Distant collaboration in a digitalized world of work: media and digital competences, organizational design and discourses

Context

The LITME@WORK research project (www.litmeatwork.be) is pleased to invite researchers to submit abstracts for presentation at its closing conference: "Distant collaboration in a digitalized world of work: media and digital competences, organizational design and discourses". The conference will be held at the University of Namur(Belgium) on the 8th, 9th and 10th of May 2019.

The aim of this conference is to gather the scientific community from all disciplines working on digital, media and information literacy (DMIL), organizational design, and discourse in relation to office work (ranging from clerical work to managerial tasks). We especially welcome papers focusing on aspects and implications of teamwork and distance work facilitated by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

Office work environments, practices and discourses are changing due to new organizational models including teleworking policies, shared office spaces or “deskless” environments, digitalization of information systems or “paperless” policies, teamwork improvement through groupwares. New kinds of information and communication technologies like mobile devices, multimedia content, and cloud computing also play a role in the transformation of everyday work practices. These transformations, as visible in so-called “New Worlds of Work” or “New Ways of Working” (NWOW) initiatives in public and private organizations, create new requirements with regard to  DML competences, organizational design and corporate discourses, for instance in terms of engaging in collaborative writing, managing personal and shared information, managing time, and managing a team at a distance. At the same time, these practices have an impact on the relationships office workers have with themselves, with others and with the institutional contexts through which they move and to which they contribute.

The LITME@WORK project approached these issues through three perspectives: (1) the organizational discourses on the digitally competent office worker, (2) the relationship between work organization and conditions for (DMIL) competences utilization and learning; and (3) the relationship between digital media uses and competencies in employees’ new work practices. These three approaches also provide the interdisciplinary approach of this conference that seeks to address the following questions: How are digital media competences addressed and practiced in today’s office work? How can digital media competences be further integrated in emerging team/distance work structures and practices in order to support efficient, stimulating and meaningful ways of working? How do managers and other office workers make sense of themselves and their practices in an increasingly digitalized work environment? How are the subjectivities and activities of office workers structured in and through culture, communication and/or discourse?

Topics

Possible topics of interest for this conference include, but are not limited to:

• Conditions of development of collaborative competences

• Collective competences in professional contexts

• Distant communication at work

• Virtual teamwork and virtual teams

• Impacts of organizational design on work practices and/or learning opportunities

• Effects of collaborative technologies in virtual teams

• Constructions of NWOW related office cultures, subjectivities and practices

• Positive and negative outcomes of the transition to digitalized work environments

• Power and resistance in relation to the implementation of new ways of working

• Digital, media and information literacy at work

• Work coordination in virtual teams

• Group information management and knowledge management

• ...

We welcome contributors from disciplines as diverse as organizational studies, (critical) management studies, communication science, sociology of work, organizational communication, discourse analysis, information science, computer-supported collaborative work, digital and information literacy…

Confirmed keynote speaker

Laurent Taskin, Louvain School of Management, Université Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain).

Practical information 

The conference will be held from the 8th of May (starting in the afternoon) to the 10th of May 2019 (ending around noon) at the University of Namur, Belgium (https://www.unamur.be/en/access).

Participation fee

The participation fee is 100€. This fee covers coffee breaks, lunches on the 9th and 10th, and a ticket for the evening dinner on the 9th, as well as a printed version of the book of abstracts and the LITME@WORK project final book.

Submissions

Participants are invited to submit an abstract of 500 words maximum (references not included), with 3 to 5 keywords. References and a short biography of the authors should be uploaded in a separated Word document.

Abstracts must be submitted in English.

Abstracts have to be submitted through the Easychair platform of the conference: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=litmeatwork2019

Important dates

Abstract submission deadline: January 31st, 2019

Notification to participants: February 28th, 2019

Accepted abstracts will be published online and in the printed book of abstracts which will be distributed to registered participants.

Registration deadline: April 1st, 2019

Contact

Any inquiry should be addressed to jerry.jacques@unamur.be. This CFP can also be found on the LITMEatWORK website: http://www.litmeatwork.be/final-conference and on Easychair: https://easychair.org/cfp/LITMEATWORK201 

This research project and this conference are funded financed by the BRAIN-be program of the Belgian Federal Public Planning Service Science Policy (BESLPO - http://www.belspo.be/).