Frost, Fiona Jane Marie
(2024)
Examining antecedents and outcomes to develop a holistic understanding of loneliness in work.
PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
Abstract
The overarching research purpose is to develop a more robust and comprehensive understanding of loneliness in work using a mixed methods research design. This research is timely and of great importance; the challenges of loneliness in work are increasingly salient due to global technological advancements and digitalisation, and their major impact on how work is designed, managed, and organised (EC, 2022; EESC, 2017; ILO, 2022; OECD, 2019). These pre-existing long-term dynamics towards the expansion of alternative forms of work, including remote work and hybrid work, have been further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic (Cigna, 2020; OECD 2021; Makey et al., 2024; Niebuhr et al., 2022). Overall, notions of flexibility have been recast, with 65 percent of the global workforce expected to consist of entirely remote workers in five years (Ozimek, 2020). The increased prevalence of loneliness in work is a direct consequence of this significant increase in remote working (Groarke et al., 2020).
The pertinence of this research is amplified by a robust stream of empirical evidence that indicates that feelings of loneliness are associated with diminished mental health and well-being (Perlman and Peplau, 1984), depression (Cacioppo et al., 2010; Erzen and Çikrikci, 2018), heart disease (Valtorta et al., 2016), suicidal ideation (Killgore et al., 2020), and mortality (Shiovitz-Ezra and Ayalon, 2010; Sugisawa et al., 1994), amongst others at the individual level. Additionally, at the organisational level, workplace loneliness “leads to increases in the intention of employees to quit, organisational cynicism, and organisation alienation” (Deniz, 2019: 216), thereby affecting organisational performance. Attention thus far, has been directed to addressing loneliness at the societal level in the case of vulnerable groups (i.e., the elderly, disabled, and people in care) (Macdonald et al., 2021; Ortiz-Ospina and Roser, 2020); the challenges posed by loneliness in work remain underexplored. The structural nature of global societal changes in remote working and the increasing prevalence of loneliness underscore the pressing need to conceptualise loneliness in work. This research contributes to a holistic understanding of the antecedents of loneliness in work, an empirically tested process model of loneliness in work, and an understanding of how individuals’ experiences of loneliness in work might lead to pathways of health or ill-health at the individual, organisational, and societal levels (Peplau and Perlman, 1979).
| Item Type: |
Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
(PhD)
|
| Supervisors: |
Spedale, Simona
Jain, Aditya |
| Keywords: |
loneliness; loneliness in work; remote work; hybrid work; |
| Subjects: |
H Social sciences > HF Commerce |
| Faculties/Schools: |
UK Campuses > Faculty of Social Sciences, Law and Education > Nottingham University Business School |
| Item ID: |
79809 |
| Depositing User: |
Frost, Fiona
|
| Date Deposited: |
12 Dec 2024 04:40 |
| Last Modified: |
12 Dec 2024 04:40 |
| URI: |
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/79809 |
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