Nicola Morelli, RMIT Assoc Prof. Liddy Neville, Sunrise Research
Information technology is a catalyst for changing the way people live and work. In particular, work activities are undergoing radical change as information technology allows for the creation of more flexible arrangements between workers and their work-based micro-community. These activities are evolving towards location independent organizational models.
Such far-reaching change has been only partially explored in studies on telework. Most of these studies have in fact focused only on home-based work or telecommuting, almost ignoring the emerging and discreet phenomenon of nomadic work.
We define nomadic workers as those who work from many different locations, a condition requiring a high degree of independence on the part of the nomad, but at the same time, a strong logical dependence on remote collaboration with colleagues and clients. Nomadism depends also on organisational and technological capability to generate work-based micro-communities, enabling both formal and informal communication for collaboration purposes.
This paper outlines the results of a study undertaken as part of a wider ARC-funded project. The study casts a light on the divide between the traditional stationary worker, telecommuters and mobile workers. Nomadic workers are proposed as a potential future profile emerging from this study. So far, nomadic workers have had to adapt to a technological environment that was not designed for their needs. They are working in isolation from their working community and need to carry cumbersome materials with them. The likely future scenario of the knowledge economy promises to enable seamless logical, social and functional connections between nomadic workers and their work micro-community.