The role of the workplace has changed significantly since the advent of mobile digital technologies. While offices used to house expensive computing equipment that knowledge workers needed to complete their work, this technology is now compact and portable. What role does a physical workplace have in this era of digital technologies? How can we study and understand the new type of workplace that is increasingly hybrid - spread across time and space but also across combinations of online and offline activities? In this research area we look at the place(s) of work and how technology is transforming the way people come together to collaborate, socialise, share knowledge, and innovate.
In this research area we study remote work, hybrid working, digital nomadism, and how technology is used in a range of workplaces. Empirical contexts include universities, healthcare, and architecture. We have a particular interest in “screen work” and how the use of screens is seeping into all kinds of occupations. We are finding in our research a link between the use of screens and the prevalence of hybrid working - that is, even occupations that used to be associated with manual work like farming and nursing are increasingly facilitated by screens and able to be done from ‘anywhere and anytime’. Our research investigates these shifts in workplace practices over time from both an empirical and conceptual basis.