Does Hybrid Work? A Mixed Digital Methods Investigation of the Consequences of Hybrid Work

PhD defence by Sofie Læbo Astrupgaard

Assessment Committee

Associate Professor Anna Ilsøe, FAOS, Sociology, UCPH, University of Copenhagen (Chairperson)
Professor Mario L. Small, Department of Sociology, Colombia University
Associate Professor Lasse Folke, Department of Organization, CBS

Supervisor

Professor Morten Axel Pedersen

Department

SODAS

Place

The defence is conducted as a hybrid defence.

To attend the defence in person:
Building: 35, Room: Faculty Lounge (CSS 35-3-20),
Gammeltoftsgade 13, 1355 København

To attend the defence online:
Please follow the link to attend the defence online: https://ucph-ku.zoom.us/j/67881790830
MeetingID, if relevant: 678 8179 0830

Email address to gain access to the thesis: sofielaebo@gmail.com.
You will either receive a copy of the thesis or be informed where you can read a physical copy.
Recipients of copies of the thesis are not allowed to share or distribute it due to copyright compliance.

Short description of the thesis

This dissertation examines the rise of remote work and especially hybrid work in Denmark following the COVID-19 pandemic. Through four papers, insights are provided into evolving understandings and everyday practices of hybrid work, including their entanglement with flexible office arrangements. Overall, the dissertation shows that hybrid work is a heterodox phenomenon in which increased employee autonomy is intertwined with new forms of organisational control, while simultaneously reshaping workplace relations and everyday social practices in dynamic work environments. Methodologically, the dissertation advances the approach of mixed digital methods. By integrating computational analyses of digital traces with qualitative inquiry, the approach offers a way of studying increasingly digitised forms of social life while also grounding the interpretation of such traces in the social contexts and practices through which they are produced.