehealth services offer accessible care to distributed populations. However, it is not clear how the important caring intervention of “presence” can be enacted in distributed settings. Information Systems literature theorizes “presence” in distributed work as something to be created by technologies as a precondition for effective work to occur. Following an abductive research process, we compare extant conceptualizations of presence with an empirical case of telenursing. We find that in order to be a caring presence, telenurses must skillfully employ technology while drawing on past embodied experience, in order to balance the “dualities of distance” of nearness and farness; control and freedom. We thus recast presence as a form of skillful work with technology, not as an antecedent to, but a part of telenursing practice. Our model of “the dualities of distance in presencing work” prompts new understandings and offers new directions for future research in both HISR and IS

Working Hybrid at Universities: Old, yet New Practice?

This study focuses on hybrid working in the university sector. The diversity of the roles performed in universities provides a unique opportunity to study how the ‘where and when’ of knowledge work is evolving in the post-pandemic era. Our research aims to understand how hybrid working is 1) planned and 2) practiced in a university context. Through an analysis of ten university policies, we find that the ambition for hybrid working reveals several contradictions. Further, technology is mostly backgrounded in discussions of this new way of working. These preliminary findings challenge us consider how the initiatives predicted in a hybrid working policy take place in practice, at a large Dutch university. Based on interviews and systematic observations, we aim to enrich discussions of hybrid working with an open stance towards how and what role technology plays in the new era of work in the university context

From playmate to assistant; User experiences of integrating ChatGPT into knowledge work

While Generative AI is believed to impact societies, organizations, and work, little is known about how ChatGPT is experienced by early users and its impact on their work practices for knowledge work. This is concerning as ChatGPT is exactly the opposite of many of the technological systems studied before - it is decentralized (from an organizational perspective), multipurpose, and open-ended, and it is more autonomous by creating new syntactic content. Building on an explorative interview study with 31 early adopters, we identified different use types for ChatGPT. Thereupon, we theorize a phase model of experiencing Generative AI use as an emotional process. The exploratory insights challenge the information systems field to rethink the passive role of technology to which ‘users’ delegate subtasks toward a collaborative role with AI as a teammate or colleague. Finally, we observe worker-system intertwinement, and we discuss its potential consequences on the level of the individual, organization, and even society

Shared Secret Places: Social Media and Affordances

The Social Media application Strava is used by exercisers to track running and cycling activities. Strava is carried with the exerciser and displays trophies and leaderboards to reward competitive performance. We were prompted by an auto-ethnographic account of Strava use to examine the way in which a particular stretch of running track around a lake showed up differently to the runner once Strava was integrated into their running practice. We look to Gibson’s relational notions of “affordances” and “niches” to understand this change in direct perception. We propose that these concepts have potential in helping us to research and understand the ways in which groups of Social Media users share and construct a similar experience of place in a way that is largely invisible to non-users. We consider some of the preliminary implications of this differentiated use of place and demonstrate the way in which a relational view of affordances helps us to make sense of this phenomenon

The Sharing Economy and the Transformative Roles of IS: An Australian Study

Over the last decade, the Sharing Economy has developed rapidly to become a significant source of market disruption. However, multi-disciplinary research into the phenomenon is constrained by uncertainties about its focus, scope and even its name. This paper’s research aims are to address those constraints by clarifying concepts and terminology to afford meaningful discourse and impactful activities and to develop a Sharing Economy Diagnostic (ShED) for categorising companies and organizations who participate in platform-based sharing. Within the Sharing economy, Information Systems occupy the sweet spot, being located at the intersection of demand for different types of market behaviours and enabling those demands through transformative roles for the technology platform