Work, ICT and travel in multinational corporations: the synthetic work mobility situation

• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Date: 01 July 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12162

The synthetic work mobility situation 195

© 2020 The Authors. New Technology, Work and Employment

published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License,

which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

New Technology, Work and Employment 35:2

ISSN 1468-005X

Work, ICT and travel in multinational

corporations: the synthetic work mobility

situation

James Faulconbridge , Ian Jones , Greg Marsden

and Jillian Anable

Theorising the relationships between information communica-

tion technology (ICT), travel and work continues to preoccupy

researchers interested in multinational corporations (MNCs).

One motivation is the desire to understand ways of reducing

demand for and the negative consequences of business travel.

Existing studies offer, however, little in the way of theoretical

explanation of why situations that require travel arise in the

rst instance and how they might be avoided. To address this

shortcoming, this paper analyses two case study engineering

consultancy MNCs to develop a novel sociomaterial perspec-

tive on the role of travel and ICTs. It introduces the concept of

the synthetic work mobility situation which highlights the way

ICT and travel exert agency that constitutes ways of working

and the organisational form of MNCs. The concept also recasts

questions about ways of reducing demand for travel as ques-

tions about ways of reconstituting the sociomaterial organi-

sation of the MNC.

Keywords: multinational corporations, business travel, travel

demand, information communication technology, work, so-

ciomateriality.

Introduction

The links between international work, information communication technology (ICT)

and travel continue to inspire extensive debate in literatures on videoconferencing and

related technologies (Montoya-Weiss, Massey, and Song, 2001; Konradt and Hertel,

2002), international human resource management (IHRM) (Mayerhofer, Hartmann,

Michelitsch-Riedl, and Kollinger, 2004: 1375; Welch, Welch, and Worm, 2007: 173) and

business mobilities (Aguiléra, 2008; Faulconbridge, Beaverstock, Derudder, and

Witlox, 2009; Elliott and Urry, 2010; Storme et al., 2013, 2017; Jones, Faulconbridge,

Marsden, and Anable, 2018). Cutting across these literatures is a common preoccupa-

tion: how to theorise the relationship between ICTs, travel and contemporary forms of

international work in terms of the role, substitutability and management of travel.

Pragmatically, such questions are motivated by the fact that business travel is both an

James Faulconbridge, Department of Organisation Work and Technology, Management School Lan-

caster University, UK.

Ian Jones, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, UK.

Greg Marsden, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, UK.

Jillian Anable, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, UK.

196 New Technology,

Work and Employment

© 2020 The Authors. New Technology, Work and Employment

published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

indicator of economic growth but also, signicantly, an environmental and social chal-

lenge. Dependency on business travel generates concerns about carbon dioxide emis-

sions (Poom, Orru, and Ahas, 2017) and about the social costs for employees in terms

of stress and work–life balance (Gustafson, 2006; Ladkin, Willis, Jain, Clayton, and

Marouda, 2016). The scale of the challenge is signicant. Estimates by market research

agencies suggest that, in 2015, $1.25 trillion was spent globally on business travel

(Wheatley and Bickerton, 2016). Individual organisations are also highly dependent on

travel for their functioning. For example, Apple buys 50 business class tickets from San

Francisco to Shanghai every day and spends US$150m annually with United Airlines

alone (Clover, 2019). The impact of the volcanic ash cloud on air travel in 2010 revealed

the potential risks of such dependency (Budd, Griggs, Howarth, and Ison, 2011).

As a result, advancing theorisations of the role of travel in relation to ICTs and inter-

national work is seen as a crucial step towards reducing demand for and the negative

consequences of business travel. Two bodies of literature have taken forward this

agenda most forcefully. First, the substitution debate focuses on when travel is and is

not needed (Montoya-Weiss et al., 2001; Konradt and Hertel, 2002). Most recently, this

has informed work on virtual teams which examines the possibilities for multinational

corporations (MNCs) to establish, operate and generate value through teams staffed

by individuals located in multiple countries who interact using ICTs (for reviews see

Hertel, Geister, and Konradt, 2005; Gilson et al., 2015). Second, work on IHRM has

moved beyond a focus on expatriates to take account of the role of a range of forms of

mobility, such as business trips and short-term assignments. Mayerhofer et al. (2004)

refer to this as ‘expatriation’ as part of efforts to deepen understanding of the expan-

sive role of travel within MNCs and ways of reducing its impacts. Most commonly, the

solution of choice involves travel management designed to control travel and permit

only ‘essential’ trips (Welch et al., 2007; Roby, 2010; Gustafson, 2012).

The substitution and IHRM literatures, whilst explaining what travel enables, when

it can be substituted and how travel can be managed to ensure only ‘essential’ trips are

taken, offer however little in the way of theoretical explanation of why situations that

require travel arise in the rst instance and how they might be avoided. The literatures

assume that, once any possible substitution or prevention of ‘discretionary’ travel has

occurred, an embedded demand for travel remains that is unavoidable and cannot be

disrupted. This limitation of the substitution and IHRM literatures results from the

theoretical perspective on the role of travel and ICTs adopted. In line with what

Orlikowski and Scott (2008: 438) describe as a ‘discrete entity’ approach, studies begin

with ‘a deeply taken-for-granted assumption that technology, work, and organisations

should be conceptualised separately’ (Orlikowski and Scott, 2008: 454). This separate

conceptualisation results in travel and ICT being viewed as independent entities that

play a role in servicing the work of an organisation. As such, travel demand and ICT

use is a product of decisions about ways of working and corporate strategy. Disrupting

the forces that create demand for travel in the rst place—particular forms of work

organisation—is not considered as a possibility, this being outside of the theoretical

conceptualisation of those concerned with the ‘discrete entities’ of travel and ICT.

Such a ‘discrete entity’ perspective is challenged by a sociomaterial perspective

(Orlikowski, 2007; Orlikowski & Scott, 2008; Knorr-Cetina, 2009). When viewed from a

sociomaterial perspective, travel and ICTs exist not as independent entities but as inte-

gral parts of the sociomaterial assemblage that is an organisation such as an MNC.

Relationships between travel, ICTs and work assemble the MNC and its organisational

form. Travel and ICTs have, then, agency in organisations that is missed when we only

look at their functional role in facilitating virtual teams or meetings. In particular, the

‘discrete entity’ approach fails to adequately conceptualise travel and ICTs as perform-

ative (Orlikowski & Scott, 2008). Performative is used here to indicate enactment, with

travel and ICTs, through their relationships with one-another and with ways of work-

ing, helping to bring into being the MNC organisational form and associated strate-

gies, not just service needs created by the form and strategies.

In this paper, we, therefore, argue that a reconceptualisation of the relationships

between international work, ICT and travel as sociomaterial relations can reveal new