A Theoretical Model of Nomadic Culture: Assumptions, Values, Artifacts, and the Impact on Employee Job Satisfaction

Abstract

The model of an anytime-anywhere workforce is changing the landscape of business today. Increasingly employees are being emancipated from their traditional offices by the widespread infiltration of technologies that facilitate this model. The question is, how can we characterize the culture developing in support of these new ways of working and how can they be cultivated? Understanding this "nomadic culture" is critical to both researchers and practitioners. Due to the newness of these technologies and the speed of their integration into today's work practices, prior research lends little direction in understanding this developing culture. This research contributes by proposing and validating a multidimensional model of nomadic culture. The model describes nomadic culture in terms of three levels: underlying assumptions, espoused values, and artifacts. Each level is then described more specifically by eight measurable nomadic culture sub-constructs. Using the Structural Equation Modeling technique, proposed relationships among the sub-constructs are tested along with the effect of organizational support for nomadic behaviors on employee job satisfaction. Significant support for the model was found in data collected from 203 working IT professionals from a wide variety of organizations. Suggestions for future research as well as implications for practice are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]