Born to work virtually? An exploration of digital natives and digital immigrants’ perceptions of organising the virtual workplace

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Born to work

virtually?

An exploration of digital natives and digital immigrants’

perceptions of organising the virtual workplace

MASTER THESIS WITHIN: Business Administration NUMBER OF CREDITS: 30

PROGRAMME OF STUDY: Global Management AUTHORS: William Füller & Oona Heiska TUTOR: Ziad el Awad

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Acknowledgement

First, and foremost, we would like to thank our thesis supervisor Ziad el Awad. We are thankful for his commitment in helping us and other students under his supervision with a high level of dedication. It was great to see how he was genuinely interested in helping us whenever we needed his support. His contributions to helping us throughout the process were valuable and assisted us in improving our work immensely. We are also thankful for the other students for their feedback and assistance.

Secondly, we would like to thank all the digital natives and digital immigrants who took their time to participate in this study. With their openness and honesty, we could accomplish this study. Especially during these times that this thesis was written, many were busy and preoccupied with other tasks, and therefore we are especially thankful for their time and efforts. Elaborating on their experiences with virtual work beyond the surface helped us to gain rich data, which was crucial for the execution of this thesis.

Thirdly, we would like to express our thank you to Jönköping International Business School, as the education leading to the point of finishing this thesis was valuable for providing the right skill set for the task. Thank you to all professors for allowing us to learn but also challenging us when needed, as this contributed to the entire experience. We are also thankful for the student body of this school and the whole Jönköping University, providing us with experiences beyond our education with a wide variety of students coming from different backgrounds.

Lastly, we are both grateful for the collaboration between us authors. Equal dedication and effort were put into making this thesis possible. Contrasting opinions and debates contributed to both of our learning and further elevated the research results to a new level. However, perhaps most importantly, we did not forget to enjoy the process and remembered that hard work needs to be balanced with other activities. We are grateful for this common understanding, as we can both remember this entire process with warm memories.

Thankfully,

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Master Thesis in Business Administration

Title: Born to work virtually? An exploration of digital natives and digital immigrants’ perceptions of organising the virtual workplace

Authors: W. Füller and O. K. Heiska Tutor: Ziad el Awad

Date: 2020-05-17

Key terms: Virtual work, Digital natives, Digital immigrants, Perceptions, Organising

Abstract

Virtuality of work has become increasingly important in the modern work environment due to globalization and increased technological development. Further, the workforce being composed of digital natives and digital immigrants with varying levels of technical abilities might have implications on organising virtual work due to different perceptions. Therefore, the purpose of our study is to understand how and why digital natives and digital immigrants differ in their perceptions of organising virtual work. In order to gain understanding of this an exploratory, qualitative research design was chosen. Data was collected from ten digital immigrants and ten digital natives and then analysed with a content analysis. The results showed that there are many similarities as well as differences between the populations. Beyond the populations, the findings suggest that work values as well as the usage of ICTs influence how the challenges and opportunities of performing work virtually are perceived by the individuals. Further, these challenges and opportunities shape the perceptions regarding the organisation of virtual work. These findings advance research in the field of virtual work through discussing the differences in perceptions between the populations and beyond them through the conceptual model on how perceptions about organising virtual work are formed. Additionally, the findings can benefit managers to understand their employees better and therefore create better virtual work environments for the future.

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3. Research Method ... 17 3.1 Methodology ... 17 3.1.1 Research Philosophy ... 17 3.1.2 Research Approach ... 18 3.1.3 Research Strategy ... 19 3.2 Methods ... 19 3.2.1 Sampling ... 19 3.2.2 Interview Design ... 22 3.2.3 Data Collection ... 23 3.3 Data Analysis ... 27 3.3.1 Content Analysis ... 27 3.3.2 Analysis Report ... 29 3.3.3 Data Structure ... 30 3.4 Research Ethics ... 33 3.5 Research Quality ... 34 4. Findings ... 36 4.1 Work values ... 36

4.2 Usage of information and communication technologies (ICT) ... 37

4.3 Perceived opportunities of virtual work ... 38

4.4 Perceived challenges of virtual work ... 40

4.5 Perceptions about organising virtual work ... 43

4.6 Summary of main similarities and differences between the populations ... 45

5. Analysis ... 46

5.1 Emergent propositions ... 46

5.1.1 Work values as a mediator for perception of opportunities and challenges of virtual work ... 47

5.1.2 Usage of ICT as a mediator for perception of opportunities and challenges of virtual work ... 47

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5.1.3 Influence of perceived opportunities on perceptions of organising virtual work 48

5.1.4 Influence of perceived challenges on perceptions of organising virtual work ... 48

5.2 Conceptual model based on the propositions ... 49

6. Discussion ... 50

6.1 Similarities in perceptions between digital natives and digital immigrants ... 50

6.2 Differences in perceptions between digital natives and digital immigrants ... 51

6.3 Discussion of emergent propositions on how the perceptions are formed ... 54

6.3.1 Work values as a mediator for perception of opportunities and challenges of virtual work ... 54

6.3.2 Usage of ICT as a mediator for perception of opportunities and challenges of virtual work ... 55

6.3.3 Influence of perceived opportunities on perceptions of organising virtual work . 56 6.3.4 Influence of perceived challenges on perceptions of organising virtual work ... 57

7. Conclusion ... 58

8. Implications ... 59

8.1 Theoretical implications ... 59

8.2 Practical implications ... 59

9. Limitations ... 60

10. Suggestions for future research ... 61

References ... 63

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Tables

Table 1 - Information about sample 1 ... 20

Table 2 - Information about sample 2 ... 21

Table 3 - Interview information for sample 1 ... 24

Table 4 - Interview information for sample 2 ... 24

Table 5 - Main similarities and differences between samples ... 45

Figures

Figure 1 - Work values ... 30

Figure 2 - Usage of ICT ... 31

Figure 3 - Perceived opportunities of virtual work ... 31

Figure 4 - Perceived challenges of virtual work ... 32

Figure 5 - Perceptions on organising virtual work ... 33

Figure 6 - Conceptual model ... 49

Appendices

Appendix 1 - Interview Guide ... 72

Appendix 2 - Example of coding ... 73

Appendix 3 - Detailed coding results ... 79

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1. Introduction

Global expansion and mobility with high levels of technical development have increased the scope of work organisations do across boundaries (Jimenez, Boehe, Taras, & Capra, 2017). Furthermore, virtual tools allow organisations to organise their workers with less attention to geographic location (Gilson, Maynard, Jones Young, Vartiainen, & Hakonen, 2015), through usage of platforms for communication and collaboration in multi-location offices (Colbert, Yee, & George, 2016). Virtuality has therefore become common and essential, when working with technological tools with limited in-person contact (Makarius & Larson, 2017). This trend, which is called virtual work, can be examined to be on the rise since more connections are being made across boundaries (Jimenez et al., 2017).

At the same time as the nature of working is changing, there is also a new workforce that is emerging, further shaping the future of work (Colbert et al., 2016). The current workforce is composed of multiple generations with different expectations and needs in terms of the organisation of work (Twenge, Campbell, Hoffman & Lance, 2011), which leads managers to face challenges to manage multiple generations and collaboration between them (Cennamo & Gardner, 2008). As generational differences have especially been identified to come down to the level of technological abilities of the workers (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010; MacKenzie & Scherer, 2019; Twenge et al., 2011), the digital natives and digital immigrants debate sparked by Prensky (2001) becomes relevant. As a new population of digital natives, who are millennials with fluency in usage of digital technologies (Colbert et al., 2016; Prensky, 2001), is starting to enter the workforce, there is a need for managers to understand to what extent they are different from their predecessors (Benson & Brown, 2011; Twenge, 2010) in order to integrate them efficiently into the workforce. In this case their predecessors can be seen as digital immigrants who are not in the same way born into the digital world, but adopted it later in life (Prensky, 2001).

The existence of these two populations of workers with varying levels of grasp of technologies leads to a need for an understanding of the individual level characteristics. This is important as they might influence the teams that work together virtually, known as virtual teams, in which the individual works in (Makarius & Larson, 2017). The heterogeneous groups are, thus, a challenge for managers operating global companies nowadays (Jimenez et al., 2017). As such, exploring the individual differences in terms of backgrounds and skills

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can provide key insights into managing global organisations (Gilson et al., 2015). As virtual work arrangements can be seen to offer flexibility in work environments (Mortensen & Neeley, 2012), the digital natives as millennials who have been found to value work-life balance (Cennamo & Gardner, 2008; Cogin, 2012; Lyons & Kuron, 2014; Twenge, 2010), perhaps view virtual work arrangements more positively.

Further, since the virtual workforce is not co-located, there is a heightened need for employees that are proficient in virtual collaboration tools (Colbert et al., 2016) and therefore have a higher level of individual virtual competence (Wang & Haggerty, 2011) among other skills and competences. As the digital natives have been found to be fluent with technological tools (Prensky, 2001), this might make them even more suitable for virtual work. Further, Gilson et al. (2015) in their extensive literature review of over 200 articles in the field of virtual teams concluded that the age and familiarity with technology have been controlled but not been the primary variable of interest of past research. Thus, this topic is seen as increasingly relevant.

The existing research, therefore, has explored the new arising workforce, and their skills and values, but individual differences and values and attitudes in the virtual setting have been underexplored (Gilson et al., 2015; Wang & Haggerty, 2011). A further exploration of how the different populations of digital natives and digital immigrants perceive and approach organising work in a virtual setting is therefore important (Gilson et al., 2015). This is due to the perceptions influencing the attitudes and resulting behaviours of an individual. Additionally, understanding the individual differences beyond their population is important, as research recognises that the two populations are not homogeneous (Wang, Sigerson, & Cheng, 2019) and literature could benefit from exploration of not only the differences in perceptions, but also how these perceptions are formed. Many authors recognise that the connected workplace has implications to human resource management practices (Makarius & Larson, 2017; Mortensen & Neeley, 2012), but a deeper understanding of the differences between digital natives and digital immigrants in this context is needed (Gilson et al., 2015). This is especially interesting when considering the possible implications that individual differences can have on working in the same work environment (Cogin, 2012).

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3 In view of the above our research aims:

to understand how and why digital natives and digital immigrants differ in their perceptions of organising virtual work.

The identified research gap of a lack of understanding about differences between digital natives and digital immigrants and how their perceptions might affect organising the virtual working environment leads to our research question of:

How do digital natives and digital immigrants perceive organising virtual work and how are these perceptions formed?

The purpose and the research question of our thesis are designed to contribute to virtual work research. Through the exploration of differences between digital natives and digital immigrants, we aim to extend the understanding of generational differences, as authors such as Cogin (2012) and Twenge et al. (2011) have focused on the work values and perceptions in the physical workplace. Therefore, to explore how these are translated to a virtual setting is relevant and needed in the field. Expanding on the individual differences approach over the prevalent cohort view described by Lyons and Kuron (2014) in the field of technological skills and backgrounds will contribute further to the discussion about digital natives and digital immigrants. Here authors such as Vodanovich, Sundaram, and Myers (2010) and Hoffmann, Lutz, and Meckel (2014) have explored differences of usage of technologies between digital natives and digital immigrants, and our thesis will contribute through exploring these differences in a virtual work setting. Finally, the literature on virtual work is currently focused mainly on the drivers and barriers by authors such as Mortensen and Neeley (2012) and competencies needed for virtual work by authors such as Wang and Haggerty (2011) and Schulze and Krumm (2017), and thus, the field will benefit from our exploration of the perceptions of organising virtual work of the two populations. This will further influence how virtual work of the future will be organised, making this contribution to the field highly relevant.

In order to answer the research question in line with the purpose, this thesis will be structured to start with a literature review, showing the key discussions in the fields of generational differences, the digital natives and digital immigrants debate, and finally the context of virtual work. The following chapter will explain the chosen research method, explaining the

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philosophical and methodological standpoints as well as more specific methods used for sampling, interviews, and analysis. The findings of the in-depth interviews are then briefly presented in their own chapter before moving to an analysis, where the data collected is further analysed, reaching some emergent propositions. Lastly, the thesis findings are put into a perspective of a wider discussion through a discussion chapter and conclusions. Finally, we will discuss theoretical and practical implications, limitations as well as recommendations for future research.

2. Literature Review

For this critical, scholastic literature review, literature in the fields of virtual work, generational differences, and digital natives and digital immigrants were reviewed. A total of 47 articles and two books were used, providing an extensive overview of the research arena that will serve as a basis for this thesis. However, it should be noted that the present literature review is not exhaustive but rather a selective choice of articles was made, both including key works in the field as well as the most recent and relevant research in the selected overlapping fields that were identified (Hart, 2018). The selected articles were found using key words such as ‘virtual work’, ‘remote work’, ‘virtual teams’, ‘generational differences’, ‘digital natives’, and ‘digital immigrants’. A further snowball sampling and citation tracing methods were used to find relevant articles in the field, which might have been missed in the conducted searches (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe, Jackson, & Jaspersen, 2018).

Throughout the review process, the found articles were evaluated with regards to their applicability to our research purpose and question. In terms of generational differences literature, our purpose made us focus on generational differences at work and therefore excluding articles on generational differences in for example education or consumer preferences. Similarly, the digital native and digital immigrant articles on the implications of differences on the education of the populations were not included. Lastly, within virtual work research, articles focusing specifically on the technological tools and their features were not included, since our purpose does not entail assessing platforms and their usability. Articles from journals with an ABS rating of two or below were avoided to assure quality of the sources. In this way, the selected 47 articles were identified after careful considerations of their applicability and relevance.

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This literature review is structured to first introduce literature in the field of generational differences at work in order to build a base for the comparative nature of two generations. Further, since we are interested in the populations within the generations, namely digital natives and digital immigrants, a section reviewing and assessing the state of the literature is presented. Thirdly, the nature of virtual work is discussed in its own section, to build a base for the context of the research question. Finally, we will synthesise the topics and discuss the identified gaps in the existing knowledge. In this way, the literature review aims to show awareness of the existing research, identify gaps in literature, and justify the research purpose and question for this thesis.

2.1 Generational differences

There is a growing number of research articles in the field of generational differences in the physical workplace (Lyons & Kuron, 2014). This can mostly be explained due to the current workplace composition being under a change as new generations are entering the workforce (Twenge et al., 2011), leading to an increasing interest from managers to learn how to manage and work with people from various generations (Cennamo & Gardner, 2008). As a core part of this is that managers need to understand how the generations are different from each other (Benson & Brown, 2011; Twenge, 2010; Wong, Gardiner, Lang, & Coulon, 2008), for example in terms of their work values (Cennamo & Gardner, 2008; Twenge et al., 2011) and resulting attitudes and behaviours (Cogin, 2012).

Generations are often defined as having shared birth years and sharing significant life events at critical development stages (Cennamo & Gardner, 2008; Lyons & Kuron, 2014; Twenge et al., 2011). Even though there are many different words and year ranges used for the different generations in literature (Lyons & Kuron, 2014), the current workforce can roughly be defined as comprising of the Baby Boomers (born between 1946-1964), Generation X (born between 1965-1981), and Generation Me, more commonly known as the millennials (born between 1982-1999) (Twenge et al., 2011). However, generations can be defined beyond just being a cohort, where most notably Mannheim (1952) argues that generations can be viewed as social groups that are multi-dimensional. This means that commonalities between people within generations are formed through multiple factors, including life events and the context they are in (Mannheim, 1952). This view of generations has been scarcely used in literature but is recommended for a more nuanced discussion (Lyons & Kuron, 2014).

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6 2.1.1 Criticism of generational differences literature

Going beyond a cohort view is important as generally, the criticism around generational differences literature is due to many studies concluding that there are perhaps more differences within generations than between them (Macky, Gardner, & Forsyth, 2008; Twenge et al., 2011; Wong et al., 2008). Indeed, it can be difficult to separate differences from generational cohorts and differences in maturity, career, or life-cycle stages (Macky et al., 2008). Therefore, the GATE model described by North (2019) might be useful as focus is put on the Generation, Age, Tenure and Experience. Here, moving beyond generations is crucial as North (2019) identified that the age, the position the person holds, as well as their life and work-related experience level all make a difference in the workplace. Therefore, many authors recommend the use of generational differences as just a guideline or first step to explore diverse employee needs (Cennamo & Gardner, 2008; Twenge, 2010). Overall, only a scarce number of studies have been done in the field of generational differences at work (Benson & Brown, 2011), and often with contradicting results (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010). Therefore, the field could benefit from further qualitative exploration, especially moving beyond the cohort view of the generations with underlying positivistic ontological designs (Lyons & Kuron, 2014).

2.1.2 Evidence for significance of generational differences

Despite heavy criticism, multiple authors have found significant differences and trends between generations. The main difference often found is that the millennial generation values freedom and work-life balance more than their predecessors (Cennamo & Gardner, 2008; Cogin, 2012; Lyons & Kuron, 2014; Twenge, 2010). The organisational commitment seems to also be decreasing (Lyons and Kuron, 2014), which might be the result of the increased appreciation of leisure (Twenge, 2010).

Even though for example Cennamo and Gardner (2008) found no difference between generations and their extrinsic, intrinsic, social, and altruism-related values, Twenge et al. (2011) did in their time-lag study. This study was designed to keep the age of the respondents constant, as the participants were asked about their work values in their final year of high school. This may explain the difference between Cennamo and Gardner (2008) and Twenge et al. (2011), as the design of Cennamo and Gardner had a limitation of participants being at different stages in life which might have influenced the results. Twenge et al. (2011) found

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differences in terms of extrinsic rewards, where the millennials responded less to extrinsic rewards than Generation X but much higher than Baby Boomers. In terms of intrinsic rewards, such as finding the work meaningful and having autonomy, the millennials appreciated them less than other generations. Altruism on the other hand was found to be constant and finally the social interactions were shown to be valued less among millennials. Contrastingly, Cogin (2012) found that millennials have been found to value working in teams, suggesting that they value social interactions at work. The differences in results can be perhaps explained due to the younger generations valuing their leisure time which could lead them putting more value on their social interactions outside of the workplace (Twenge et al., 2011). In this way, the two studies might not be so contradicting as millennials want to work in teams at work (Cogin, 2012), but they are not dependent on finding social connections at work only, reducing the perceived value of social interactions at work (Twenge et al., 2011).

Additionally, the millennial generation was found to look for gratifying their immediate needs, preferred continuous feedback (Cogin, 2012), and were inherently different to the previous generations due to their usage of technology (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010; MacKenzie & Scherer, 2019; Twenge et al., 2011). Further, Kay and Levine (2019) found that more intense usage of technologies led to millennials expressing different expectations towards their workplace, expecting higher salaries, frequent promotions, and personalised feedback. The finding is linked to the millennials, who are high-level users of technologies, experiencing instant gratification through the available technologies and therefore might also expect this at their workplaces. This can be viewed as an interesting result showing how the millennials are indeed shaped by the technologies they are using (Kay & Levine, 2019). Although there is compelling evidence for generational differences, it should be noted that the values present in different generations have not changed significantly, but merely the weight put on the different values is evolving (Cogin, 2012). For example, Weeks (2019) found that all generations defined meaningful work through intrinsic rewards such as personal growth. What differed more was how employees experienced their environments rather than the meaning of the job itself. The only value seemingly disappearing is the ‘pride in craftsmanship’ (Cogin, 2012). Finally, even though criticism entails much of understanding the individual beyond the generation, generational research can still help to gain a better understanding of the individual workers (Benson & Brown, 2011).

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2.2 Digital natives and digital immigrants

As much of the criticism in literature on generational differences at work is directed towards putting more focus on individual differences within as well as between generations (Benson & Brown, 2011; Wong et al., 2008), especially in a virtual work setting exploring the differences in technological and digital fluency becomes relevant. As noticed in the literature about generational differences, one of the prevalent stereotypes of the millennial generation are their technical abilities, and comfort with working with technology (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010; MacKenzie & Scherer, 2019; Twenge et al., 2011). Thus, the digital native and digital immigrant debate, originating from Prensky (2001) is an important one explored in literature for the purpose of this thesis. Digital natives are a population that can be defined to be people born after 1980, overlapping with the millennial generation definition (Jones, Ramanau, Cross, & Healing, 2010; Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). Prensky (2001) defined digital natives to be the native speakers of a digital language and significantly different from the digital immigrants who are not born to the digital world but have rather adopted it. The core difference highlighted is that where digital natives are at a native level in their usage of technologies, the digital immigrants have a degree to which they are not fully native, making the two populations inherently different.

The digital native discussion has been evident in especially the educational research arena (Bennett, Maton, & Kervin, 2008; Jones et al., 2010; Kennedy, Judd, Dalgarnot, & Waycott, 2010), sparked by Prensky’s (2001) claims that the digital natives generation will require significantly different teaching methods and an evolution of the education system. The discussion, however, has recently also reached the more current work literature, where for example Colbert et al. (2016) discusses the importance of understanding the digital natives as the new emergent workers and shaping how the workplaces of the future will be built. This is due to an increasing need in organisations for people with high digital nativity especially for widely spread work situations (Colbert et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2019).

2.2.1 Digital nativity

Digital nativity can be generally defined as a certain level of experience and skills towards the use of digital technologies (Colbert et al., 2016). This goes, however, beyond just basic usage as it includes more sophisticated and fluent usage of various technologies. Digital nativity, thus, can be defined as “the ability to reformulate knowledge and produce information to

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express oneself creatively and appropriately in a digital environment” (Wang, Myers, & Sundaram, 2013, p. 409), with the emphasis on the attitude towards a creative and active usage (Hoffmann et al., 2014). Digital nativity is, therefore, more complex as it is influenced by opportunity and behavioural intention to use information technology (IT), which mediates the use of technology that is both influencing as well as influenced by digital fluency (Wang et al., 2013). The opportunity to use IT and the behavioural intention are influenced by organisational factors as well as demographic characteristics. Further, the behavioural intention to use is also mediated by psychological factors and social influences. Such differences in the opportunity and behavioural intention often stem from the digital natives as a population being considered to have major aspects of their life mediated by digital technologies, increasing their experience level with their usage (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). Due to the complex nature of digital nativity, the literature generally agrees that the concept of nativity should be extended to go beyond age distinction, and be viewed more as a continuum, where the familiarity with technology is not constant inside each population (Hoffmann et al., 2014; Jarrahi & Eshraghi, 2019; Jones et al., 2010; Kennedy et al., 2010; Vodanovich et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2013). For example, many digital immigrants might be equally developed in their internet usage as some of the digital natives (Jarrahi & Eshraghi, 2019). However, it is an interesting question to ponder, can a digital immigrant ever become fully native (Vodanovich et al., 2010).

2.2.2 Differences in technology usage

In addition to the higher digital nativity level, digital natives have distinct usage patterns that are different from the digital immigrants as they use more technologies and tools (Vodanovich et al., 2010). More specifically they use more social media (Hoffmann et al., 2014), and are constantly connected (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). Well-educated and experienced users of digital technologies were also found to have more flexibility in adopting new media and services (Hoffmann et al., 2014), and digital natives specifically were also found to be more active rather than passive users in the new digital media culture than digital immigrants (Vodanovich et al., 2010). This is linked to the preference of digital natives on interactive stimuli over the digital immigrants found by Kirk, Chiagouris, Lala and Thomas (2015). Further, digital natives have also been claimed to have different identities online and in person as the digital tools offer them new ways to express identity (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). This might have further implications on how interpersonal relating and collaboration

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will show among digital natives, as the presence of technology is heavily shaping their identities (Colbert et al., 2016).

The emergence of new technological tools also means that employees in organisations have more access to information, but this can have a negative influence on blurring the lines between work and non-work (Colbert et al., 2016), especially due to digital natives showing a higher overall usage of different technologies and levels of Internet addiction (Wang et al., 2019). This can be connected to the early exposure as the digital natives see the Internet specifically as an integral part of their lives, where integration is deeper than for older generations of digital immigrants (Wang et al., 2019). Similarly, Ahn and Jung (2016) found that the digital natives’ dependence on smartphones is justified differently than for digital immigrants. The digital natives saw the dependence as inevitable and justifiable due to usability and convenience, whereas the digital immigrants saw the reason to be lack of control over the usage of technologies. This is most likely due to the interwoven nature of the lives of digital natives with their smartphones (Ahn & Jung, 2016). Thus, the dependency found by these authors can be seen as further contributing to blurred lines between work and private life (Colbert et al., 2016), which might be more prominent for the digital natives in contrast to the digital immigrants.

2.2.3 Critical reflections of the debate

The main criticism in the literature is directed at the assumptions that some authors are making, ignoring the complexities of young people’s computer use and skills (Bennett et al., 2008). Even though there is some evidence pointing towards digital natives preferring the use of different technologies more than digital immigrants, the group is far from homogeneous (Wang et al., 2019). The digital natives population has been found to be dispersed in their usage of technologies, with high variance (Kennedy et al., 2010) as usage has been found to be influenced by position of managerial versus non-managerial, enthusiasm for technology, and even personality traits of introversion and extroversion (Jarrahi & Eshraghi, 2019).

The language used about digital natives being a generation is limited since nativity is not a generational trait but rather dependent on the amount of exposure to information technology (Bennett et al., 2008; Hoffmann et al., 2014). For example, there is a visible digital divide between people who have access to digital technologies and those who do not, leading to a

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participation gap (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). This is why nativity can also be considered to be dependent on access to technologies. Ultimately, it is therefore recommended that digital natives and digital immigrants are considered as populations rather than generations (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). Further, it is important to mix the approaches of age and individual differences to better capture the characteristics and tendencies of people (Wang et al., 2019).

2.3 Virtual work

The context of virtual work is interesting given the two populations of digital natives and digital immigrants that differ especially in terms of their usage of technologies. The concept of working virtually has been around in the literature for more than 20 years. In the literature multiple terms describing the same phenomenon exist, some of these include “virtual work” (Sieben, 2007; Raghuram, Garud, Wiesenfeld, & Gupta, 2001) “distant work” (Mortensen & Neeley, 2012; Rosen, Furst, & Blackburn, 2006) or “telework” (Peters, Lingthart, Bardoel, & Poutsma, 2016). For the scope of this thesis the definition of Wang and Haggerty has been chosen, who define virtual work as: “the working environment where people work remotely across time and/or place and/or organizational boundaries” (2009, p. 572). Thus, virtual work by definition creates a distance between the employees and their organizations (Raghuram et al., 2001) which leads to very specific drivers and barriers which affect the work.

2.3.1 Drivers and barriers

The drivers and barriers of working virtually relate to the fact that a geographical barrier exists between the employees. To begin with, for companies it is important that they are able to leverage the intellectual capital of workers around the world with minimal cost, enhance their work unit performance, meet the ever-changing customer demands and thus achieve a competitive advantage in a dynamic market place, enabled by virtual work (Mortensen & Neeley, 2012). Additionally, working from a distance not only has positive aspects for the company itself but also for the individual worker as they spend less money and time commuting to their workplace, have more flexibility and autonomy in their jobs and have more time to deal with their personal responsibilities (Peters et al., 2016; Schulze & Krumm, 2017).

Of course, the geographical separation also has some negative aspects. For companies one of the biggest downfalls can be that virtual work could lead to lower efficiency, for example

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due to technological problems or inefficient communication (Sarker, Ahuja, Sarker, & Kirkeby, 2011). For the individuals on the other hand, the absence from the office and thus their colleagues can lead to a feeling of isolation which can develop into depression (Sieben, 2007). To reach the benefits, companies need to be aware of the drivers of virtual work and at the same time try to reduce the barriers that working from a distance may entail.

Highly important for virtual work to be successful is to have effective communication between workers. This will not only lead to more efficiency in the workplace but Brotheridge, Neufeld and Dyck also suggested that “an increase in the frequency of employee initiated communication (i.e. an increase in the number of messages) has been associated with increased [...] trust” (2015, p. 912). Therefore, one of the most important drivers of virtual work is technology itself as without the aid of communication tools, like telephones or computers, it would be impossible to work virtually together. These tools allow employees to work on projects at a much quicker pace from different locations than if they would have had to travel and meet personally (DeRosa, Hantula, Kock, & D’Arcy, 2004). Of course, this can also mean that technology could be a barrier because if companies have inferior communication tools, for example outdated video chats, they will not be able to communicate efficiently which in turn will lead to reduced output (DeRosa et al., 2004). Additionally, as team members cannot meet in person, they rely on communication tools to build up relationships and therefore inferior communication tools will hinder not only the work itself but also interpersonal factors (Jimenez et al., 2017).

This leads to the next important enabler for virtual work that has been discussed heavily in the literature which is trust (Brotheridge et al., 2015; Mortensen & Neeley, 2012; Rosen et al., 2006; Sarker et al., 2011; Wang & Haggerty, 2011). It can be defined as an: “expectation by one person, group, or firm of ethical behaviour—that is, morally correct decisions and actions based upon ethical principles of analysis—on the part of the other person, group, or firm in a joint endeavour or economic exchange.” (Hosmer, 1995, p. 399). Trust has been shown to enhance performance and for the supervisor can act as a mechanism for control and coordination (Krumm, Kanthak, Hartmann, & Hertel, 2016; Raghuram et al., 2001). Additionally, a higher level of trust leads to enhanced information sharing and better teamwork (Mortensen & Neeley, 2012). In virtual teams, trust is highly important as it helps to reduce the high levels of uncertainty which go hand in hand with the global and technology-based environment (Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999). Establishing trust when

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working together from a distance is more complex than in an office and is based on “information sharing, timely responses to electronic communications, and keeping commitments made to virtual teammates” (Rosen et al., 2006, p. 231).

One of the reasons why building up trust in a virtual team setting is difficult is that there is a lack of face to face communication as most communication will be via electronic media without personal meetings which can lead to a lack of social context (Sarker et al., 2011). Additionally, one of the barriers of virtual work is that of time zone dispersion, because it is harder to coordinate members of teams who work in different time zones for example to meet for a videoconference (Jimenez et al., 2017). Furthermore, it can even lead to a less healthy work life balance as some work tasks might have to be done at unusual times of the day (Jimenez et al., 2017).

Another factor influencing virtual work is cultural diversity. Culture itself was defined by Hofstede (1991, p. 6) as: ”the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another”. This definition leads directly to potential complications cultural diversity can have, as the differences in language, verbal styles, and nonverbal styles will influence the team’s effectiveness (Shachaf, 2008). Differences in cultural backgrounds also can lead to the same positive outcomes as in normal teams like that it boosts creativity and therefore results in higher overall performance (McLeod & Lobel, 1992) as well as making it possible to tap into a wider range of information sources and feed off an increased number of networks in order to solve problems (Jimenez et al., 2017).

2.3.2 Competencies

The unique drivers and barriers lead to some of the specific competencies needed in order to be as effective and efficient as possible when working virtually. These competencies can be defined as: “collections of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) that are needed for effective performance in the jobs in question” (Campion, Fink, Ruggeberg, Carr, Phillips, & Odman, 2011, p. 226).

One of the most important concepts that has been mentioned in the literature regarding virtual work is Individual Virtual Competence (IVC). It can be defined as: ”an individual’s KSAs [knowledge, skills, and abilities] to collaborate and communicate with others in virtual environments for the purpose of completing collaborative work” (Wang & Haggerty, 2009,

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p. 578). This concept can be seen as a multidimensional construct and it consists of three components (Wang & Haggerty, 2011). The first dimension is virtual self-efficacy and it can be described as an individual’s belief in his or her abilities to engage in certain behaviours which in turn enables these individuals to cope with difficulties related to virtual work settings (Wang & Haggerty, 2011). The virtual self-efficacy can be split up into two parts again which are firstly computer self-efficacy and remote self-efficacy. They can be described as an individual’s belief in his or her ability to use computer technology broadly and an individual’s belief in their ability to work and perform tasks in collaboration with others in a virtual workplace (Krumm et al., 2016; Staples, Hulland & Higgins, 1999).

The second dimension of Individual Virtual Competency is virtual media skill. It can be described as the skill level of individuals when it comes to the usage of communication technologies to their fullest potential in virtual settings (Wang & Haggerty, 2011). An important aspect for this skill is that the user is not only able to use the communication technology but rather to use its full potential. Lastly, there is the dimension of virtual social skill. This competency is important as social interactions foster collaborations and healthy interpersonal relationships by building up mutual trust (Pauleen & Yoong, 2001). Furthermore, it is highly important for individuals to grasp emotions that are conveyed virtually and understand them correctly in order to interpret and apply emerging social protocols (Wang & Haggerty, 2011).

Similarly, Schulze and Krumm (2017) identified six clusters of KSAOs that are needed in order to successfully work virtually. The first one is the media KSAO which can be compared to the virtual media skill described by Wang and Haggerty (2011). Moving beyond the work of Wang and Haggerty (2011), the second cluster is the communication cluster and it is about communicating effectively. The third cluster is the trust related KSAOs, which describes that individuals should be able to act in a certain way in order to create trust and are also willing to trust others (Schulze & Krumm, 2017). Fourth are the intercultural KSAOs which relate to the ability to work together with people from different backgrounds. The competency to manage oneself and one's work effectively can be summarized as self-, time-, and project-management KSAOs. Lastly, there are the conflict project-management KSAOs which are about handling conflicts constructively (Schulze & Krumm, 2017).

Another approach in the literature when it comes to competencies for virtual work is the concept of virtual intelligence. It was defined by Makarius & Larson as: “the ability to

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recognize, direct, and maintain cognitive resources in a virtual work environment” (2017, p. 168). In detail this means that, firstly, virtual intelligence is about recognizing that the context of virtual work is different to that of a conservative work environment. Secondly, the next step would be to direct the cognitive resources of the individual through planning and reasoning in an appropriate manner towards the influence of virtual work behaviours. In particular this is the ability to identify, fully think through and organize the relevant steps before starting a new task. Thirdly, there is the maintenance of the cognitive resources in order to manage information in virtual work which includes the monitoring and updating knowledge as the environment changes constantly (Makarius & Larson, 2017).

There are more skills mentioned in the literature which need to be fulfilled in order to work effectively and efficiently in virtual teams. For example, self-management skills have been mentioned to be beneficial as supervisory control and social control are reduced (Hertel Konradt, & Voss, 2006; Krumm et al., 2016). Another important competency would be learning motivation. While this is also important in different work environments, it is crucial for virtual work as the environment and technological tools are changing constantly which means workers must adapt and be willing to learn new things (Krumm et al., 2016). Overall, it can be added that some competencies that are required in a traditional work environment, like for example cooperative attitudes or communication skills, are also transferable to the virtual workplace (Krumm et al., 2016).

2.4 Gaps in existing knowledge

After reviewing the literature, a promising research area was found aiming to extend the understanding of individual differences, specifically between the digital native and digital immigrant populations, in the context of virtual work environments. As the literature on generational differences calls for acknowledging the individual differences within and beyond cohorts, specifically in terms of background and skills (Macky et al., 2008; Twenge et al., 2011; Wong et al., 2008), this research gap is seen especially significant. The existing literature expresses a need to explore the generational differences as a cultural field, moving away from a positivistic ontology (Lyons & Kuron, 2014). How generational identities take shape in organisations and what makes them persistent is therefore especially of interest.

Further, in a virtual work environment a specific focus on technological abilities arises, as the younger generations differ in their technical abilities and usage (Hershatter & Epstein,

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2010; MacKenzie & Scherer, 2019; Twenge et al., 2011) and there is an increasing need for skills in order to use various technologies in organisations (Colbert et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2019). The increasing amount of remote working might influence how workers feel about technology (Jarrahi & Eshraghi, 2019), making the virtual work environment an interesting one from the perspective of exploring the individual (Wang & Haggerty, 2011). Therefore, the differences of the digital native and digital immigrant populations seem to be an interesting avenue to explore since the digital native population could be assumed to be especially fit to work in a virtual setting (Gilson et al., 2015).

However, there is no research on if the digital natives indeed would prefer working in these environments, or whether they perceive organising virtual work differently from digital immigrants. This makes this subject interesting as there is a lack of understanding of how the different levels of usage might influence expectations and perceptions of organising virtual work. This is especially needed due to there being limited research into to what extent the different generations and different levels of digital nativity in the same workspace might affect cohesion in virtual working environments (Gilson et al., 2015). Understanding how digital natives and digital immigrants with variance in virtual competence perceive organising work in virtual settings is, therefore, an especially promising avenue for new research (Colbert et al., 2016).

To conclude, the reviewed literature led us to find a significant gap in knowledge of a lack of understanding on how differences beyond the generation, and specifically differences in the digital nativity level can influence how the different populations perceive organising virtual work. It is further interesting to examine how these perceptions are formed in order to move beyond age-related variables and therefore recognise the criticism towards the digital native and digital immigrant literature that often overlooks that the populations are not fully homogeneous (Wang et al., 2019). This leads to possible implications for managers designing the virtual work environments. Therefore, considering the purpose of our thesis being to understand how and why the perceptions towards organising virtual work differ between digital natives and digital immigrants, we arrive to the research question of:

How do digital natives and digital immigrants perceive organising virtual work and how are these perceptions formed?

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3. Research Method

In this chapter we present and explain our methodological approach as well as which methods were applied and how the interviews were conducted. We further specify the method chosen for analysis and discuss the ethical implications and measures for ensuring the quality of our research.

3.1 Methodology

This part has a purpose to provide an overview of the philosophical position, approach, and strategy for this research. The alignment of these is important for a coherent research design (Staller, 2010).

3.1.1 Research Philosophy

The purpose of this thesis was defined as to understand how and why the perceptions towards organising virtual work differ between digital natives and digital immigrants, which means the purpose is aiming to gain insights from the people representing the two populations. As researchers we are trying to connect and interact with the population we seek to understand, hence, the reality under investigation is not separate from ourselves. We lend our ontological assumptions of relativism, whereby people construct reality in the context in which they operate (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018). This means that reality is relative to the particular languages and social and cultural practices of human beings (Smith, 2008). As such, a person cannot fully separate themselves from their context, suggesting that truth can only be described from the social context in which it is measured (Johnson & Duberley, 2000). Relativism denies “that there can be any universal or apodictic truths” (Smith, 2008, p. 750).

In the light of the chosen ontology, an appropriate epistemology of social constructionism is acquired. This is in line with relativism, as it assumes that the reality is determined by people making sense of their experiences (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018). As the interviewed individuals are describing their perceptions, we understand that our findings depend on how these individuals construct their realities. This further means that we acknowledge that we as researchers are part of what is being observed as we construct and analyse the interviews (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018). The risk that we as researchers need to be aware of is that the social constructionism as our epistemological base also means that the methods we employ

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do not guarantee objective knowledge as they are bound to us as researchers (Gergen & Gergen, 2008). Social constructionism, however, invites for curiosity which in the light of our purpose to gain understanding on perceptions of digital natives and digital immigrants is applicable.

3.1.2 Research Approach

Social constructionism is mostly associated with a qualitative research design (Gergen & Gergen, 2008; Staller, 2010). This is due to qualitative research being concerned with how knowledge is situated in a wider historical, political, and cultural context (Staller, 2010). Qualitative research is therefore often also connected to an inductive approach to knowledge development (Staller, 2010). Inductive reasoning is a process where theory is extracted from specific instances of observation and experience (Johnson & Duberley, 2000), and instead of using data to test a theory, the data will emerge and construct theory based on the context (Myers, 2009). Inductive in contrast to deductive, therefore, represents reasoning from the particular to the general rather than from the general to the particular (Nickerson, 2010). As the purpose of our thesis is to understand the perceptions of digital natives and digital immigrants, inductive reasoning is applicable, as the emphasis is on establishing a relationship between the observations and theory in order to pursue understanding and knowledge (Fox, 2008).

The challenge with inductive research is that preconceptions are inevitable, as the researcher should get to know the topic they are interested in researching (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018). However, being open to new emergent ideas and a dialogue with existing knowledge and what the data shows is important (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018). Thus, the literature reviewed is mostly used for understanding the relevant research arenas in order to facilitate a new emergent dialogue about the perceptions of organising virtual work. As the data emerges from interviews, there is a chance to go beyond the data as a form of inductive reasoning, forming generalisable trends (Fox, 2008; Nickerson, 2010), which we have attempted to do in this thesis as well. This approach requires special attention as the conclusions could be overturned by contradicting observations of other researchers (Fox, 2008), which is why caution with generalisation is taken, and the research design was made to take into account the possible risks of the chosen approach.

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As the constructionist epistemology and inductive approaches have been adopted, the methodology and research strategy are not viewed as the road to one truth (Gergen & Gergen, 2008). Further, as identified, the research gap and purpose of the thesis represent a relatively unexplored field, with reason to believe that there are elements worth discovering (Stebbins, 2008), an exploratory research methodology seems appropriate. Exploratory research is a type of qualitative research with a primary aim of discovering and exploring a new phenomenon (Myers, 2009). As inductive reasoning has a challenge of leading to a conclusion that can have varying degrees of confidence (Nickerson, 2010), an exploratory study with a design to maximise the discovery of generalisations is further appropriate (Stebbins, 2008).

The exploratory design therefore starts by acquiring first-hand understanding of the phenomenon being explored (Stebbins, 2008), which we have achieved through our literature review. Through this, the research gap was found, justifying the exploratory research strategy further as the phenomenon was shown worth exploring (Stebbins, 2008). As we are aiming to gain understanding, interviewing people fitting the definitions of our populations is considered appropriate to gain further understanding and eventually draw data in order to generalise and explain the object of study (Stebbins, 2008). These research design elements are further explained in the following parts of this chapter. As the greatest weakness of exploratory research is considered being able to find patterns that hold (Stebbins, 2008), we will attempt to address and evaluate the quality of our research design throughout the chapter.

3.2 Methods

3.2.1 Sampling

According to our research question and the qualitative nature of our study we decided for a deliberate and theory-based case selection (Flick, 2007; Mills, 2008). This means that in order to be included in our sample a respondent must meet certain eligibility criteria, enabling more inferences and generalisations we can make from the cases (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018). These criteria have been defined in our literature review and are as follows; digital natives (sample 1) are people born after 1980 and need to be native speakers of a digital language (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). The cut-out year was selected as 1980 since this definition of digital

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natives was the most prominent in literature (Hoffmann et al., 2014; Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). However, we attempted to have the sampled participants in each of the samples to be clearly above or below the cut-out year since this definition of the cut-out year is not indicated in all literature. The main definition the literature agrees upon is that digital natives have used technology since a significantly young age (Jones et al., 2010; Palfrey & Gasser, 2008; Prensky, 2001; Vodanovich et al., 2010). Therefore, the first step for us was to find people that were born in that time period and have been using technology for most part of their life. Additionally, all of our interviewees should pursue a higher education with the goal of working as a knowledge worker, which has been defined by Heery and Noon (para.1, 2017) as: ”an employee whose principal work activities require the handling and processing of information”. The sampling strategy for digital immigrants (sample 2) is quite similar to that of the digital natives. In this case the participants should be born before 1980 and then have adopted to live in the digital world (Prensky, 2001). Furthermore, these people have to be knowledge workers and need to have some connection or experience with virtual work during their career. The sampled participants are further described in tables 1 and 2. We had prior contact with the sampled participants in order to establish them meeting the criteria for the purpose of our study.

Table 1 – Information about sample 1

Sample Subject Year of _birth Current _occupation Industry/field of _study Nationality Gender

1

DN1 1995 Analyst Tourism German Female DN2 1997

Student / Social Media

Coordinator

Business /

Manufacturing Finnish Female DN3 1998 Student Business Swedish Male DN4 1994 Researcher Manufacturing Finnish Female DN5 1996 Manager Non-profit Swedish Female DN6 1995 Salesperson Agriculture Dutch Male DN7 1994 Student Business German Male DN8 1999 Student Biotechnology German Male DN9 1993 Junior Marketing

Manager Tourism German Female DN10 1993 Student Business Swedish Male

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Table 2 – Information about sample 2

Sample Subject Year of birth

Current

occupation Industry Nationality Gender

2

DI1 1976 Customer

Relation Manager Insurance Finnish Female DI2 1965 Area Sales _Manager Agriculture Dutch Male DI3 1965 Director Agriculture German Male DI4 1968 Administrator Municipality German Female DI5 1968 Director Construction Finnish Male DI6 1963 Research

associate Higher education German Female DI7 1969 Associate Consulting German Female DI8 1976 Project Manager Construction Finnish Male DI9 1958 Project Manager

(Urban planning) Construction German Female DI10 1962 Employee Health

Consultant Health care Swedish Female

In order to compare the two populations most effectively we chose approximately the same amount of male and female interviewees as well as the same amount of nationalities in the two samples. When looking for interview partners we decided to concentrate on the fact that all the interviewees have an academic background and either already worked as knowledge workers or are pursuing a career in that area. For several reasons we decided that these criteria were more important than industry variance, so that the two samples would be composed of the same industries. The first being that knowledge workers’ tasks in different industries are often similar as they predominantly rely on theoretical knowledge (Heery & Noon, 2017). Secondly, it was found by Rosen et al. (2006) that some aspects of virtual teamwork are “not constrained either by industry or organizational size” (p. 241). Lastly, research in the field of virtual work has often been conducted with no regards to different industries (Rosen et al., 2006; Wang & Haggerty, 2011). Therefore, we think that for our study purpose the industry in which the interviewees work will play a minor role and it is mostly important that participants are knowledge workers.

These criteria are used in order to ensure rigour of the study (Staller, 2010). The reason for this selection is that demographic features are useful for accessing the variety of what we are studying and by orienting on these features we include this variety in our sample (Flick, 2007). The purpose of this is to get a more in-depth exploration of the topic that we are studying (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018), which are the differences in perceptions relating to organising

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virtual work. The goal for us researchers is to search and find similarities and variations between the two groups (Mills, 2008).

There are certain difficulties when deciding for an optimal sampling size as if the sample includes a large number of cases with scant and more general comparative characteristics there is a risk of producing superficial results. On the other hand, if the sample included only a few cases with a big amount of descriptive depth, the researchers run the risk of having too many comparative characteristics and not enough cases to effectively examine different explanations (Mills, 2008). Additionally, as our research is exploratory in nature and our philosophical basis is constructionism, we are not trying to find one truth which eliminates the option of having larger sample sizes. We therefore decided that our sample size should consist of ten digital immigrants and ten digital natives. It was chosen to represent a larger population and can be seen as representative (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018).

3.2.2 Interview Design

When it comes to the design of qualitative interviews the aim should be to collect information in order to capture the meaning and interpretation of a phenomenon in relation to the respondents’ worldviews (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). In order for this to happen we need answers which have depth and detail, are vivid and nuanced and rich with thematic material (Rubin & Rubin, 2012).

We therefore decided to conduct in-depth interviews. These have a lot of advantages but also some disadvantages. The main reason to do these kinds of interviews is to get detailed information about a respondent’s thoughts and behaviours and explore the topic of virtual work in more depth (Boyce & Neale, 2006). One problem arising from this method is that the whole process of interviewing, transcribing, coding and in some cases translating, is very time- and effort-consuming (Marks & Yardley, 2003). But in the timeframe of this thesis it was possible to do a reasonable number of interviews including transcribing and coding with two authors. Another problem is that it can lead to bias as there is a risk in the researchers influencing the participants unconsciously and therefore developing subjective interpretations (Boyce & Neale, 2006). We tried to minimise this risk by having both authors present for the majority of the interviews and thus being able to control how questions are asked and make sure that the participants are not influenced by leading questions.

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In-depth interviews offer a relaxed atmosphere for the participants which should make them more comfortable and able to build up trust and therefore be more open and share more information with the interviewer (Boyce & Neale, 2006). This open and private nature of interviews led us to avoid focus groups or group interviews as in those we could not guarantee to avoid social pressure for the interviewees and might not get direct responses. Furthermore, as we want to find out the perceptions of the respondents, in-depth interviews are a good fit, as their main aim is to gain an understanding of the interviewees’ perspective, which includes their personal viewpoint and also why they hold this viewpoint (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018; Marks & Yardley, 2003).

During the interviews we asked a few pre-selected open-ended questions in order to lead the conversation into the right direction and give participants the opportunity to answer fully and in depth (Staller, 2010). A semi-structured interview was selected as the purpose of this thesis is to understand how and why perceptions between digital natives and digital immigrants might differ, and we as researchers need to understand the constructs behind opinions and beliefs of our subjects (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018). This cannot be obtained in the same way with a highly structured interview, even though as researchers we benefit from having a topic guide to guide the direction of the interviews. Further, the semi-structured interview type has a strength of being more personal in nature (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018), supporting the chosen approach. In order to limit the possible disadvantage of less standardised questions leading to less comparable answers, we have made sure to ask all the questions in the topic guide to all interview participants.

3.2.3 Data Collection

Consistent with the sampling strategy and interview design, a total of 20 interviews were conducted during the time period of the 7th March to the 21st March 2020. Due to constraints of many of the participants not being located in the same city or even country as us, many of the interviews were conducted via phone. In cases where participants were located nearby, face-to-face interviews were conducted. Information on the interviews conducted with each of the samples is included in tables 3 and 4.

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Table 3 - Interview information for sample 1

Sample Subject Date Type Language Duration

1

DN1 07/03/2020 Video call English 50 min DN2 07/03/2020 Face to face English 49 min DN3 12/03/2020 Face to face English 45 min DN4 12/03/2020 Video call English 61 min DN5 13/03/2020 Face to face English 42 min DN6 13/03/2020 Face to face English 52 min DN7 13/03/2020 Face to face English 39 min DN8 13/03/2020 Video call English 36 min DN9 13/03/2020 Phone interview English 35 min DN10 17/03/2020 Face to face English 30 min Table 4 - Interview information for sample 2

Sample Subject Date Type Language Duration

2

DI1 07/03/2020 Phone interview English 39 min DI2 08/03/2020 Phone interview English 32 min DI3 08/03/2020 Phone interview German 41 min DI4 09/03/2020 Phone interview German 39 min DI5 13/03/2020 Phone interview English 50 min DI6 16/03/2020 Phone interview German 43 min DI7 18/03/2020 Phone interview English 39 min DI8 18/03/2020 Phone interview German 31 min DI9 19/03/2020 Phone interview German 32 min DI10 21/03/2020 Phone interview Swedish 42 min

Out of the interviews conducted in distance, due to the wishes of participants many of them were conducted through a phone call, and only a few over a video call. That gave the advantage of being more flexible, however, some aspects of a face-to-face interview might have been lost like the immediate contextualization, depth, and nonverbal communication (Easterby-Smith et al., 2018). However, as the chosen form of analysis is content analysis, the non-verbal cues are not included in the analysis (Krippendorff, 2004), but rather were used for the purpose of asking follow-up questions, the impact of this was minimal.

In the interview process, we attempted to both be present for a majority of the interviews. Due to unforeseen events and other limitations, seven of the interviews were conducted with only one of us present at these interviews. In these cases, special attention was put on both of us being comfortable with the interview guide, thus making sure the first three interviews