The Role of Context in Virtual Work

In this symposium we address the tension between working remotely ‘anytime, anywhere and with anyone’ and the individual embeddedness of the collaborators in a specific local physical, social, cultural, mental and symbolic space. In virtual work, there are two main reasons why the importance of context increases and adds further layers of meaning to context: a) the variety of locations collaborators work from and b), the dynamic of changing locations while working that is made possible by mobile devices and wireless connections. However, so far the role of context has not been explicitly addressed as a concept relevant to theorizing and researching virtual work. The role of context can be approached from three perspectives: Firstly, we suggest that a reconsideration of conventional views of technology may help us to more effectively study the multiple, emergent, and dynamic socio-material configurations that constitute contemporary organizations and their practices. Secondly, developments in mobile technologies and infrastructures enable increasingly flexible ways of working. Thirdly, we would like to propose Lewin’s idea of ‘life space’ (Lebensraum) as a way of understanding the multiple layers of meaning of ‘context in virtual work’. The four papers and the critical review by the discussant expand our understanding on the role of context by addressing the different layers relevant to context in virtual work: The relevance of a physical place in mobile work, familiarity as a feature of social space in teamwork, the cultural and social space of status cues in communication, and the symbolic space of linguistic markers.