Social Capital of Mobile Workers: An Emerging Risk Factor?

The rapid proliferation of mobile technologies is characterized by a remarkable flexibility of organizations and changement of working conditions. It becomes possible for workers to access information in real time, anywhere, and anytime. Mobile work, as one of forms of teleworking, became increasingly observed and practiced in companies. Social relationships developed in consequence and all resources mobilized through networks refer to social capital. While mobile work has contributed to the creation of value and increased productivity and autonomy of members, this paper examines the issues it raised. Our exploratory results revealed that apart benefits provided (access, timing, synchronization, etc.), structural dimension of social capital may intensify work by increasing the amount of information exchanged and providing redundant one. It can thus be regarded as a source of information overload and at least of cognitive overload. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.