Matti Vartiainen – författare

Despite hybrid work becoming increasingly relevant since the COVID-19 pandemic, exactly what the phenomenon entails remains a burgeoning field of research. Matti Vartiainen explores this shift in working culture and what it means for staff wellbeing and performance, as well as how remote work policies can be implemented effectively.This book assesses the flexibility paradigm which hybrid work hinges on, surveying the elements of hybrid work and how it has been addressed in national policy debates in Europe and telework literature overall. Examining the potential hindrances and challenges of hybrid working as well as the benefits and opportunities that it creates, the book presents important findings on the current implementation of this style of work. Finally, Vartiainen looks to the future of hybrid work, and ultimately argues that combining basic work elements and life spaces with trust-based leadership styles will generate functional organisational solutions for diverse purposes, aims, and contexts.Studying past remote and telework experiences to inform future research and policy development, this book will prove a valuable read to organisational researchers, consultants and human resource practitioners. It will also appeal to scholars of organisational psychology and management studies.

Dear Reader This is a book about mobile virtual work. The group was first called ‘ICT, Mobility and Work Organisation’ but redefined itself quickly as ‘Mobile Virtual Cooperative Work’ group. A wider group of experts was invited to present their views on mobile virtual work and ideas about book chapters from different perspectives of working life.

This is a book about mobile virtual work. The objective is to contribute to the understanding and the improvement of an emerging new kind of work arrangement, i.e. mobile virtual work (MVW). Until now no systematic in-depth studies of this phenomenon have been available. The book has grown from several workshops that brought together experts from a wide range of areas. Through their cooperation a state of the art overview could be constructed of areas and aspects related to MVW: from ergonomic requirements to diffusion of mobile work systems, from implications for distributed cooperation to knowledge management for mobile employees. The book is not primarily about technologies and tools, although many mobile systems will play a role in the studies presented. Its special merit is that it contains many concrete case studies. That means that MVW is described and analysed with an eye both on theoreticians and practitioners.

The concept of digitalization captures the widespread adoption of digital technologies in our lives, in the structure and functioning of organizations and in the transformation of our economy and society. Digital technologies for data processing and communication underly high-impact innovations including the Internet of Things, wireless multimedia, artificial intelligence, big data, enterprise platforms, social networks and blockchain. These digital innovations not only bring new opportunities for prosperity and wellbeing but also affect our behaviors, activities, and daily lives. They enable and shape new forms of production and new working practices in sectors such as manufacturing, healthcare, logistics and supply chains, energy, and public and business services. Digital innovations are not purely technological but form part of comprehensive systemic innovations of a sociotechnical and networked nature, requiring the alignment of technology, processes, organizations, and humans. Examples are platform-based work, customer driven value creating networks, and urban public service systems. Building on widespread networking, algorithmic decisions and sharing of personal data, these innovations raise intensive societal and ethical debates regarding key issues such as data sovereignty and privacy intrusion, business models based on data surveillance and negative externalization, quality of work and jobs, and market dominance versus regulation. In this context, this book focuses on the implications of digitalization for the domain of work. The book studies the changing nature of work as well as new forms of digitally enabled organizations, work practices and cooperation. The book sheds light on the technological, economic, and political forces shaping the new world of work and on the prospects for human-centric and responsible innovations.