Paper Type
Complete Research Paper
Description
An increasing portion of the contemporary workforce is using mobile devices to create new kinds of work-space flows characterized by emergence, liquidity, and the blurring of all kinds of boundaries. This changes the traditional notion of the term workplace. The study reported on in this paper focused on how people enact and make sense of new work space boundaries enabled by their mobile practices. A uniqu method of data collection"”the use of cultural probes"”was adapted to an online format to facilitate participant reflection and documentation of mobile practices. Coupled with in-depth interviews, this methodology enabled the thick description of how individuals enacted spatial, temporal, and psychosocial boundaries of workplace through their mobile practices. Findings show that the growing reality of workplace for many is that it is becoming less a singular place dedicated to work performed in a predictable frame of time and evolving more towards an idiosyncratic space that takes on the spatial and temporal requirements of the individual worker"”the overarching claim being the increasing individuation of workplace enabled by mobile devices. \ \ Keywords: enactment, mobile practices, boundaries, workplace, emergent organization \
MOBILE PRACTICES AND THE INCREASING INDIVIDUATION OF WORKPLACE
An increasing portion of the contemporary workforce is using mobile devices to create new kinds of work-space flows characterized by emergence, liquidity, and the blurring of all kinds of boundaries. This changes the traditional notion of the term workplace. The study reported on in this paper focused on how people enact and make sense of new work space boundaries enabled by their mobile practices. A uniqu method of data collection"”the use of cultural probes"”was adapted to an online format to facilitate participant reflection and documentation of mobile practices. Coupled with in-depth interviews, this methodology enabled the thick description of how individuals enacted spatial, temporal, and psychosocial boundaries of workplace through their mobile practices. Findings show that the growing reality of workplace for many is that it is becoming less a singular place dedicated to work performed in a predictable frame of time and evolving more towards an idiosyncratic space that takes on the spatial and temporal requirements of the individual worker"”the overarching claim being the increasing individuation of workplace enabled by mobile devices. \ \ Keywords: enactment, mobile practices, boundaries, workplace, emergent organization \