“With great freedom comes great responsibility” - A Qualitative Study of Managers’ and Their Respective Employees’ Experiences of Mandatory Remote Work and Relationships in this Work Setting

Sammanfattning: Title: “With Great Freedom Comes Great Responsibility” - A Qualitative Study of Managers’ and Their Respective Employees’ Experiences of Mandatory Remote Work and Relationships in this Work Setting Authors: Anna Rebeka Dinnyes & Siri McGarvey Supervisor: Monika Müller, Lund University, Sweden Examiner: Stefan Sveningsson, Lund University, Sweden Course: BUSN49, Degree Project in Master’s Program Managing People, Knowledge and Change, Business Administration, 15 ECTS Submission Date: May 21th, 2021 Purpose: The purpose of our master’s thesis is to fill our identified research gaps about remote work to some extent. We aim to research individuals’ experiences of mandatory remote work and relationships in this work setting. Methodology: We conducted 9 qualitative semi-structured interviews and applied a thematic analysis method in order to make sense of our empirical material. Moreover we grounded our study in an abductive research approach and an interpretative tradition of the symbolic interactionism. Theoretical Perspectives: To analyze relationships in the mandatory remote work setting, we applied the theoretical concept of reflexive leadership by Alvesson, Blom and Sveningsson (2017). Contributions: Our study mainly contributes to the remote work literature by investigating experiences of the mandatory remote work setting. Moreover we also contribute to the e-leadership by applying the theoretical concept of reflexive leadership in order to investigate the experiences of relationships in mandatory remote work. Keywords: Mandatory Work for Home (MWFH), Remote Work, E-leadership, Reflexive leadership, Remote Communication