Loading...
Paper Number
1581
Paper Type
short
Description
Information technologies (IT) give rise to new digital work practices that challenge institutionalized work arrangements. The literature has focused on how key actors legitimate digital work practices in traditional organizations. However, digital work entails sui generis new work forms that are emerging outside of traditional organizations. Understanding legitimation of new work practices and in particular how IT are implicated in this process thus becomes an important topic in the context of digital work. Building on a multi-sited ethnographic study, we show how digital nomad work becomes legitimized by being (re)presented in practice through mundane, everyday actions. Our preliminary findings illustrate that digital nomads and IT (re)present work in three different ways: revolutionizing, adapting, and masquerading, each conditioning the legitimation of the digital nomad work practice. We contribute to the literature on digital work and legitimation by conceptualizing legitimation as a material-performative rather than exclusively social process.
Recommended Citation
Prester, Julian; Cecez-Kecmanovic, Dubravka; Schlagwein, Daniel; and Cahalane, Michael, "Legitimation as the Correspondence of Practice: An Ethnographic Study of Digital Nomad Work Practices" (2021). ICIS 2021 Proceedings. 8.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2021/is_future_work/is_future_work/8
Legitimation as the Correspondence of Practice: An Ethnographic Study of Digital Nomad Work Practices
Information technologies (IT) give rise to new digital work practices that challenge institutionalized work arrangements. The literature has focused on how key actors legitimate digital work practices in traditional organizations. However, digital work entails sui generis new work forms that are emerging outside of traditional organizations. Understanding legitimation of new work practices and in particular how IT are implicated in this process thus becomes an important topic in the context of digital work. Building on a multi-sited ethnographic study, we show how digital nomad work becomes legitimized by being (re)presented in practice through mundane, everyday actions. Our preliminary findings illustrate that digital nomads and IT (re)present work in three different ways: revolutionizing, adapting, and masquerading, each conditioning the legitimation of the digital nomad work practice. We contribute to the literature on digital work and legitimation by conceptualizing legitimation as a material-performative rather than exclusively social process.
When commenting on articles, please be friendly, welcoming, respectful and abide by the AIS eLibrary Discussion Thread Code of Conduct posted here.
Comments
05-Work