主讲人姓名：Shawn D. Long
讲座名称：A culture of paradoxes: An interpretative phenomenological approach to virtual work
讲座时间：7月24日上午九点到十一点
讲座地点：南强二403
专家简介：
Shawn D. Long教授，美国北卡罗来纳大学传播学系主任，教授，研究领域包括组织传播学、口语传播学等。
讲座内容简介：
Virtual work is an emerging and revolutionary organizational cultural phenomenon. According to the 2012 American Community Survey, 2.8 million people (not including self-employed or unpaid volunteers) primarily work away from an organizational campus. Recent estimates place 20-30 million individuals working away from a home office at least one day per week, with 15 to 20 million individuals considered mobile workers (Virtual Work Research Network, 2012). Historically, individualsaccomplished work tasks by being in the same place, at the same time, while doing similar or complementary tasks. With the rise of sophisticated organizational technologies, however, work tasks may be accomplished in geographically dispersed locations across a broad spectrum of time. Temporal and spatial boundaries are becoming less relevant with the advent of sophisticated communication technologies in contemporary organizations. This shift in how we do work has begun to have a dramatic effect on work culture as we have traditionally known it.
As more organizations realize the significant cost savings from having employees work away from a physical location (e.g. shrinking real estate, reduced utility usage, reduction in supplies and resources) and organizations experience an uptick in employee production and outputs, more organizations may move to a more remote work platform. This cultural work shift has significant implications and consequences on an organization’s culture, including facilitating a new organizational and social contract that establishes new rules and expectations for the culture of work, especially for those who work remotely.
This study uses interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore and understand the lived experience of employees who work remotely. Results reveal that inherent to the virtual work experience are two dominant cultural paradoxes that virtual workers regularly experience: a paradox of connection and isolation and a paradox of work and life balance. Relevant literature, qualitative results, and the study implications will be discussed.