Transparency experience in remote teamwork–a sociomaterial approach

Abstract

Transparency in teamwork and across team members' status is one of the main challenges in remote work, and using online collaborative whiteboards (OCW) is a potential solution for more transparent teamwork. We explore the experience of transparency of three design teams who used an OCW called Miro in remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our aim was to gain in-depth understanding on what constitutes transparency in this teamwork context. We conducted a qualitative interview study with 11 participants who are user experience and service designers, and who actively use Miro in their daily work. We adopted sociomateriality as our research lens and thematically analysed the data, finding that transparency at work is a dynamic experience ranging between positive and negative. Rather than being merely users' or organisations' choices or the result of the tool affordances, the experience of transparency at work is an outcome of sociomaterial entanglements between the user, tool, and organisation. Furthermore, the occupational and organisational factors not only affect the experience of transparency, but they also actively constitute it.