Wired to Wander: Values in Digital Nomadism

Digital nomadism presents conflicting value judgments in existing literature, yet the sources of these conflicts remain underexplored. This study examines why conflicting valuations persist in digital nomadism using the values in digital phenomena framework. We conducted an interpretive qualitative study with 18 semi-structured interviews with digital nomads and analyzed 74 news articles from 12 international publications representing diverse cultural and political perspectives. Our analysis reveals three distinct sources of value conflicts: stakeholder perspective conflicts (different stakeholders applying different value systems), intra-value system conflicts (same value system yielding conflicting judgments), and object-dependent conflicts (same stakeholder generating different valuations for different aspects). Findings demonstrate that value judgments are fundamentally dynamic and multidimensional, requiring simultaneous consideration of the evaluated object, evaluating stakeholder, and applied value system. This research challenges assumptions of value homogeneity within stakeholder groups and provides a comprehensive framework for understanding value conflicts in digital nomadism.