Publication:
Digital Work: A Performative Process Perspective

dc.contributor.advisor Cecez-Kecmanovic, Dubravka
dc.contributor.advisor Cahalane, Michael
dc.contributor.advisor Benatallah, Boualem
dc.contributor.author Prester, Julian
dc.date.accessioned 2022-04-27T04:19:08Z
dc.date.available 2022-04-27T04:19:08Z
dc.date.issued 2022
dc.date.submitted 2022-04-27T00:31:54Z
dc.description.abstract All work is seemingly becoming digital: office, manufacturing, service, and even agricultural work. Despite the prevalence and far-reaching implications of the digitalisation of work, few studies have examined how digital work is performed in practice. This dissertation investigates digital work that is performed nomadically. Existing organisational and information systems research on the changing nature of work suggests that the essential qualities of work remain unchanged, with only secondary characteristics undergoing transformations. However, this dissertation reveals that in digital nomad work, the meaning of work—as well as by whom, where, when, and how work is performed—is continuously in becoming. To unpack and theorise digital configurations of work, I carried out a multi-sited ethnographic study of digital nomads. Digital nomads are a group of highly skilled professionals who leverage digital technologies to work remotely and lead an independent and nomadic lifestyle. Using participant observation, interviews, and online fieldwork, I examined how people become digital nomads and traced the practices and processes involved in performing digital nomad work. In Chapter 2, I trace people’s journeys of becoming digital nomads by revisiting the concept of identity. In Chapter 3, using the concept of leading, I shift to the community aspect of digital nomadism and explore a prominent community to unpack emerging directions for organising the global digital nomad movement. In Chapter 4, I analyse a set of digital nomad work practices and show how they are performed as appropriate in practice by elaborating on the concept of legitimation. In Chapter 5, I trace my own journey in becoming a process-oriented information systems researcher by reflecting on five methodological moves that I have followed to study digital nomad work. This dissertation aims to extend our understanding of new forms of digital work by reimagining organisational concepts via the performative process perspective. First, I develop an in-depth understanding of digital nomad work that goes beyond the existing research on digital work in conventional organisational settings and precarious gig work. Second, I propose the idea of “working as becoming” based on the performative process perspective, according to which work is always changing and does not have an underlying core or essence that remains stable. Third, by experimenting with several novel methodological practices grounded in the performative process perspective, this dissertation contributes to the development of process-sensitive research methods.
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/100259
dc.language English
dc.language.iso en
dc.publisher UNSW, Sydney
dc.rights CC BY 4.0
dc.rights.uri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subject.other Digital work
dc.subject.other Digital nomads
dc.subject.other Remote work
dc.subject.other Identity
dc.subject.other Leadership
dc.subject.other Legitimation
dc.subject.other Process theory
dc.subject.other Linealogy
dc.subject.other Performative process perspective
dc.subject.other Ingold
dc.subject.other Ethnography
dc.subject.other Performativity
dc.title Digital Work: A Performative Process Perspective
dc.type Thesis
dcterms.accessRights embargoed access
dcterms.rightsHolder Prester, Julian
dspace.entity.type Publication
unsw.accessRights.uri http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_f1cf
unsw.contributor.advisorExternal Schlagwein, Daniel; The University of Sydney
unsw.date.embargo 2024-04-27
unsw.date.workflow 2022-04-27
unsw.description.embargoNote Embargoed until 2024-04-27
unsw.identifier.doi https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/23966
unsw.relation.faculty Business
unsw.relation.faculty Engineering
unsw.relation.school School of Computer Science and Engineering
unsw.relation.school School of Information Systems & Technology Management
unsw.relation.school School of Information Systems & Technology Management
unsw.subject.fieldofresearchcode 460908 Information systems organisation and management
unsw.subject.fieldofresearchcode 460909 Information systems philosophy, research methods and theory
unsw.thesis.degreetype PhD Doctorate
Files
Resource type