Telework Adoption Research Articles

Impacts of COVID-19 on Future Preferences Toward Telework.

This paper presents a study in capturing the impacts of the mandatory pandemic-induced telework practice on workers’ perceptions of the benefits, challenges, and difficulties associated with telecommuting and how those might influence their preference for telework in the future. Data was collected through an online survey conducted in South Florida in May 2020. Survey data showed that telework indices (either measured through actual behavior or stated preference) before, during, and after the pandemic were heterogeneous across socio-economic, demographic, and attitudinal segments. Before the outbreak, males, full-time students, those with PhD degrees, and high-income people showed higher percentages of involvement in jobs with a telework option. They also had higher pro-technology, pro-online education, workaholic, and pro-telework attitudes. During the pandemic, professional/managerial/technical jobs as well as jobs with lower physical-proximity measures showed the highest telework frequency. In view of future telework preferences, our analysis showed that those who were more pro-telework, pro-technology, and showed less dislike of telework dislike preferred higher telework frequency. A structural equation model was developed to assess the impacts of different predictors on telework behavior before the pandemic and preferences after the pandemic. While telework frequency before the pandemic was highly affected by the pro-telework attitude, the after-pandemic preferences were influenced by several other attitudes such as dislike telework, enjoy interaction, workaholic, as well as productivity factors. This might confirm the assumption that the mandatory practice through the pandemic has provided employees more experiences with work-from-home arrangements, which could reshape decisions and expectations around telework adoption in the future.

Survey Non-Response in COVID-19 Times: The Case of the Labour Force Survey.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, labour-force survey non-response rates have surged in many countries. We show that in the case of the Canadian Labour Force Survey (LFS), the bulk of this increase is due to the suspension of in-person interviews following the adoption of telework within Federal agencies, including Statistics Canada. Individuals with vulnerabilities to the COVID-19 economic shock have been harder to reach and have been gradually less and less represented in the LFS during the pandemic. We present evidence suggesting that the decline in employment and labour-force participation have been underestimated over the March-July 2020 period. We argue that these non-response issues are moderate when analyzing aggregate outcomes, but that researchers should exert caution when gauging the robustness of estimates for subgroups. We discuss practical implications for research based on the LFS, such as the consequences for panels and the choice of public-use versus master files of the LFS.

Investigating the Intention to Adopt Telecommuting during COVID-19 Outbreak: An Integration of TAM and TPB with Risk Perception

The COVID-19 outbreak has spawned a wave of telecommuting all over the world. Based on Technology Acceptance Mode (TAM) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this paper investigates how the external technical factors (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) and internal personal factors (risk perception, including perceived severity and perceived susceptibility) influence telecommuting using intention in the context of COVID-19 outbreak. Our findings suggest that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use strongly affect user’s favorable attitude towards telecommuting. The results also support previous research in the TPB field, as attitude, normative influence, and perceived behavioral control all have a significant positive impact on the adoption of telecommuting. In addition, the hypotheses that perceived severity positively relates to attitude and normative influence are supported. However, perceived susceptibility has a positive impact on normative influence, but has no significant effect on attitude. Finally, the pivotal role of normative influence in the formation of telecommuting using intention is verified, as it has a strong positive influence on both attitude and perceived behavioral control. On this basis, the implications of telecommuting business management and pandemic risk management are discussed.

Adopting Telework for Female Employees in Qatar: Sociocultural Perspectives, Theoretical Modeling, and Pandemic Experience

Social traditions and cultural expectations present complex challenges for Qatari women who pursue careers. Telework offers a possible solution, as demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This research identifies the potential for adopting telework in Qatar, analyses key factors influencing telework implementation, and discusses the merits of working from home for female professionals. The adoption of telework is examined here through a theoretical model comprising Task-Technology-Fit theory, the Technology Acceptance Model, Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory, and Sectoral Analysis. The feasibility and possible outcomes of telework adoption in Qatar are evaluated from technological, cultural, and occupational perspectives. This theoretical discussion is refined through an analysis of Twitter posts which indicate the public response to work-from-home mandates during the 2020 lockdown. While telework appears to have become socially acceptable in Qatar during the pandemic, its ongoing adoption will likely be shaped by sociocultural factors, occupational and educational dynamics, and access to necessary technologies.

Teleworking During Pandemic Covid-19 in Indonesia, and The Impact of Flexible Working Hours

This study aims to determine factors and analyze company's readiness to adopt teleworking proper to the Covid-19 situation. Working is significant during a pandemic so that companies can keep running, fulfill employee rights and have an impact on other benefits such as being able to reorganize economic conditions, traffic and the situation in congested cities. Therefore, it’s significant to recognize what helps a company's work transition to be successful. A pandemic situation is a natural challenge that enables individuals and organizations to increase their aptitude to adjust to unpredictable environmental changes quickly. This research is based on a observe establish in December 2020 through the lockdown period in several regions in Indonesia so that data collection is carried out online. Final sample consisted of 95 observations. Using path analysis, by modeling the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic as a mediator of organization, technology and human resources in influencing teleworking adoption. Teleworking is also modeled with the resulting effect, namely flexible working hours. The results show that the Covid-19 pandemic situation can moderate the influence of organizations and human resources on teleworking adoption and also that teleworking adoption affects flexible working hours. by modeling the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic as a mediator of organization, technology and human resources in influencing teleworking adoption. Teleworking is also modeled with the resulting effect, namely flexible working hours. The pandemic situation may moderate the influence of organizations and human resources on teleworking adoption and also that teleworking adoption affects flexible working hours.

Impacts of the Broadband Initiatives Program on broadband adoption and home telework

This study investigates the impacts of the Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP), established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009, on growth in broadband adoption and use of home telework. We find robust positive impacts across multiple econometric models and methods using census tract-level data in first differences. Across models and methods, the estimated average impact of BIP is in the range of 1.1–3.0 percentage point increase in the share of households adopting broadband and 0.2 to 0.4 percentage point increase in the share of workers using home telework. The estimated impacts of BIP represent roughly one-fourth to two-thirds of the average increase in broadband adoption and one-third to two-thirds of the average increase in home telework in the study tracts during the study period. The impacts of BIP vary across geographic contexts. Broadband and home telework adoption are also affected by prior levels of broadband availability, adoption, and telework, and by demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the population and the industrial structure of the economy.

Telework in Baltic Countries during the Pandemic: Effects on Wellbeing, Job Satisfaction, and Work-Life Balance

As a result of the rapid and unplanned adoption of telework by European companies during the pandemic, specific telework characteristics have arisen. Thus, employees’ experience of telework requires further analysis. Based on the “Living, Working, and COVID-19” results for Baltic countries, this paper studies the effect of telework experience on wellbeing, both directly and mediated by Work-Life balance and job satisfaction, through structural equation modelling. After verifying the significant differences in telework preferences, the model is also tested in high versus low telework preference groups. The main findings corroborate the effect of a positive telework experience on perceived wellbeing, but only indirectly via Work-Life balance. Additionally, data from the group with a high telework preference best fits the proposed model, revealing not only the mentioned indirect effect, but also the direct positive effect of telework experience on wellbeing. Thus, employees with a negative experience of telework during the pandemic will be more reluctant to accept telework over more traditional work arrangements. The implications as well as some limitations to be examined in further studies are also presented.

The prevalence of telework under Covid-19 in Canada

PurposeThis study investigates the determinants of teleworking before and during COVID-19 in Canada. It explores the extent of telework adoption across industrial sectors, as well as the long-term impacts of large-scale adoption of teleworking on urban travel demand and the dwindling demand for commercial real estate in downtowns.Design/methodology/approachUsing data from a survey of business establishments, this study employs data visualization techniques to illustrate how telework adoption evolved during the early stages of the COVID-19 lockdown. The study also estimates Logit models to explore the determinants of telework before and during the pandemic using a subsample from the Canadian labor force survey.FindingsThe study found that telework adoption reached a peak in March and April of 2020 when almost 40% of the workers in Canada were teleworking. Only 12% of employees reported teleworking before the pandemic. The adoption of teleworking was far more pronounced amongst firms that use information and communication technologies (ICTs) extensively. Teleworking appears to be far more frequent among university-educated (knowledge economy) workers.Practical implicationsKnowledge economy and highly educated workers, who switched to teleworking during the pandemic at higher rates than workers with less education, are more frequently employed in offices located in the urban core or downtowns. The drastic decline in commuting to the urban core via public transit and record low occupancy levels in downtown office towers suggests that, even if telework prevailed at levels much lower than those observed during March and April of 2020, landlords holding large portfolios of commercial real estate must prepare to cope with the lower demand for commercial real estate. This is especially significant when commercial leases come up for renewal in the next few years. In addition, governments struggling to address traffic congestion by spending hundreds of billions of dollars on transport and transit infrastructure might want to promote teleworking as a means of reducing travel demands and costly infrastructure expenditures.Social implicationsTeleworking has partially eroded the boundaries between work and home by enabling millions to continue being productive while working from home. However, teleworking would require new norms and rules to maintain a work-life balance. This change requires workers and employers to cooperate.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that explores the extent of telework adoption during COVID-19 in Canada and the determinants of telework adoption, presenting both employee and firm-level perspectives using Canada-wide representative data.

Job stress among workers who telecommute during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Japan: a cross-sectional study.

The work system reform and the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan have prompted efforts toward telecommuting in Japan. However, only a few studies have investigated the stress and health effects of telecommuting. Therefore, this study aimed to clarify the relationship between telecommuting and job stress among Japanese workers. This was a cross-sectional study. In December 2020, during the "third wave" of the COVID-19 pandemic, an Internet-based nationwide health survey of 33 087 Japanese workers (The Collaborative Online Research on Novel-coronavirus and Work, CORoNaWork study) was conducted. Data of 27 036 individuals were included after excluding 6051 invalid responses. The authors analyzed a sample of 13 468 office workers from this database. The participants were classified into 4 groups according to their telecommuting frequency, while comparing scores on the subscale of the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) and subjective job stress between the high-frequency, medium-frequency, low-frequency, and non-telecommuters groups. A linear mixed model and an ordinal logistic regression analysis were used. A significant difference in the job control scores of the JCQ among the 4 groups was found, after adjusting for multiple confounding factors. The high-frequency telecommuters group had the highest job control score. Further, after adjusting for multiple confounding factors, the subjective job stress scores of the high- and medium-frequency telecommuters groups were significantly lower than those of the non-telecommuters group. This study revealed that high-frequency telecommuting was associated with high job control and low subjective job stress. The widespread adoption of telecommuting as a countermeasure to the public health challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic may also have a positive impact on job stress. Int J Occup Med Environ Health. 2022;35(3):339-51.

For whom did telework not work during the Pandemic? understanding the factors impacting telework satisfaction in the US using a multiple indicator multiple cause (MIMIC) model.

The COVID-19 pandemic required employees and businesses across the world to rapidly transition to work from home over extended periods, reaching what is likely the upper bound of telework in many sectors. Past studies have identified both advantages and disadvantages of teleworking. The pandemic experience offers a unique opportunity to examine employees' experiences and perceptions of telework given the broad participation duration and extent. While employer strategies will play a major role in defining the future forms and adoption of telework, employee preferences and constraints, such as access to appropriate technology to work from home or the home environment, are also going to be important factors. Using data from a U.S. representative sample of 318 working adults, this study uses a Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause Model (MIMIC) to understand employee satisfaction with telework. The presented model links telework satisfaction with experienced and perceived benefits and barriers related to telework, and hence provide a causal structure to our understanding of telework satisfaction. We also present an ordered probit model without latent variables that help us understand the systematic heterogeneity in telework satisfaction across various socio-demographic groups. The results suggest younger and older aged individuals experienced/perceived lower benefits and higher barriers to teleworking compared to middle aged individuals. The results also suggest a disproportionate impact on Hispanic or Latino and Black respondents as well as on those with children attending online school from home. Accordingly, this study highlights important factors impacting telework adoption that employers and policy makers should consider in planning future work arrangements and policies in a post-pandemic world.

Adoption of Telecommuting in the Banking Industry: A Technology Acceptance Model Approach

Aim/Purpose: Currently, the world faces unprecedented challenges due to COVID-19, particularly concerning individuals’ health and livelihood and organizations and industrial performance. Indeed, the pandemic has caused rapid intensifying socio-economic effects. For instance, organizations are shifting from traditional working patterns toward telecommuting. By adopting remote working, organizations might mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on their workforce, explicitly concerning their safety, wellbeing, mobility, work-life balance, and self-efficiency. From this perceptive, this study examines the factors that influence employees’ behavioral intention to adopt telecommuting in the banking industry. Background: The study’s relevance stems from the fact that telecommuting and its benefits have been assumed rather than demonstrated in the banking sector. However, the pandemic has driven the implementation of remote working, thereby revealing possible advantages of working from home in the banking industry. The study investigated the effect of COVID-19 in driving organizations to shift from traditional working patterns toward telecommuting. Thereby, the study investigates the banking sector employees’ behavioral intention to adopt telecommuting. Methodology: The study employed a survey-based questionnaire, which entails gathering data from employees of twelve banks in Jordan, as the banking sector in Jordan was the first to transform from traditional working to telecommuting. The sample for this research was 675 respondents; convenience sampling was employed as a sampling technique. Subsequently, the data were analyzed with the partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to statistically test the research model. Contribution: Firstly, this study provides a deep examination and understanding of facilitators of telecommuting in a single comprehensive model. Secondly, the study pro-vides a deeper insight into the factors affecting behavioral intention towards telecommuting from the employees’ perspective in the banking sector. Finally, this study is the first to examine telecommuting in the emerging market of Jordan. Thereby, this study provides critical recommendations for managers to facilitate the implementation of telecommuting. Findings: Using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), this study highlights significant relationships between telecommuting systems, quality, organizational support, and the perceived usefulness and ease of use in telecommuting. Employees who perceive telecommuting systems to be easy and receive supervision and training for using these systems are likely to adopt this work scheme. The results present critical theoretical and managerial implications regarding employees’ behavioral intentions toward telecommuting. Recommendations for Practitioners: This study suggests the importance of work-life balance for employees when telecommuting. Working from home while managing household duties can create complications for employees, particularly parents. Therefore, flexibility in terms of working hours is needed to increase employees’ acceptance of telecommuting as they will have more control over their life. These increase employees’ perceived self-efficacy with telecommuting, which smooths the transition toward remote working in the future. In addition, training will allow employees to solve technical issues that can arise from using online systems. Recommendation for Researchers: This study focused on the context of the banking sector. The sensitivity of data and transactions in this sector may influence employers’ and employees’ willingness to work remotely. In addition, the job descriptions of employees in banks moderate specific factors outlined in this model, including work-life balance. For instance, executive managers may have a higher overload in banks in contrast to front-line employees. Thus, future studies should explore different contexts, including manufacturing and consultation, to understand the industry’s effect on remote working. Similarly, future research should concentrate on the influence of job descriptions on employees’ intentions toward telecommuting. Impact on Society: The COVID-19 pandemic created a sudden shift towards telecommuting, which made employees struggle to adopt new work schemes. Therefore, managers had to provide training for their employees to be well prepared and increase their acceptance of telecommuting. Furthermore, telecommuting has a positive effect on work-life balance, it provides employees with the flexibility to organize their daily schedule into more activities. Along the same line, the study highlighted the correlation between work-life balance and telecommuting. Such a relationship provides further evidence for the need to understand employees’ lifestyles in facilitating the adoption of telecommuting. Moreover, the study extends the stream of literature by outlining critical factors affecting employees’ acceptance of telecommuting. Future Research: Future studies should explore different contexts, including manufacturing and consultation, to understand the industry’s effect on remote working. Similarly, future research should concentrate on the influence of job descriptions on employees’ intentions toward telecommuting. Furthermore, the research team conducted the study by surveying 12 banks. Future research recommends surveying the whole banking industry to add more validation to the model.

Modelling long-term COVID-19 impacts on the U.S. workforce of 2029.

While ensuring employment opportunities is critical for global progress and stability, workers are now subject to several disruptive trends, including automation, rapid changes in technology and skill requirements, and transitions to low-carbon energy production. Yet, these trends seem almost insignificant compared to labor impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. While much has been written about the pandemic’s short-term impacts, this study analyzes anticipated long-term impacts on the labor force of 2029 by comparing original 2029 labor projections to special COVID-adjusted projections recently published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Results show that future demand for nearly every type of labor skill and knowledge will increase, while the nature of work shifts from physical to more cognitive activities. Of the nearly three million jobs projected to disappear by 2029 due to COVID, over 91% are among workers without a bachelor’s degree. Among workers with a degree demand shifts primarily from business-related degrees to computer and STEM degrees. Results further show that the socialness of labor, which is important for both innovation and productivity, increases in many more industries than it decreases. Finally, COVID will likely accelerate the adoption of teleworking and slightly decrease the rate of workforce automation. These impacts, combined with a shift to more cognitive worker activities, will likely impact the nature of workforce health and safety with less focus on physical injuries and more on illnesses related to sedentary lifestyles. Overall, results suggest that future workers will need to engage more often in training and skill acquisition, requiring life-long learning and skill maintenance strategies.

COVID-19 and the New Normal of Organizations and Employees: An Overview

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit organizations and employees in every sector worldwide in unprecedented ways. It became extremely difficult for organizations and employees across sectors to operate under increased mobility restrictions. The pandemic effectively disrupted previous operational models and imbued changes such as telework and digital adoption that are pervasive and may potentially last beyond the pandemic. Amid these circumstances, it was essential to ask how organizations and employees will sustain themselves in the post-COVID-19 ”new normal”. Although so much research is conducted about COVID-19, there is no comprehensive view of the changes at the meso (organizational) and micro (individual) levels. This article aims to explain this using the emergency-learning-institutionalization-new normal (ELIN) framework, which is based on the timeline of the pandemic. The article aims to bring forth the overall trends in how organizations and employees are adapting to the pandemic, the lessons they have learned, and how they will change and adapt in a post-COVID-19 “new normal”. We have analyzed existing policy papers, articles published in business, public administration, nonprofit journals, and other studies to achieve this. We find an increasing trend towards the adoption of telework and digital tools at both meso- and micro-levels. The effective implementation of telework policies and digital transformation plans at the meso-level will ensure the sustainability of organizations and jobs in the new normal. Although these trends vary across sectors and within and across countries, there is an overall increase in the flexibility of organizations and employees in adopting new solutions, making them more open to innovation. The article makes important recommendations for organizations to make these transitions more sustainable in the medium and long term.

Using Neural Networks in Order to Analyze Telework Adaptability across the European Union Countries: A Case Study of the Most Relevant Scenarios to Occur in Romania.

Our study addresses the issue of telework adoption by countries in the European Union and draws up a few feasible scenarios aimed at improving telework’s degree of adaptability in Romania. We employed the dataset from the 2020 Eurofound survey on Living, Working and COVID-19 (Round 2) in order to extract ten relevant determinants of teleworking on the basis of 24,123 valid answers provided by respondents aged 18 and over: the availability of work equipment; the degree of satisfaction with the experience of working from home; the risks related to potential contamination with SARS-CoV-2 virus; the employees’ openness to adhering to working-from-home patterns; the possibility of maintaining work–life balance objectives while teleworking; the level of satisfaction on the amount and the quality of work submitted, etc. Our methodology entailed the employment of SAS Enterprise Guide software to perform a cluster analysis resulting in a preliminary classification of the EU countries with respect to the degree that they have been able to adapt to telework. Further on, in order to refine this taxonomy, a multilayer perceptron neural network with ten input variables in the initial layer, six neurons in the intermediate layer, and three neurons in the final layer was successfully trained. The results of our research demonstrate the existence of significant disparities in terms of telework adaptability, such as: low to moderate levels of adaptability (detected in countries such as Greece, Croatia, Portugal, Spain, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Italy); fair levels of adaptability (encountered in France, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, or Romania); and high levels of adaptability (exhibited by intensely digitalized economies such Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, etc.).

Delineating the Implications of Dispersing Teams and Teleworking in an Agile UK Construction Sector

A scientometric analysis of extant literature is conducted to elucidate upon the practicality of teleworking throughout industry as a prelude to prescribing a bespoke conceptual adoption model that embeds innovative digital technologies to facilitate teleworking for construction professionals. The model is premised upon the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) work stages and illustrates how technologies are being used at each incremental stage. An interpretivist philosophy and inductive reasoning were adopted using a sample of longitudinal secondary data contained within pertinent extant literature, where each publication constitutes a unit of analysis. The qualitative scientometric software VOSviewer and Voyant Tools were utilised to examine emergent research trends, with further manual review of prominent papers contained within the sample dataset. Four distinct historical advances are delineated in a timeline that describes the evolution of home working from the 1970s through to the present day (and during the global COVID-19 pandemic). Key milestones delineated indicate how technological advances have created new opportunities for teleworking. The research indicates that an acceleration of digital advances has engendered modernity in contemporary work location patterns and that these offer potentials to reduce the environmental impact of anthropogenic activities. This unique study highlights how COVID-19 and available digital technologies have shaped the future of teleworking from home and the potential environmental impact of such. This concludes by signposting directions for future research into the adoption of teleworking at the organisational level and establishing the cost and environmental savings to businesses from abandoning the traditional model of employer-based working.

Drivers of Telecommuting Policy in Nigerian Organisations

This study evaluates factors influencing the adoption of telecommuting among the selected organisations in Nigeria. A questionnaire research tool was used basically to capture the level of awareness, interest, readiness, and perception of Nigerian organisations towards telecommuting. A total of 180 questionnaires was administered to 180 Nigerian firms in Lagos, 120 questionnaires were counted valid for analysis. This study observed high level of awareness among Nigerian organisations but paradoxically, this high level of awareness does not engender the adoption of telecommuting by those organisations. Findings revealed that the fright of difficulty in assessing employees’ performance, inadequacy of ICT infrastructures and the fear of corporate data theft are the key factors inhibiting the adoption of telecommuting by organisations. This study concluded there is a need for organisations to be aware of the benefits of telecommuting and how telecommuting policy can be devised to strategically fit into the work culture for productivity. Keywords: Telecommuting; Public Research Institutes, Adoption, Factors, Lagos.

Assessment of Factors Underpinning Employee’s Interest and Preference for Telecommuting in Lagos Island, Lagos, Nigeria

Public awareness on environmentally sound practices viz-a-viz strategies that may also sustain a balanced work life culture cannot be overemphasized. Telecommuting represents one of those viable environmentally sound practices that offer flexibility to employees through working from their homes which to a great extent have improved employee’s productivity. This study assessed the level of awareness about telecommuting as well as the factors underpinning employee’s interest and preference for telecommuting in Lagos, Nigeria. A total of 220 responses from structured questionnaires was designed to capture the level of awareness, interest, readiness, and perception of employees towards telecommuting in Lagos Island, both descriptive and inferential analysis was used for the study. The study shows that 72% were aware of telecommuting and its associated benefits while about 90% opined that telecommuting will be suitable to their work. There was also a significant positive but weak relationship among employee’s preference for telecommuting and factors such as age, marital status, awareness about telecommuting, and the experience of traffic gridlock and its associated stress .This study concluded that with the high level of awareness of telecommuting, organisations should gainfully harness the wide array of prospects that accompanies the adoption of telecommuting which has the long term advantage of stimulating labor productivity.

Teleworking: Socio-Economic Impact and Perspectives

The crisis generated by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has forced organizations on a global scale to re-think their strategies and current activities, replacing traditional work at the employer’s workplace with working from home. Thirty years ago, academic research hinted at the fact that quick technological progress would facilitate working from home for white collar workers. Recent technological developments have facilitated the quick adoption of teleworking in most work sectors, especially in the sphere of services. Work done by employees outside the employer’s workplace is frequently called teleworking, although there are various alternative concepts such as “telecommuting”, “work from home”, “remote e-working”, or “home office”. Teleworking is legislated in most states;for instance, in Romania there is Law no. 81 from 2018, “concerning regulation of teleworking”, wherein policymakers address work relations. © 2021, Amfiteatru Economic. All rights reserved.

The Influence of Teleworking on Performance and Employees’ Counterproductive Behaviour

The new social context brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has generated significant changes in the work of employees. Social distancing and isolation have imposed the adoption of teleworking in most cases. Teleworking existed before the COVID-19 pandemic, and was considered a facilitator of job flexibility, thus increasing employees’ autonomy in their work. This paper aims to identify how teleworking, through its dimensions (teleworking autonomy and interaction reduction) influences self-regulatory capacity, professional isolation, task performance, contextual performance, and counterproductive work behaviours. The data were collected from 641 respondents, namely Romanian employees, who operated by teleworking. The theoretical model and relation between the constructs were tested with the aid of structural equation modelling in SmartPLS. The interaction reduction in the context of teleworking significantly, positively, and strongly influences professional isolation, and to a lesser extent, but significantly nonetheless, counterproductive work behaviour and employee self-regulatory capacity. The research originality lies in expanding the theoretical contributions regarding teleworking theory by proposing a new teleworking scale based on teleworking autonomy and interaction reduction. It also contributes to the development of Self-regulatory Theory and Social Exchange Theory. From a managerial perspective, it highlights the importance of the dimensions of teleworking for the employer, as well as the effects of teleworking on task performance and contextual performance in the COVID-19 pandemic, offering helpful solutions to employers in the identification of viable solutions for the improvement of employee outcomes, and for the reduction of counterproductive work behaviour. © 2021, Amfiteatru Economic. All Rights Reserved.

Potential of telecommuting for different employees in the Indian context beyond COVID-19 lockdown

During the last decade, telecommuting has become quite popular whereas, in developing countries like India, this phenomenon is limited to a select group of employees due to various factors. The COVID-19 pandemic, the nationwide lockdown and the subsequent new normal scenario, has made the adoption of telecommuting by different type of employees indispensable thus giving us the opportunity to conduct empirical research towards understanding the factors influencing telecommuting adoption, productivity and activity-travel behaviour during telecommuting in India. The data used in this survey has been collected in two phases to capture the evolving situation of the pandemic. The analysis has been done based on revealed preference data considering three time periods i.e., before COVID-19, during COVID-19 nationwide lockdown, after the termination of the lockdown (after first wave) and for the post-COVID 19 scenario where stated preferences are considered. In the first step, telecommuting behaviour, activity-travel pattern during telecommuting and productivity is estimated based on aggregate sample data for various socio-economic groups for the period before and during COVID-19 (1. during lockdown 2. during new normal). Next, factors influencing telecommuting adoption and productivity are determined which has been used in our stated preference survey conducted in the second phase. A logistic regression model has been developed to test the association of existing telecommuting behaviour, activity-travel pattern, factors influencing productivity, socio-economic characteristics and occupation categories with future telecommuting adoption. The findings of this research can not only provide insights to urban planners and policymakers to design sustainable travel demand management strategies but can also help employers to design appropriate telecommuting strategies at the organization level which will help to attain the desired productivity levels. Our empirical analysis reveal two major findings, i.e., a large percentage of employees can achieve their desired productivity by working from home and the ‘rebound’ effect as identified in literature seems to have little impact in the Indian context. The novelty of this research lies in the comprehension of the adoption process, and the behavioural analysis including adoption, productivity, activity, and travel of telecommuters in the context of a developing country for the first time.