This edited volume seeks to enhance our understanding of the concepts of space and place in the study of digital work. It argues that while digital work is often presented as 'placeless', work always takes place somewhere with a certain degree of local embeddedness. Contributors to this collection address restructuring processes that bring about delocalised digital work and point out limitations to dislocation inherent in the work itself, and the social relations or the physical artefacts involved.

Exploring the dynamics of global value chains and shifts in the international division of labour, this book explores the impact these have on employment and working conditions, workers' agency in shaping and coping with changes in work, and the new competencies needed in virtual organisational environments. Combining different disciplinary perspectives, the volume teases out the spatial aspects of digital work at different scales ranging from team level to that of globalproduction networks.

 

 

Jörg Flecker is a professor of sociology and head of thesociology department at the University of Vienna, Austria. For more than 15years he has worked on delocalization of ICT-enabled work and restructuring ofservice value chains.

Introduction; Jörg Flecker.- Part 1. Delocalisation of digitalwork.- 1. The production of placelessness: digital service work in globalvalue chains; Jörg Flecker and AnnikaSchönauer.- 2. New topologies ofengineering work: informatisation,virtualisation and globalisation in the automotive industry; MaschaWill-Zocholl.- 3. Algorithms that divide and unite:Delocalisation, identity, and collective action in microwork; Vili Lehdonvirta.- Part 2. The changinginternational division of labour and regional development.- 4. Clouds in the desert? Central andEastern Europe in the new division of labour for business services and softwaredevelopment; Graham Hollinshead and JaneHardy.- 5. Missing Links in ServiceValue Chain Analysis The Case of Call Centers in the Brazilian Banking Sector;Martina Sproll.-6. Local development policies and labourmarket in the dynamics of virtual value chains: the case of IT Sector in the municipalityof Londrina (Paraná, Brazil); SimoneWolff.- 7. Creating space: The roleof the State in the Indian IT related offshoring sector; Ernesto Noronha and Premilla DCruz.- Part 3.Dynamics of virtual organisations and mediatised work.- 8. My companysinvisible Creating trust and belonging amongst the transient places andspaces of virtual work; NoraKoslowski.- 9. Towards a model ofcollective competencies for global and virtual collaboration; Thomas Ryser, Elisabeth Angerer and HartmutSchulze.- 10. Spatial phenomena ofmediatised work; Caroline Roth-Ebner.