High-tech companies’ readiness assessment for alternative workplaces

Abstract

The aim of this research is to provide an understanding of the assessment of the initial readiness for alternative workplace arrangements (AWA) to assist the process of decision-making for its adoption from an organizational perspective. A set of readiness level assessment indicators (RLAI) with three main categories of relative advantage, compatibility and complexity was developed to help decision makers assess the extent of an organization’s readiness for the adoption of an AWA. Using the RLAI, a total of 64 real adoption cases were collected from 19 large high-tech companies that had already adopted any of the six AWA types: hoteling, group address, shared office, home office, and virtual office. RLAI proposed by this research established a comprehensive and systematic approach and provided decision makers with helpful guidelines for the AWA readiness assessment. The results documented in this paper provided many other organizations facing similar decision problems with insightful strategies and useful implications. Key words: Alternative workplace arrangements (AWA), innovation attributes, readiness level assessment indicators (RLAI), rank correlation analysis.