IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/iburev/v31y2022i6s0969593122000804.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From travel to virtual work: The transitional experiences of global workers during Covid-19

Author

Listed:
  • Jooss, Stefan
  • Conroy, Kieran M.
  • McDonnell, Anthony

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has transformed how global work is conducted in multinational enterprises. There has been a rapid and forced shift from global mobility to global virtual work. Taking a transition perspective and drawing on event system theory, this paper examines the transitional working experiences of global workers amid a global health pandemic. Through 32 in-depth interviews (pre- and in-Covid-19), our findings reveal how this exogenous event has transformed previously unquestioned and enshrined global work routines. By unpacking the transition process, we find that global workers were challenged to reconfigure the structural and relational dimensions of their global work. We disentangle the strategic and sustainable lessons learnt on the future of global working for multinational enterprises.

Suggested Citation

  • Jooss, Stefan & Conroy, Kieran M. & McDonnell, Anthony, 2022. "From travel to virtual work: The transitional experiences of global workers during Covid-19," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:iburev:v:31:y:2022:i:6:s0969593122000804
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ibusrev.2022.102052
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593122000804
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2022.102052?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. Sen Chai & Richard B. Freeman, 2019. "Temporary colocation and collaborative discovery: Who confers at conferences," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(13), pages 2138-2164, December.
    2. Niina Nurmi & Pamela J Hinds, 2016. "Job complexity and learning opportunities: A silver lining in the design of global virtual work," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 47(6), pages 631-654, August.
    3. Paula Caligiuri & Helen De Cieri & Dana Minbaeva & Alain Verbeke & Angelika Zimmermann, 2020. "International HRM insights for navigating the COVID-19 pandemic: Implications for future research and practice," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 51(5), pages 697-713, July.
    4. Andersson, Ulf R. & Brewster, Chris J. & Minbaeva, Dana B. & Narula, Rajneesh & Wood, Geoffrey T., 2019. "The IB/ IHRM interface: Exploring the potential of intersectional theorizing," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(5), pages 1-1.
    5. Collings, David G. & Scullion, Hugh & Morley, Michael J., 2007. "Changing patterns of global staffing in the multinational enterprise: Challenges to the conventional expatriate assignment and emerging alternatives," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 198-213, June.
    6. Glikson, Ella & Erez, Miriam, 2020. "The emergence of a communication climate in global virtual teams," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 55(6).
    7. Peter Magnusson & Anja Schuster & Vas Taras, 2014. "A Process-Based Explanation of the Psychic Distance Paradox: Evidence from Global Virtual Teams," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 283-306, June.
    8. Longqi Yang & David Holtz & Sonia Jaffe & Siddharth Suri & Shilpi Sinha & Jeffrey Weston & Connor Joyce & Neha Shah & Kevin Sherman & Brent Hecht & Jaime Teevan, 2022. "Author Correction: The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 164-164, January.
    9. Pamela J. Hinds & Catherine Durnell Cramton, 2014. "Situated Coworker Familiarity: How Site Visits Transform Relationships Among Distributed Workers," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(3), pages 794-814, June.
    10. Dimitrova, Mihaela & Chia, Sherwin Ignatius & Shaffer, Margaret A. & Tay-Lee, Cheryl, 2020. "Forgotten travelers: Adjustment and career implications of international business travel for expatriates," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 26(1).
    11. Sumita Raghuram & Philipp Tuertscher & Raghu Garud, 2010. "Research Note ---Mapping the Field of Virtual Work: A Cocitation Analysis," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 21(4), pages 983-999, December.
    12. Jonathon N. Cummings & J. Alberto Espinosa & Cynthia K. Pickering, 2009. "Crossing Spatial and Temporal Boundaries in Globally Distributed Projects: A Relational Model of Coordination Delay," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 20(3), pages 420-439, September.
    13. Jimenez, Alfredo & Boehe, Dirk M. & Taras, Vasyl & Caprar, Dan V., 2017. "Working Across Boundaries: Current and Future Perspectives on Global Virtual Teams," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 341-349.
    14. Jackowska, Marta & Lauring, Jakob, 2021. "What are the effects of working away from the workplace compared to using technology while being at the workplace? Assessing work context and personal context in a global virtual setting," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1).
    15. Carnevale, Joel B. & Hatak, Isabella, 2020. "Employee adjustment and well-being in the era of COVID-19: Implications for human resource management," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 183-187.
    16. Wanda J. Orlikowski, 2010. "The sociomateriality of organisational life: considering technology in management research," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 34(1), pages 125-141, January.
    17. Lotta K. Harju & Janne Kaltiainen & Jari J. Hakanen, 2021. "The double‐edged sword of job crafting : The effects of job crafting on changes in job demands and employee well‐being," Post-Print hal-03188199, HAL.
    18. Cristina B Gibson & Patrick D Dunlop & John L Cordery, 2019. "Managing formalization to increase global team effectiveness and meaningfulness of work in multinational organizations," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(6), pages 1021-1052, August.
    19. Jeanne Wilson & C. Brad Crisp & Mark Mortensen, 2013. "Extending Construal-Level Theory to Distributed Groups: Understanding the Effects of Virtuality," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(2), pages 629-644, April.
    20. Jelena Cerar & Phillip C. Nell & B. Sebastian Reiche, 2021. "The declining share of primary data and the neglect of the individual level in international business research," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(7), pages 1365-1374, September.
    21. Narula, Rajneesh & Santangelo, Grazia D., 2009. "Location, collocation and R&D alliances in the European ICT industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 393-403, March.
    22. Karl E. Weick, 1988. "Enacted Sensemaking In Crisis Situations[1]," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 305-317, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lauring, Jakob & Jonasson, Charlotte & Stoermer, Sebastian, 2024. "Virtual expatriate assignments and host country national support: The role of higher-level construals in social categorization processes," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(6).
    2. Tsang, Eric W.K. & Colpan, Asli M., 2025. "Reconciling the tension between contextualization and generalization in qualitative international business research," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(2).
    3. Farndale, Elaine & Horak, Sven & Piyanontalee, Rakoon & Puffer, Sheila M. & Vidović, Maja, 2025. "Looking back to look forward: Disruption, innovation and future trends in international human resource management," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(1).
    4. Bucher, Jana & Lazarova, Mila & Deller, Jürgen, 2025. "Digital technology and global mobility: Narrative review and directions for future research," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(1).
    5. Nguyen, Harvey & Pham, Anh Viet & Pham, Man Duy (Marty) & Pham, Mia Hang, 2023. "Business resilience: Lessons from government responses to the global COVID-19 crisis," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(5).
    6. Mello, Rodrigo & Erro-Garcés, Amaya & Dickmann, Michael & Brewster, Chris, 2025. "A potential paradigm shift in global mobility? The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(1).

    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. Günter K Stahl & Martha L Maznevski, 2021. "Unraveling the effects of cultural diversity in teams: A retrospective of research on multicultural work groups and an agenda for future research," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(1), pages 4-22, February.
    2. Fiona Kun Yao & Jing Yu Yang & Song Chang & Jane Wenzhen Lu, 2025. "Not all threats are equal: symbolic and realistic threats and the deployment of parent-country nationals," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 56(2), pages 174-193, March.
    3. Xie, Junyi & Ifie, Kemefasu & Gruber, Thorsten, 2022. "The dual threat of COVID-19 to health and job security – Exploring the role of mindfulness in sustaining frontline employee-related outcomes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 216-227.
    4. Sangeeta Gupta & Poonam Devdutt & Urmila Jagadeeswari Itam, 2022. "Centrality of psychological well-being of IT employees during COVID-19 and beyond," DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Springer;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, vol. 49(4), pages 365-380, December.
    5. Gibbs, Jennifer L. & Eisenberg, Julia & Fang, Chengyu & Wilkenfeld, J. Nan, 2023. "Examining how organizational continuities and discontinuities affect the job satisfaction of global contractors," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(5).
    6. Li, Yi-Na & Li, Yan & Chen, Haipeng (Allan) & Wei, Jiuchang, 2023. "How verbal and non-verbal cues in a CEO apology for a corporate crisis affect a firm’s social disapproval," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    7. Jimenez, Alfredo & Boehe, Dirk M. & Taras, Vasyl & Caprar, Dan V., 2017. "Working Across Boundaries: Current and Future Perspectives on Global Virtual Teams," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 341-349.
    8. Vuchkovski, Davor & Zalaznik, Maja & Mitręga, Maciej & Pfajfar, Gregor, 2023. "A look at the future of work: The digital transformation of teams from conventional to virtual," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    9. Yifan Zhong & Yameng Li & Jian Ding & Yiyi Liao, 2021. "Risk Management: Exploring Emerging Human Resource Issues during the COVID-19 Pandemic," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-23, May.
    10. Rocio Bonet & Fabrizio Salvador, 2017. "When the Boss Is Away: Manager–Worker Separation and Worker Performance in a Multisite Software Maintenance Organization," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(2), pages 244-261, April.
    11. Lipsa Jena & Subash Chandra Pattnaik, 2023. "COVID-19: Challenges and Changes for Human Resource Management Professionals," Journal of Studies in Dynamics and Change (JSDC), ISSN: 2348-7038, Voices of Inclusive Change and Expressions- (VOICE) Trust, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, vol. 10(2), pages 11-18, April-Jun.
    12. Crowley-Henry Marian & Coogan Kim Margaret & Redmond Cora & Sheil Niall, 2021. "Tales from the Irish diaspora during COVID-19: Prompting a future research agenda for global mobility," The Irish Journal of Management, Sciendo, vol. 40(2), pages 157-172, December.
    13. Jackowska, Marta & Lauring, Jakob, 2021. "What are the effects of working away from the workplace compared to using technology while being at the workplace? Assessing work context and personal context in a global virtual setting," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1).
    14. 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.
    15. Farndale, Elaine & Horak, Sven & Piyanontalee, Rakoon & Puffer, Sheila M. & Vidović, Maja, 2025. "Looking back to look forward: Disruption, innovation and future trends in international human resource management," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(1).
    16. Jacob P. Manahan, 2022. "Implementation of PRIME-HRM Program Using Cloud-Based Technology," Technium, Technium Science, vol. 4(1), pages 102-119.
    17. Victor Cui & Rajneesh Narula & Dana Minbaeva & Ilan Vertinsky, 2022. "Towards integrating country- and firm-level perspectives on intellectual property rights," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(9), pages 1880-1894, December.
    18. Paula Caligiuri & Helen De Cieri & Dana Minbaeva & Alain Verbeke & Angelika Zimmermann, 0. "International HRM insights for navigating the COVID-19 pandemic: Implications for future research and practice," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 0, pages 1-17.
    19. Taras, Vas & Baack, Daniel & Caprar, Dan & Dow, Douglas & Froese, Fabian & Jimenez, Alfredo & Magnusson, Peter, 2019. "Diverse effects of diversity: Disaggregating effects of diversity in global virtual teams," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 25(4).
    20. Jeanne Wilson & C. Brad Crisp & Mark Mortensen, 2013. "Extending Construal-Level Theory to Distributed Groups: Understanding the Effects of Virtuality," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(2), pages 629-644, April.

    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:iburev:v:31:y:2022:i:6:s0969593122000804. 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/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/133/description#description .

    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.