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Digital small talk: a case study about the construction of organiza-tional identity through informal communication during remote work

Ordonez, Catalina LU (2021) SKOM12 20211
Department of Strategic Communication
Abstract
Organizations have gone through difficult times during the pandemic trying to adapt to new working conditions that restrict face-to-face encounters for their employees. The development of day-to-day tasks have been modified to cope with the virtual conditions of teleworking. Furthermore, the interactions between coworkers have been limited to virtual encounters, which has had a great impact on the activities and informal communication processes that are part of daily work life. Thus, this study has sought to investigate the informal practice of small talk during these circumstances of remote work and its impact on the construction of organizational identity. For this, the interviews with Malmö Stad employees pro-vided relevant perceptions... (More)
Organizations have gone through difficult times during the pandemic trying to adapt to new working conditions that restrict face-to-face encounters for their employees. The development of day-to-day tasks have been modified to cope with the virtual conditions of teleworking. Furthermore, the interactions between coworkers have been limited to virtual encounters, which has had a great impact on the activities and informal communication processes that are part of daily work life. Thus, this study has sought to investigate the informal practice of small talk during these circumstances of remote work and its impact on the construction of organizational identity. For this, the interviews with Malmö Stad employees pro-vided relevant perceptions of identity construction based on digital small talk. The results showed that the dynamics of small talk in virtual contexts have been influenced by the characteristics of the media in which they are developed, and in turn, this has impacted the construction of identity of employees in relation to their work teams, their work unit, and the organization. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Ordonez, Catalina LU
supervisor
organization
course
SKOM12 20211
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
strategic internal communication, informal communication, digital small talk, employees, digital media
language
English
id
9049713
date added to LUP
2021-07-01 10:19:20
date last changed
2021-07-01 10:19:20
@misc{9049713,
  abstract     = {{Organizations have gone through difficult times during the pandemic trying to adapt to new working conditions that restrict face-to-face encounters for their employees. The development of day-to-day tasks have been modified to cope with the virtual conditions of teleworking. Furthermore, the interactions between coworkers have been limited to virtual encounters, which has had a great impact on the activities and informal communication processes that are part of daily work life. Thus, this study has sought to investigate the informal practice of small talk during these circumstances of remote work and its impact on the construction of organizational identity. For this, the interviews with Malmö Stad employees pro-vided relevant perceptions of identity construction based on digital small talk. The results showed that the dynamics of small talk in virtual contexts have been influenced by the characteristics of the media in which they are developed, and in turn, this has impacted the construction of identity of employees in relation to their work teams, their work unit, and the organization.}},
  author       = {{Ordonez, Catalina}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Digital small talk: a case study about the construction of organiza-tional identity through informal communication during remote work}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}