IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v66y2023i4p505-516.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Remote agile: Problems, solutions, and pitfalls to avoid

Author

Listed:
  • Reunamäki, Riku
  • Fey, Carl F.

Abstract

In response to increasing uncertainty and rapid change, firms are looking to implement new management methods to become more flexible and less hierarchical. One of the most popular of these methods is to be agile, which aims for reactiveness, collaboration, decentralized decision-making, and increased autonomy. However, agile was designed to work best with teams in which members are colocated, whereas during the COVID-19 pandemic—and likely in the post-COVID world—many employees are working remotely at least part of the time. We explore how to adapt agile to remote work, drawing from an in-depth case study of OP Financial Group, the largest bank in Finland. We highlight five problems and solutions to implementing agile in a remote setting and discuss the situations and types of teams in which remote agile will likely work and not work. Our findings provide guidance for companies looking to become agile in today’s new normal.

Suggested Citation

  • Reunamäki, Riku & Fey, Carl F., 2023. "Remote agile: Problems, solutions, and pitfalls to avoid," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 66(4), pages 505-516.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:66:y:2023:i:4:p:505-516
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2022.10.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000768132200129X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bushor.2022.10.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Longqi Yang & David Holtz & Sonia Jaffe & Siddharth Suri & Shilpi Sinha & Jeffrey Weston & Connor Joyce & Neha Shah & Kevin Sherman & Brent Hecht & Jaime Teevan, 2022. "The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 43-54, January.
    2. Jacqueline N. Lane & Ina Ganguli & Patrick Gaule & Eva Guinan & Karim R. Lakhani, 2021. "Engineering serendipity: When does knowledge sharing lead to knowledge production?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(6), pages 1215-1244, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jean-Marc Bourgeon & José de Sousa & Alexis Noir-Luhalwe, 2022. "Social Distancing and Risk Taking: Evidence from a Team Game Show [Distanciation sociale et prise de risque : Les résultats d'un jeu d'équipe]," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03792423, HAL.
    2. Vij, Akshay & Souza, Flavio F. & Barrie, Helen & Anilan, V. & Sarmiento, Sergio & Washington, Lynette, 2023. "Employee preferences for working from home in Australia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 782-800.
    3. Luca, Davide & Özgüzel, Cem & Wei, Zhiwu, 2024. "The spatially uneven diffusion of remote jobs in Europe," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 122651, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Wang, Richard & Ye, Zhongnan & Lu, Miaojia & Hsu, Shu-Chien, 2022. "Understanding post-pandemic work-from-home behaviours and community level energy reduction via agent-based modelling," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 322(C).
    5. Becker, Kai & Ebbers, Joris J. & Engel, Yuval, 2024. "Going online: Peer entrepreneur networks in a startup accelerator before and during the COVID-19 pandemic," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    6. Bahar, Dany & Choudhury, Prithwiraj & Miguelez, Ernest & Signorelli, Sara, 2024. "Global Mobile Inventors," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    7. Cristen Dalessandro & Alexander Lovell, 2024. "The Pandemic-Stratified Workplace: Workspace, Employee Sense of Belonging, and Inequalities at Work," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(1), pages 21582440241, February.
    8. Oltean Ovidiu & Taylor Andrew, 2023. "Back to the Future: How the Convergence of Globalization and Technology is Changing Labour and Mobility," Social Change Review, Sciendo, vol. 20(1), pages 19-44, December.
    9. Cevat Giray Aksoy & Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Mathias Dolls & Pablo Zarate, 2022. "Working from Home Around the World," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 53(2 (Fall)), pages 281-360.
    10. Berliant, Marcus & Fujita, Masahisa, 2023. "Knowledge creation through multimodal communication," MPRA Paper 117452, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Maren Mickeler & Pooyan Khashabi & Marco Kleine & Tobias Kretschmer, 2023. "Knowledge seeking and anonymity in digital work settings," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(10), pages 2413-2442, October.
    12. James, Steffan & Liu, Zheng & Stephens, Victoria & White, Gareth R.T., 2022. "Innovation in crisis: The role of ‘exaptive relations’ for medical device development in response to COVID-19," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    13. Nicole Nestoriak & David H. Oh, 2025. "What Makes Work from Home Work? Evidence on Telework and Worker Tasks," NBER Chapters, in: The Changing Nature of Work, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Mengxiao Zhu & Chunke Su & Jiangang Hao & Lei Liu & Patrick Kyllonen & Alina von Davier, 2024. "Who benefits from virtual collaboration? The interplay of team member expertness and Big Five personality traits," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, December.
    15. Matthias Söllner & Thomas Arnold & Alexander Benlian & Ulrich Bretschneider & Caroline Knight & Sandra Ohly & Lena Rudkowski & Gerhard Schreiber & Domenik Wendt, 2025. "ChatGPT and Beyond: Exploring the Responsible Use of Generative AI in the Workplace," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 67(2), pages 289-303, April.
    16. Walther, Sven, 2025. "The Effect of Virtual Communication Channels on Human Behavior: A Literature Review," MPRA Paper 125223, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Belik, Ivan & Knudsen, Eirik Sjåholm, 2023. "Link on, Link off: Data-driven management of organizational networks for ambidexterity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    18. Battisti, Enrico & Alfiero, Simona & Leonidou, Erasmia, 2022. "Remote working and digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic: Economic–financial impacts and psychological drivers for employees," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 38-50.
    19. Deole, Sumit S. & Deter, Max & Huang, Yue, 2023. "Home sweet home: Working from home and employee performance during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    20. Moritz Müller & Robin Cowan & Helena Barnard, 2023. "The role of local colleagues in establishing international scientific collaboration: Social capital in emerging science systems," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 32(5), pages 1077-1108.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:66:y:2023:i:4:p:505-516. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.