Conceptualising digital nomadic practice: evidence from a technology-intensive firm

Abstract

This thesis studies how individuals use digital media to manage connectivity and accomplish work across digital and physical spaces in modern organisations, ultimately conceptualising this new type of work as a new digital nomadic practice. Increased digitisation and the need for more flexible work styles have pressured organisations to adopt new digital media and to redesign their workplaces. Existing research provides some theoretical understanding of this phenomena, however it is scattered across multiple disciplines and lack a broader all-encompassing view of the concept. This study addresses this gap with deeper and more holistic theoretical engagement in order to better capture and explain new work practices within organisations today. Exploring the salient aspects of digital nomadic practices, the study builds on the emergent literature on connectivity to understand the ways and means of staying connected. It also draws on the technology adoption and affordance literature to review how individuals use the capabilities of multiple digital media that provide the potential for a particular action. Overall the study aims to i) understand how individuals conduct their work practices in physical and digital spaces, ii) identify how individuals use digital media to stay connected, and iii) understand how individuals manage connectivity. It draws on a single case study of a multinational IT organisation in the UK. The research follows a qualitative approach and inductively driven strategy. The study focuses on the dimensions of connectivity, digital media use, and follows digital nomad’s work ‘within and between’ the digital and physical spaces. The findings of this exploratory case study show that digital nomads use the new digital media in a way it precluded them from being overly connected and allowed them to manage connectivity across multiple, operational, social and organisational levels. It identified the digital media choice by drawing on a theory of nested affordances in order to capture media choice in a dynamic way, which happens at different levels, as digital media coexist together and provide combination of various affordances. These findings contribute to knowledge of how individuals choose digital media to manage their connectivity in digital and physical spaces, and particularly inform the study of digital media adoption and technological affordances