Digistress - Digital stress in hybrid organizations - leading and organizing for a sustainable workplace

We aim to: (i) contribute to our theoretical understanding and knowledge of digital stress in the hybrid workplace by identifying how and why digital stress emerges among organizational members and how leaders can manage and organize to avoid them and (ii) design a normative guidance for leaders in hybrid organizations in their efforts to effectively lead hybrid organizations in a digital society and to avoid digital stress and create a sustainable work environment.  We intend to address and study this problem domain through the stance of “digital stress”. Against this background we ask the following research questions: (1) How do digital technologies induce digital stress in the hybrid workplace? (2) How can leaders lead and organize the hybrid organization to avoid digital stress and hence create a healthy and sustainable workplace?  

The COVID-19 pandemic induced a rapid digital change in numerous workplaces. Due to the lockdowns and need for social distancing, many knowledge workers started working from home using digital technologies to communicate and conduct their work. Leadership will inevitably play a decisive role in the process of introducing and realizing the hybrid workplace and how work practices are organized in the future.