ADJUSTING VIRTUAL WORK PRACTICES: A QUALITATIVE STUDY IN KNOWLEDGE INTENSIVE OFFSHORING

Technological advances and economic changes have increasingly enabled distant collaboration between knowledge workers across boundaries and contributed to the reconfiguration of work into hybrid workspaces. This paper presents a qualitative exploratory research that aims at better understanding distributed work in hybrid workspaces. We compare two globally distributed teams in organizations offshoring knowledge-intensive work. Our empirical evidence shows that, while both globally distributed teams are considered successful by their respective management, the individual adjustment to virtual work was perceived by group members as smooth in one case and cumbersome in the other. We built a grounded theory that shows what factors facilitate the acceptance of virtual work among knowledge workers engaged in offshoring activities: integration with regular workflow, sensemaking of offshoring activities, and perception of differences in competences and professional identity. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications.