Business as Usual: Working from Home During the Pandemic Did Not Lead to Large Changes in Employee-Level Management Control

Abstract

We investigate whether the switch to working from home during the corona pandemic has affected employee-level management control system design and use in a sample of 227 employee-supervisor dyads in The Netherlands. Organizational theory suggests that more working from home will lead to more emphasis on outcomes, less emphasis on procedures, and more delegation. Contrary to expectations, we find very limited differences in how employees and supervisors experience the control system when working from home, with no evidence of a substantial shift towards outcome-based controls. The frequency of individual and team communication remained mostly similar through a shift towards online channels, although home workers report a small increase in total frequency. However, employees that work from home do report an increase in autonomy and higher performance, while supervisors working from home report lower performance. The results suggest that where working from home was implemented this happened within the existing control system, with supervisors incurring the transition costs.