MREV – Call for Papers: New Work Arrangements – A review of concepts and theories

Guest Editors:
Ralph Kattenbach, International School of Management, Hamburg
Johannes Moskaliuk, International School of Management, Stuttgart
Barbara Kump, WU Wien

Special Issue

Much has occurred since Frithjof Bergmann‘s seminal thoughts on New Work (1994; 2004; 2019): Smartphones, virtual communication and virtual cooperation have entered the business world. Digitalization has brought forth a completely new economy, agile work processes, AI services, a digital start-up culture, cloud work, new employment relationships, leadership styles, co-working tools and an enhanced spatial and temporal flexibility. These changes in work context and job characteristics, summarized as New Work Arrangements call for a revision of work related concepts and theories. However, even in top management research outlets, the pervasive presence of technology in organizational work has been neglected (Orlikowski & Scott, 2017).

With this special issue on “New Work Arrangements”, we would like to provide comprehensive insights into the many ways in which digitalization influences how we organize, manage and learn work. We also aim to present approaches from various disciplines to incorporate characteristics of New Work Arrangements in existing theories, models, and concepts. In an attempt to categorize the various faces of New Work Arrangements and to provide a guideline for contributions to our special issue, we focus on three central aspects that are influenced by digitalization:

New Organization

Digital technologies enable new business models and strategies; however, they also come with numerous behavioural and organizaitonal challenges for firms: For instance, online markets for talent and labor allow firms to out- source complex tasks but may have implications for knowledge management and human resource management. Adoption of digital technologies may require complementary investments in rare skills to bring about the intended productivity improvements in full (Leiponen et al., 2016). Furthermore, through the advent of digital technologies, virtual work has become the new normal: Staff members work from dispersed locations and interact through their smart phones or other mobile devices (Raghuram et al., 2019). This situation poses a number of new, interesting research questions, for example:

  • What effects have agile work processes, ubiquitous working and virtual teams on an individual and organizational level?
  • What influence do digitalization and artificial intelligence solutions have on work and job characteristics as well as work engagement, performance and perceived autonomy?
  • What is the role of organizational culture and team norms in explaining the impact of New Work Arrangements?
  • Which business models are successful from both an economic (e.g. increased profit) and a psychological (e.g. meaningful work) perspective?

New Leadership

New technologies enable arrangements that offer work-life flexibility. However, studies have shown that such arrangements do not necessarily benefit all groups of workers equally and may come with new challenges, such as promotion and pay schemes (Kossek & Lautsch, 2017). Moreover, such new work arrangements may require new forms of leadership (Banks et al., 2019; Sheniger, 2019). In addition, leaders may have to deal with changes in organizational identity, practice, and knowledge that need to be overcome when organizations become more and more digitalized (Kump, 2019). Possible questions for this special issue include:

  • How are leadership and communication in the workplace affected by digitalization?
  • How can we base trends like mindful leadership, holacracy or agile project management on solid research?
  • What are appropriate competencies, tools, styles or mindsets for leaders facing New Work Arrangements?
  • How can we use digital tools and methods to transfer knowledge, support self-reflection, and foster creativity?

New Learning

Digital devices, virtual reality and other innovative technologies offer new learning opportunities for workers at their workplaces (Noe, Clarke & Klein, 2014). At the same time, managers may need dynamic managerial capabilities in order to keep up to date with constant change (Helfat & Martin, 2014). These new situations require new management skills and may benefit from novel educational settings. Accordingly, new work arrangements come with manifold research questions regarding learning, for example:

  • Which influences has digitalization on learning and development in the workplace?
  • How can digital be used media to provide self-organized learning on the job?
  • How can we foster self-responsible learning competencies and a growth-oriented mindset?
  • What effects do concepts like micro-learning, nudging, and gamification have on learning motivation and learning success?

For the special issue, we invite contributions that consider the above mentioned or related topics of New Work Arrangements, both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view. Qualitative and quantitative research contributions are welcome. We also invite survey articles, best practice cases, didactical designs and book reviews.

Deadline
Full papers for this special issue of management revue – Socio-Economic Studies must be submitted by May 31, 2020. All contributions will be subject to double-blind review. Papers invited to a ‘revise and resubmit’ are due November 30, 2020. The publication is scheduled for issue 3/2021. Please submit your papers electronically via the online submission system ‘New Work Arrangements’ as article section: http://www.mrev.nomos.de/guidelines/submit-manuscript/

Special Issue
All contributors to the seminar are invited to submit their paper for the special issue of management revue – Socio-Economic Studies. Full papers for this special issue of management revue – Socio-Economic Studies must be submitted by August 30th, 2020. All contributions will be subject to double-blind review. Papers invited to a ‘revise and resubmit’ are due February 28th, 2021. The publication is scheduled for issue 1/2022. Please submit your papers electronically via the online submission system at http://www.mrev.nomos.de/ using ‘SI Employee Voice’ as article section.

Submission Guidelines
Manuscript length should not exceed 8,000 words (excluding references) and the norm should be 30 pages in double-spaced type with margins of about 3 cm (1 inch) on each side of the page. Further, please follow the guidelines on the journal’s website (http://www.mrev.nomos.de/guidelines/).

Hoping to hear from you!
Ralph Kattenbach (ralph.kattenbach@ism.de)
Johannes Moskaliuk (johannes.moskaliuk@ism.de)
Barbara Kump (barbara.kump@wu.ac.at)