REMAKING: How Is Remote Work Changing Everything?

How does remote work influence our daily decisions, relationships, work habits, or the shape of cities and regions? And how is this form of work used by people who have been forced to leave their homes because of war? These are the questions explored by the international research project REMAKING, which includes a team from the Prague University of Economics and Business (VŠE). Researchers Ivana Lukeš Rybanská, Karolina Kania, and Petr Mezihorák discuss the project’s goals, its benefits, and the challenges of studying remote work in the context of societal change.

Can you tell us what led you to launch the REMAKING project and what you hope to achieve?

Rybanská: Remote work is mostly perceived today as a tool for flexible work organization. Many people have experience working from home, some with coworking spaces, or even digital nomadism. Our consortium’s project aims to show that the contexts and impacts of remote work are much broader. Individuals, for example, adjust their habits – be it daily commuting, shopping, or local relationships. Organizations are forced to rethink how they operate, including how remote work affects their original business models. And regions and communities are transforming – what chances do demographically shrinking areas have of attracting workers who prefer flexible forms of work? Or how are rising property prices in large cities affecting their immediate surroundings? These are all questions that we explore in the REMAKING project.

Kania: I’d add that we’re studying the transformation of work in the context of trends and shocks like the pandemic or the war in Ukraine – on a global scale. The initiative came from economist Marco di Tomasso at the University of Bologna, and the project focuses primarily on remote work within these complex societal shifts.

Mezihorák: Even remote work is anchored in space and relationships. You can’t say that as soon as someone starts working remotely, they work exactly the same way from anywhere in the world. We’re interested in those connections that are often not immediately visible. That’s what this project is about, and it addresses questions also tackled by the European Union’s Horizon framework, which supports research and innovation in Europe.

How do you think REMAKING could help people or organizations in their everyday lives?

Rybanská: The project helps us better understand how remote work is set up and considers its consequences for communities, organizations, and families. It can provide valuable insights for various stakeholders who use or are considering this work model. Our findings can serve as a basis for policy-making at different levels – from corporate strategies to national and European directives. Within the project, we identify best practices and potential obstacles, enabling more effective remote work setups and better use of its benefits.

Mezihorák: The question is no longer whether remote work is a benefit or a threat, but under what conditions it has which effects. That’s what we’re interested in – and the same question is being asked by organizations and individuals across different sectors.

What role does Prague, the Czech Republic, and especially VŠE play in the REMAKING project?

Rybanská: The Czech Republic is an interesting case study because of the large number of Ukrainians who have taken refuge here due to the war. As an economic center, Prague also offers diverse remote work opportunities. We’re studying how Ukrainian refugees use remote work as a resilience strategy under new conditions – specifically in Prague and the Central Bohemian Region. We’re interested in how these individuals improvise remote work activities in various spaces (coworking centers, cafés, homes), and how they interact with local communities.

Mezihorák: Many people who came from Ukraine to the Czech Republic after 2022 had to change their professional focus. But even those who had already worked remotely in Ukraine and continued doing so after arriving here are not working in the same way. Their experiences can help us understand many aspects of remote work.

Who is on your team and how did you get into the topic of remote work?

Rybanská: Our team is led by workplace researcher Marko Orel from the Faculty of Business Administration, who studies how technology is transforming work interactions. Also on the team are labor sociologists – myself and Petr Mezihorák – and anthropologist Karolina Kania. Together, we study people in their everyday behavior and social contexts, which allows us to better understand the dynamics of remote work.

What is your international collaboration like? Any interesting experiences?

Kania: We work in a consortium of 12 institutions – not only universities but also research organizations from 11 European countries. So naturally, we work remotely quite a bit, which is directly connected to the topic of our research. We have regular online meetings, share documents, and occasionally meet in person at a partner institution. It’s fascinating to observe cultural differences in how work is organized – we’re actually becoming both researchers and subjects of our own research. For example, the project’s principal investigator Marco di Tomasso pays attention to how we’re doing even during online calls, he highlights the specific contributions of people to the project, and he genuinely cares about the relationships within our consortium.

What are the biggest challenges you face in your research?

Kania: The biggest challenge is grasping the complexity of remote work in the context of armed conflict. It’s a sensitive topic that requires an empathetic approach to respondents. Methodologically, it’s also demanding to collect data across different countries and cultural contexts in a way that allows for meaningful comparison and provides a coherent picture.

Rybanská: At the moment, finding respondents is a major challenge – not only individuals who work remotely but also organizations that employ or support Ukrainian remote workers. We need to gather a comprehensive perspective from all involved parties.

Mezihorák: Besides interviews, we want to collect data directly from the places where people work remotely, combining respondents’ accounts with our own observations. That, too, is a challenge. I should also mention that we conduct interviews in the respondents’ preferred language – sometimes in Czech, sometimes in English or Ukrainian.

What specific outputs or findings can we expect when the project is completed?

Kania: There will be several types of outputs – we’re preparing academic articles, policy reports, and other materials within open science frameworks. Our focus is mainly on mapping the impacts of remote work on various social groups and geographic regions. Our team at VŠE is specifically studying forcibly displaced people from Ukraine.

Will the project results be publicly available? How can interested people access them?

Rybanská: We’ll share all outputs on the project’s website and social media. We also aim to popularize the findings and engage with various stakeholders in the Czech Republic so the results reach as broad an audience as possible.

Ivana Lukeš Rybanská is an assistant professor at the Department of Managerial Psychology and Sociology at the Faculty of Business Administration (FBA), VŠE, and a researcher at the Center for Workplace Research (CWER). Her research focuses on how organizations can become better environments for work and life through the concepts of care and commons.

Karolina Kania is an anthropologist, assistant professor at the Department of Strategy, FBA VŠE, and a researcher at the Center for Workplace Research (CWER). She focuses on tourism development strategies and migration in the context of socio-political change.

Petr Mezihorák is a researcher on the REMAKING project and also a fellow researcher at the Institute for Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. His work focuses on self-organization among workers, labor process analysis, and the intersection of work and migration.