This study examines how hybrid and remote work structures enable or constrain the formation of digital social capital within organizations and how this relates to perceived organizational effectiveness. It aims to bridge productivity-focused and well-being-oriented perspectives by analyzing how relational and technological infrastructures jointly shape the experience of working effectively in hybrid contexts.
Adopting an interpretivist, multi-case qualitative design, the study investigates three multinational firms operating hybrid and remote configurations. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, digital ethnography and organizational documents. The analysis integrates social capital theory and sociomateriality to explore how leaders and employees sustain connection and coordination across digital boundaries.
The study develops the concept of digital cohesion – the alignment of relational trust and functional synchrony maintained through digital artefacts, communication routines and leadership practices. The findings show how structural, relational and cognitive dimensions of digital social capital are enacted through sociomaterial arrangements in hybrid work systems and how digital cohesion emerges as a key mechanism through which digitally mediated relationships are experienced as effective, reliable and sustainable.
The findings offer actionable insights for leaders and HR professionals seeking to design inclusive, cohesive and high-performing hybrid workplaces. They underscore the importance of intentionally cultivating digital cohesion by curating communication ecologies, clarifying digital norms and routines, and embedding practices that support trust, psychological safety and predictable coordination across locations.
This research extends social capital theory into digitally enabled work contexts by showing how structural, relational, and cognitive social capital are produced and mobilized through digital interaction histories and platform practices. It also contributes to sociomaterial understandings of hybrid organizing by articulating digital cohesion as an integrative analytic category that links digital social capital to perceived organizational effectiveness, offering a processual account of how technology and relationships co-evolve in hybrid organizations.
Isabel Barbosa, Elizabeth Real Real de Oliveira· Journal of Organizational Ef...· 0 citations
This study aims to understand how higher education institutions (HEIs) operationalize systemic sustainability by examining their organizational routines and stakeholder engagement processes, guided by systems thinking to identify feedbacks among routines, governance and stakeholder dynamics rather than to develop formal simulation models. It seeks to identify the mechanisms, enabling factors and barriers that shape institutional transitions toward holistic sustainability integration. This study does not develop formal system dynamics models; rather, it qualitatively identifies reinforcing and constraining feedback mechanisms.
A qualitative multi-case study design was employed, focusing on three HEIs recognized for advanced sustainability initiatives. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with faculty, administrators, staff and students, complemented by document analysis and observations of campus-level practices. In total, 30 participants were interviewed across the three HEIs, including administrators, faculty, sustainability officers and student representatives, enabling a multi-perspective view of systemic sustainability processes. Systems-informed thematic analysis, combining cross-case pattern mapping with the identification of reinforcing and constraining mechanisms, and drawing on stakeholder theory, was used to interpret patterns across institutional contexts; the study does not include quantitative system dynamics modeling.
Four interrelated drivers emerged: the embedding of sustainability into daily organizational routines, inclusive stakeholder engagement that nurtures collective agency, adaptive governance mechanisms enabling coordinated action and mediating influences of leadership and institutional culture. Despite noteworthy progress, challenges persist, including fragmented responsibilities and resistance to cultural change within specific groups. The analysis primarily uncovers qualitative patterns and mechanisms, highlighting how sustainability becomes institutionalized through recursive practices and feedbacks rather than through isolated initiatives or formally modeled dynamic trajectories.
The study contributes by offering a qualitative, systems-informed framework that links organizational routines, governance arrangements and stakeholder dynamics in the sustainability transformation of HEIs. It advances understanding of systemic sustainability as an embedded, evolving process by articulating key reinforcing and constraining mechanisms in HEI sustainability transitions. It provides policymakers, university leaders and educators with actionable insights to foster more integrated, resilient and participatory sustainability strategies across higher education systems.
Isabel Barbosa· International Journal of Org...· 0 citations
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