New Realities of Global Virtual Work: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Integrative Approaches

• Applicant: Dr. Tobias Blay
• Subject Area: Management and Marketing
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 563225198

Globally operating organizations are currently facing profound changes. Historically, these organizations primarily relied on physical, cross-border exchanges of employees (e.g., expatriates or international business travelers) for collaborative efforts. However, recent megatrends such as the digital transformation and emerging work practices due to the COVID-19 pandemic have fundamentally reshaped the nature of global work. Today, multinational organizations are relying on virtual forms of collaboration, commonly known as “remote work”. The cross-border form of virtual collaboration is referred to as “global virtual work”. It involves collaborative interactions between two or more parties that extend across national boundaries and are facilitated by technology-mediated communication. Research on global virtual work is primarily shaped by three distinct disciplines within the field of management: international management ("global"), information systems ("virtual"), and human resource management ("work"). However, knowledge on global virtual work is fragmented across disciplines, often lacking an interdisciplinary and international perspective to integrate and further develop this dispersed knowledge. To address these challenges, we require an interdisciplinary and integrative management approach across disciplines that brings together the various aspects and perspectives of global virtual work. We identified three key research gaps: 1) the global, 2) the virtual, and 3) the work gap of global virtual work. We aim to identify and address these three gaps through an interdisciplinary perspective and collaboration within a scientific network. The anticipated total duration of the network is two years (desired timeframe: October 2025 – October 2027). We plan three network meetings. Thereby, the proposed scientific network pursues three objectives: 1) the promotion of national and international networking between early career scholars, 2) the creation of a results-oriented environment to discuss interdisciplinary research questions within the topic area, and 3) the preparation, drafting, and submission of academic publications. The format of a scientific network is ideally suited to combine and advance these three objectives. The network should consist of 15 members. We selected network members to ensure a balanced representation across disciplines. Additionally, the composition of the network members focuses on early career scholars who have not yet become full professors (e.g., postdoctoral researchers, assistant / junior professors, and late-stage Ph.D. candidates who plan to stay in academia). Gender balance was also a priority, with eight women and seven men in the network. We have also considered geographical dispersion, including members from a variety of universities across multiple German federal states and international scholars.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Sofia Schöbel