Working Anytime Anywhere: Mobile Knowledge Workers

Abstract

Recent advances in mobile technologies and the popular use of mobile devices in our daily lives suggest that knowledge worker can now work from anywhere at any time, or while on the move. Is this true? Research suggests that only a small percentage of teleworkers work full-time from home; most teleworkers work from multiple sites including their organizational workspace, their home, and other public and private spaces (e.g., client’s offices and “third places”). While growing research efforts have been on the impact of teleworking from home on knowledge workers’ family and personal life, productivity, and job satisfaction, research on understanding working from multiple sites, “mobile work”, is just beginning. The proposed paper will review research and theoretical perspectives that explore mobile work performed by knowledge workers in organizations. Who are these mobile teleworkers? Where, when, and how do they work? The focus will be on the inter-relationships between the physical and social environment of a diversity of workplaces, particularly “third spaces” – public and private spaces that had not been considered as workplaces -- and work behaviours and well-being. How do they transform the physical environment of these public spaces to accommodate their work activities? Future research and practical implications for the design of these spaces and organizational policies will be discussed.