42nd EGOS Colloquium, University of Bergamo, 9-11 July 2026
Sub-Theme 23: ‘Between Social and Digital: The Making of the ‘Ideal Worker’
Convenors: Michel Ajzen, Michal Izak and Stefanie Reissner
Call for submission of short papers (ca. 3,000 words), deadline 7 January 2026, 12:00 CET
The ‘ideal worker’ has been subject to organization research for many years in a quest to understand this prototypical employee who is ‘always on’ (Peters & Blomme, 2019). Prior research has identified the key features that distinguish ideal workers, such as high degrees of availability and connectivity (Huws, 2016), flexibility, empowerment and commitment (Kossek et al., 2021). Ideal workers are further expected to adopt an entrepreneurial attitude (Paltrinieri, 2017) that generates an efficient and productive work organization in multiple times and places (Brumley & St George, 2022). Other studies have sought to explain how and why ideal workers are created. They suggest that workers may internalize expectations to engage in work and consequently accept work intensification in exchange for greater autonomy over when and where they work (Kelliher & Anderson, 2010). In fact, workers with the greatest autonomy have been found to work the longest and hardest (Mazmanian et al., 2013; Duxbury et al., 2014). Some authors argue that this is motivated by the need to remain visible at a distance (Leonardi & Treem, 2020) and distinguish oneself from others (Hartner-Tiefenthaler et al., 2021). Research has also highlighted the potential physical and psycho-social risks to the ideal worker’s health and wellbeing, which have been found to be gendered (Batram-Zandvoort et al., 2024).
In the spirit of critically exploring the processes and practices by which new ideal workers norms emerge along the human-computer interaction, EGOS invite contributions exploring the following themes:
Individual-level analyzes, including
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Human-computer interactions and their implications for:
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work-life balance and wellbeing (including mental and physical health)
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attitudes towards work (e.g., [dis-]engagement, de-humanization, dispossession)
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job requirements and skills (including resilience, up- and re-skilling)
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Subjectification processes that lead to the development of individual sets of norms shaping working hours, work intensity, outputs, etc.
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Strategies by which workers challenge and reject the expectations surrounding the ideal worker
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Technology mediation, facilitation and/or interference with the emergence of ideal worker
Group-level analyzes, including
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The implications of advanced digital technologies for:
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collective work (incl. co-presence, collaboration, coordination)
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working relationships and working communities
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managerial work (e.g., extensification, algorithmic management)
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inclusion at work
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Collective shaping processes of the new ideal worker in a technology-mediated work context
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Generational and gender differences in workers’ response to ideal worker norms
Organization-level analyzes, including
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The systems and processes underpinning the shaping of the new ideal worker
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The implications of algorithmic management on developing ideal worker norms (e.g., evolution of the control-autonomy paradox)
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The implications of technology-mediated work on working time and space
EGOS also invite holistic analyzes that critically explore the dynamics across levels. They encourage conceptual contributions, empirical research using innovative methodological approaches, interdisciplinary work (especially sociological and/or technology and innovation angles) as well as contributions aiming to investigate how technology can be considered as a researcher’s ally supporting their studies of the shaping of ideal workers, or the methodological implications for studying work from the post-humanist perspective that could shed light on – so far – obscured aspects of ‘ideal worker’.
For more information, and to submit your Paper, please visit the EGOS webpage HERE