Sarah Soroui

Remote working reconstitutes the contextual and relational dynamics between individuals and the workplace, altering conventional opportunities and avenues for organizational integration. Furthermore, the rise of this post-industrial form of workplace organization has been accompanied by contrasting perspectives about whether untethering the workforce will enhance social capital development to the benefit of workers’ local communities. Drawing on interview data with thirty formerly office-based remote employees, this study examines how remote employees make use of social capital assets embedded within their local environments. Insufficient attention has been paid to social networking and capital building in the context of remote work arrangements. This research explores the motivations and modalities of remote employees’ local engagements, paying particular attention to how the use of local social assets intersects with physical dislocation from their work organization’s social infrastructure. Mindful of the heterogeneity of remote work spatial arrangements, it accounts for variations in geographic access to formal organizational assets, providing further nuance and texture about the conditions influencing remote employees’ local behavior.