Get Noticed and Die Trying: Signals, Sacrifice, and the Production of Face Time in Distributed Work

Ioana C. Cristea
Ioana C. Cristea
Technology Management Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106-5129;
Search for more papers by this author
,
Paul M. Leonardi
Corresponding Author
Paul M. Leonardi
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3019-1939
Technology Management Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106-5129
Search for more papers by this author

Ioana C. Cristea

Technology Management Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106-5129;

Search for more papers by this author

Paul M. Leonardi

Corresponding Author

Paul M. Leonardi

http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3019-1939

Technology Management Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106-5129

Search for more papers by this author

Published Online:17 May 2019https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2018.1265

Supplemental Material

orsc.2018.1265.sm1.pdf

Cited by
- Managers in the context of hybrid work: the impact of ICT demands on outcomes
  2 June 2026 | International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 75, No. 11
- Ethical leadership and innovative work behavior: A signaling perspective on personal engagement and task significance
  International Journal of Hospitality Management, Vol. 139
- Revisiting Flexibility Stigma: How Framing Remote Working Shapes Bias Against Remote Workers
  25 February 2026 | Gender, Work & Organization, Vol. 33, No. 4
- Managing Virtual Work: An Integrative Framework for Human Resource Management
  19 June 2026 | Human Resource Management, Vol. 32
- When humility meets hierarchy: How perceived leader power distance shapes the dual pathways linking leader humility and shared leadership
  5 June 2026 | Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 99, No. 2
- Transit Visa-Free and Inbound Tourism: City-Level Evidence from China
  27 May 2026 | Journal of Travel Research, Vol. 7
- Connectivity and Surveillance: The Role of Communication Visibility in the Era of Digitalization and Remote Work
  30 July 2025 | Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 2
- Space and Structure: The Interplay Between Proximity, Unit Boundaries, and Supervision in Shaping Workplace Interactions
  Jessica A. Reif,
  Jose Ramon Lecuona Torras,
  Jonathon N. Cummings
  30 April 2026 | Organization Science, Vol. 0, No. 0
- Is Compassion Best Accomplished Face-to-Face? Compassion Recipients’ Channel Use, Preferences, and Impact in Hybrid and Remote Working Contexts
  29 April 2026 | International Journal of Business Communication
- The Gendered Flexibility Paradox and Remote-First Work: How Working Parents Reconcile Work and Care
  16 October 2025 | Work, Employment and Society, Vol. 40, No. 2
- Recapturing Skillful Managerial Performance in Remote Work: The Phenomenology of How to Be a Great Manager When You Can’t “Be There”
  7 August 2025 | Journal of Management Inquiry, Vol. 35, No. 2
- Death of distance? Remote collaboration and scientific breakthroughs
  9 March 2026 | Industrial and Corporate Change, Vol. 43
- From Motivation to Resentment: Gamification and the Envy Dilemma
  17 January 2026 | Group & Organization Management, Vol. 71
- It's Not Just What You Say, but How You Say It: The Effects of Enterprise Social Media on Service Management, Through the Lens of Signaling Theory
  16 September 2025 | Human Resource Management, Vol. 65, No. 1
- Journal of Accounting and Management Information Systems, Vol. 24, No. 4
- Virtual Presenteeism and Employee Well‐Being in Remote Work From the Perspective of the Job Demands–Resources Model
  4 October 2025 | International Social Science Journal, Vol. 75, No. 258
- A Theory of Strategic Boundary Control for Remote Work
  1 October 2025 | Academy of Management Review, Vol. 34
- ESG performance and green cooperative innovation: a signaling theory framework
  8 September 2025 | Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 28
- Worse commute, better life? The journey to work, job characteristics, and well-being
  Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Vol. 32
- The high price of failure: social capital and remote work
  10 June 2025 | Management Decision, Vol. 12
- A (Bounded) Preference for Rule Breakers
  Academy of Management Discoveries, Vol. 11, No. 2
- On the Right Track? Studying the Use of Biometric Data to Manage People in Organizations
  Academy of Management Discoveries, Vol. 11, No. 2
- When Group Spirit Meets Personal Journeys: Exploring Motivational Dynamics and Design Opportunities in Group Therapy
  2 May 2025 | Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 9, No. 2
- (In)visibility during organizational entry: Newcomer perceptions of visibility in remote work
  3 September 2024 | Communication Monographs, Vol. 92, No. 2
- Remote Worker Communication Technology Use Related to Role Clarity, Coworker Support, and Work Overload
  22 March 2025 | Sustainability, Vol. 17, No. 7
- Conceptualizing E-Persona through self-branding strategies on Fiverr
  18 March 2025 | Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, Vol. 7
- Signaling Commitment via Insincere Conformity: A New Take on the Persistence of Unpopular Norms
  11 April 2024 | Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 88, No. 1
- Between clicks and colleagues: the Janus-faced nature of data in the media industry
  26 February 2025 | Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 30, No. 2
- Ethical implications of employee and customer digital footprint: SMEs perspective
  Journal of Business Research, Vol. 188
- Signaling Theory: State of the Theory and Its Future
  3 September 2024 | Journal of Management, Vol. 51, No. 1
- Internal Communication and Remote Work
  1 January 2025 | SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 2022
- Temporal Availability and Women Career Progression: Evidence from Cross-Time-Zone Acquisitions
  Luisa Gagliardi,
  Myriam Mariani,
  Stefano Breschi
  15 May 2024 | Organization Science, Vol. 35, No. 6
- Work from home and the racial gap in female wages
  European Economic Review, Vol. 170
- Navigating connectivity expectations and work–life boundaries through sensemaking in global teams
  17 September 2024 | Journal of Applied Communication Research, Vol. 52, No. 6
- Working Around the Clock: Temporal Distance, Intrafirm Communication, and Time Shifting of the Employee Workday
  Jasmina Chauvin,
  Prithwiraj Choudhury,
  Tommy Pan Fang
  30 May 2024 | Organization Science, Vol. 35, No. 5
- Flexibility Stigma Across Europe: How National Contexts can Shift the Extent to which Flexible Workers are Stigmatised
  27 August 2024 | Social Indicators Research, Vol. 174, No. 3
- Public servants working from home during the pandemic: Who gained and who lost?
  16 March 2023 | Australian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 83, No. 3
- Digital platforms, surveillance and processes of demoralization
  27 October 2023 | Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 39, No. 3
- Supervisor Communication Competence and Employee Outcomes: Predictive Effects in Remote, Hybrid, and In-Person Workplaces
  18 April 2023 | Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, Vol. 87, No. 3
- Just Another Voice in the Crowd? Investigating Digital Voice Formation in the Gig Economy
  Academy of Management Discoveries, Vol. 10, No. 3
- Enabling and constraining factors of remote informal communication: a socio-technical systems perspective
  9 August 2024 | Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 29, No. 5
- Can leaders motivate employees’ energy-efficient behavior with thoughtful communication?
  Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Vol. 125
- Seeing with counterfactual lenses: Alternative assumptions at the intersection of leadership and identity
  The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 2
- Working from home during COVID‐19: What does this mean for the ideal worker norm?
  27 October 2023 | Gender, Work & Organization, Vol. 31, No. 2
- The usefulness of open events: Navigating professional spaces of urban Meetups
  8 February 2022 | New Media & Society, Vol. 26, No. 3
- Balancing work and private life: when does workplace flexibility really help? New insights into the interaction effect of working from home and job autonomy
  27 February 2024 | Frontiers in Organizational Psychology, Vol. 2
- Relationship between diversification of place of work and organizational commitment
  Annals of Business Administrative Science, Vol. 23, No. 1
- How Remote Work Changes the World of Work
  Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Vol. 11, No. 1
- Work does not speak for itself: examining the incremental validity of personal branding in predicting knowledge workers’ employability
  5 November 2023 | European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 33, No. 1
- Remote Work and Careers
  1 January 2024 | SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 33
- Information systems for sustainable remote workplaces
  The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 32, No. 3
- Work-from-home adjustment in the US and Europe: the role of psychological climate for face time and perceived availability expectations
  7 July 2022 | The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 34, No. 14
- Positioning in a collaboration network and performance in competitions: a case study of Kaggle
  29 June 2023 | Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 28, No. 4
- Information sharing in a hybrid workplace: understanding the role of ease-of-use perceptions of communication technologies in advice-seeking relationship maintenance
  29 June 2023 | Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 28, No. 4
- Newcomer Drinking Behavior and Immediate Post-College Earnings Growth: Does Occupational Social Intensity Make a Difference?
  8 December 2022 | Occupational Health Science, Vol. 7, No. 2
- Navigating Water Cooler Talks Without the Water Cooler: Uncertainty and Information Seeking During Remote Socialization
  30 May 2022 | Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 2
- Organizational perspectives on digital labor market intermediaries
  19 December 2022 | Sociology Compass, Vol. 17, No. 4
- Working from home, work–family conflict, and the role of gender and gender role attitudes
  2 November 2021 | Community, Work & Family, Vol. 26, No. 2
- Leading Virtually
  Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Vol. 10, No. 1
- “Is there anybody out there?” Using a telepresence robot to engage in face time at the office
  21 December 2021 | Information Technology & People, Vol. 36, No. 1
- Organizational Body Work: Efforts to Shape Human Bodies in Organizations
  Academy of Management Annals, Vol. 17, No. 1
- The intended and unintended consequences of remote working: Narratives from a sample of female public service managers in South Africa
  13 October 2022 | Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 13
- The extensification of managerial work in the digital age: Middle managers, spatio-temporal boundaries and control
  25 April 2021 | Human Relations, Vol. 75, No. 9
- Employees’ perceptions of relational communication in full-time remote work in the public sector
  Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 132
- The Role of Fear of Missing Out and Experience in the Formation of SME Decision Makers’ Intentions to Adopt New Manufacturing Technologies
  Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 180
- Sickness Presenteeism in the Aftermath of COVID-19: Is Presenteeism Remote-Work Behavior the New (Ab)normal?
  27 January 2022 | Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 12
- Distance Matters to Weak Ties
  14 January 2022 | Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 6, No. GROUP
- We need a hero: HR and the ‘next normal’ workplace
  1 June 2021 | Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1
- Remote Work, Children's Health and the Racial Gap in Female Wages
  SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 13374
- Expanding Access to and Ensuring Equity in the Benefits of Remote Work Following the COVID-19 Pandemic
  27 September 2021 | Journal of Science Policy & Governance, Vol. 18, No. 04
- Explaining How Management Safety Practices and Safety Programs Influence Job Safety and Employee Commitment
  21 November 2021 | SEISENSE Business Review, Vol. 1, No. 3
- Bridging Temporal Divides: Temporal Brokerage in Global Teams and Its Impact on Individual Performance
  Julija N. Mell,
  Sujin Jang,
  Sen Chai
  6 November 2020 | Organization Science, Vol. 32, No. 3
- Out of the Panopticon and into Exile: Visibility and control in distributed new culture organizations
  14 April 2020 | Organization Studies, Vol. 42, No. 5
- Personaleinsatz, Verwaltung und Freisetzung
  5 March 2021
- COVID‐19 and the New Technologies of Organizing: Digital Exhaust, Digital Footprints, and Artificial Intelligence in the Wake of Remote Work
  17 October 2020 | Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 58, No. 1
- Behavioral Visibility: A new paradigm for organization studies in the age of digitization, digitalization, and datafication
  4 November 2020 | Organization Studies, Vol. 41, No. 12
- Interpersonal Connectivity Work: Being there with and for geographically distant others
  26 November 2020 | Organization Studies, Vol. 41, No. 12
- Community in the New World of Work: Implications for Organizational Development and Thriving
- The Effects of Temporal Distance on Intra-Firm Communication: Evidence from Daylight Savings Time
  SSRN Electronic Journal, Vol. 4

Volume 30, Issue 3

May-June 2019

Pages 447-646, C2-C3

Article Information

Supplemental Material

Metrics

Information

Received:September 21, 2016
Accepted:September 19, 2018
Published Online:May 17, 2019

Cite as

Ioana C. Cristea, Paul M. Leonardi (2019) Get Noticed and Die Trying: Signals, Sacrifice, and the Production of Face Time in Distributed Work. Organization Science 30(3):552-572.

https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2018.1265

Keywords

Acknowledgments

For insightful feedback on earlier drafts of this manuscript, the authors thank Steve Barley, Dorthe Døjbak Håkonsson, and Børge Obel, the research groups at Technology Management Program (TMP) and ICOA, as well as the TMP visiting scholars. They are deeply grateful to their senior editor, Pam Hinds, and three anonymous reviewers for their invaluable suggestions during the revision process, which helped improve the paper immensely. They are also indebted to the engineers who supported their research and provided them with meaningful information throughout the data-collection process.

PDF download

Available Issues

Available Issues

Available Issues

Available Issues

Available Issues

Get Noticed and Die Trying: Signals, Sacrifice, and the Production of Face Time in Distributed Work

Supplemental Material

Volume 30, Issue 3

Article Information

Supplemental Material

Metrics

Information

Cite as

Keywords

Sign Up for INFORMS Publications Updates and News