Bonding Apart: Building Mediated Relationships Among Fulltime Teleworkers

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This chapter focuses on how full-time teleworkers use mediated communication to initiate and maintain remote workplace relationships. Research has shown that informal communication is an important communicative process for initiating and maintaining relationships in workplace environments (Alistoun & Upfold, 2012; Farmer, 2008; Fay & Kline, 2011; Weedman, 1992). However, earlier research on virtual, informal communication has suggested that this process is not possible outside of face-to-face interaction. Past studies have focused largely on identifying a particular technology that could effectively recreate the face-to-face experience (Rhoads, 2010; van der Kleij, Schraagen, Werkhoven, & de Dreu, 2009).