The rise and consolidation of digital platforms and technologies for remote working: Opportunities, challenges, drivers, processes, and consequences

The emergence and development of digital technologies and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have brought the advent and consolidation of remote working (Olson & Olson, 2000) and propelled the adoption of online remote work across many organizations (Daniels, Lamond, & Standen, 2001) and entrepreneurial activities (Nambisan, 2017). The confluence of two factors – digital technology development and the introduction of lockdown measures taken globally to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic – has dramatically accelerated the adoption and acceptance of digital platforms and technologies for remote working (Mariani & Castaldo, 2020). Many organizations in the private, public and non-profit sectors have switched to online working, which is also the case for major decision-makers, including parliaments worldwide. For instance, on April 22 the UK convened the first “Zoomparliament”, turning a face-to-face meeting rooted in the tradition of British democracy into a virtual conference mediated by a digital platform. In addition, during the pandemic, most universities worldwide switched to online teaching for most of their courses, using the likes of MS Teams, Zoom, Blackboard Collaborate and Canvas (Lau, Yang, & Dasgupta, 2020). To ride the remote working wave, financial companies have also developed Work-From-Home (WFH) ETFs (Hodgson & Wigglesworth, 2020).