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This study explores the practices of locational flexibility in the Nigerian higher education sector. It examines the realities of remotely organising and managing academics' teaching and administrative workload, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Relying on the interpretative paradigm, the dataset consists of semi-structured interviews with 92 professionals in the Nigerian higher educational institution (HEI) sector drawn from private and public federal government-owned and regional (otherwise known as state government) tertiary institutions.

The study highlights the practices of locational flexibility across the Nigerian higher education sector. Therefore, it underscores the notions of locational flexibility from the perspective of Nigerian academics. It reveals a paucity in the range and usage of locational flexibility options across the Nigerian higher education sector, as well as the factors shaping its implementation and utilisation. Ultimately, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the findings reveal that locational flexibility is predominantly environmentally induced.

This study focused on a salient topic that explores the practices of locational flexibility, particularly in an underresearched context of developing economies, specifically Nigeria. Moreover, the study contributes to the scarce literature on locational flexibility. Additionally, unlike previous studies that are mostly preoccupied with the meaning of the concept and the importance of the practice to employees' work-life balance, organisational flexibility, and overall operational performance, this study underpins the practices, utilisation and barriers to implementing locational flexibility.

Through the lens of Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this study explores how remote working inhibits employee engagement. The authors offer a fresh perspective on the most salient work- and nonwork-related risk factors that make remote working particularly challenging in the context of Covid-19.

The authors use data from semi-structured interviews with 32 employees working from home during the Covid-19 lockdown. Based on the interpretivist philosophical approach, the authors offer new insights into how employees can optimize work- and nonwork-related experiences when working remotely.

The authors show that the sudden transition from in-person to online modes of working during the pandemic brought about work intensification, online presenteeism, employment insecurity and poor adaptation to new ways of working from home. These stress factors are capable of depleting vital social and personal resources, thereby impacting negatively on employee engagement levels.

Employers, leaders and human resource teams should be more thoughtful about the risks and challenges employees face when working from home. They must ensure employees are properly equipped with the relevant resources and support to perform their jobs more effectively.

While previous research has focused on the benefits of remote working, the current study explores how it might be detrimental for employee engagement during a pandemic. The study provides new evidence on the most salient risks and challenges faced by remote workers, and how the unique Covid-19 context has made them more pronounced.

This paper aims to explore the implications of algorithmic management on careers and employment relationships in the Nigerian gig economy. Specifically, drawing on labour process theory (LPT), this study provides an understanding of the production relations beyond the “traditional standard” to “nonstandard” forms of employment in a gig economy mediated by digital platforms or digital forms of work, especially on ride-hailing platforms (Uber and Bolt).

This study adopted the interpretive qualitative approach and a semi-structured interview of 49 participants, including 46 platform drivers and 3 platform managers from Uber and Bolt.

This study addresses the theoretical underpinnings of the LPT as it relates to algorithmic management and control in the digital platform economy. The study revealed that, despite the ultra-precarious working conditions and persistent uncertainty in employment relations under algorithmic management, the underlying key factors that motivate workers to engage in digital platform work include higher job flexibility and autonomy, as well as having a source of income. This study captured the human-digital interface and labour processes related to digital platform work in Nigeria. Findings of this study also revealed that algorithmic management enables a transactional exchange between platform providers and drivers, while relational exchanges occur between drivers and customers/passengers. Finally, this study highlighted the perceived impact of algorithmic management on the attitude and performance of workers.

The research presents an interesting case study to investigate the influence of algorithmic management and labour processes on employment relationships in the largest emerging economy in Africa.

This study explored the challenges academics faced with work structures during the COVID-19 pandemic and their implications for their work–life balance (WLB).

Relying on the interpretative paradigm and the qualitative research method, the dataset consists of semi-structured interviews with 43 academics in the United Kingdom.

This study’s findings indicate that academics in the UK experience issues around increased boundary permeability between work and nonwork domains and role overlap, which engender the transfer of negative rather than positive spillover experiences and exacerbate negative consequences to the well-being of academics. ICTs also reinforced gendered work-family boundaries and generated more negative work–life/family spillover for women than for men.

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) need to address ICT-related health issues through better work designs and HR initiatives that respond to the health requirements of academics. Policymakers should be futuristic and ensure comprehensive work–life policies for academics, which are necessary for humanising overall organisational well-being.

Although COVID-19 challenges are common to all workers, the experiences and effects on specific workers (in this case, UK academics) within specific national jurisdictions play out differentially, and they are often experienced with different levels of depth and intensity.