From Paperless Offices to Peopleless Offices: The Effects of Enforced ICT Usage During Covid-19 Lockdowns on Workplace Information Practices

• Published in: The Usage and Impact of ICTs During the Covid-19 Pandemic pp. 221 - 247
• Main Author: Byström, Katriina
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom Routledge 2023; Taylor & Francis Group
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: CoP Literature; ICT Tool; ICT Usage; ICT Consequence; LIWC; Information Practices; Physical Meetings; Digital Workplaces; Regular Office; Pandemic Years; Seminal Review Paper; ICT Governance; Low Health Literacy Group; Social Informatics Research; Remote Work; Major Depression Group; Onsite Meetings; Offer Knowledge Support; Social Informatics; Vaccine Hesitancy; LIWC Lexicon; Virtual CoP; Social Reformation; Key Word
• ISBN: 9781032139746; 9781032139753; 1032139757; 1032139749
• DOI: 10.4324/9781003231769-13

This chapter presents empirical results of a longitudinal study on the effects of changes in attitudes toward and use of information and communication technology (ICT) on information practices. Ten participants with administrative duties in a Scandinavian university were interviewed in the spring of 2020, 2021, and 2022. Results indicate that whereas ICT use increased for many work tasks and enabled all work to be done, the contextual and relational information exchanges proved difficult to transform into digital formats. Although ease of use and successful application of ICT made participants more positively oriented toward ICT, the difficulties in relational information exchanges moderated those attitudes. In addition, individual preferences influenced both ICT-related use and attitudes. The changes in collective use and attitudes altered or expanded some information practices, while others were merely sustained, in part because no alternatives were available, or they functioned less effectively than the more longstanding practices. Overall results indicate that many information practices have already been or will eventually be altered as a consequence of experiences gained during the enforced work-from-home period.