Continuance Adoption of Working from Home after the COVID-19 Outbreak: Empirical Evidence from Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the world has rendered a large proportion of the workforce unable to commute to work, to mitigate the spread of the virus. This has resulted in both employers and employees seeking alternative work arrangements. Due to the pandemic, most if not all workers experienced work from home Hence work from home has become a policy priority for most governments. Individuals have started to change their behavior to stick to the curfew and rapidly conform to the new way of life. This study is conducted to understand how organizations and people adjust to these developments and challenges. Numerous organizations are changing to the online method of working because of the COVID-19. Because of the continuous adoption of a specific behavior after the COVID-19 pandemic situation ended, employees were expected to continue working from home. To investigate deep into the behavioral consequences of such a pandemic situation, in-depth interviews were conducted in several companies in Saudi Arabia. This study was conducted by extending the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the theory of reasoned action (TRA) to explore and assess the various factors that detennine the continuous adoption intention of work-from-home by the Saudis. The finding shows that the employees' positive attitude, subjective norms, and self-efficacy affect the employees' intention to adopt work from home. The continuous adoption of work from home has been affected by employees' relevant intention and controllability.