Telework: an innovation where nobody is getting on the bandwagon?

Abstract

Despite predictions over the years that many employees would soon be teleworking from their homes, neither employees in general nor information systems (IS) professionals in particular, whose work is especially appropriate for telework, have begun teleworking to any large extent. The reasons for this lack of telework growth are empirically untested. Yet an understanding of why organizations and IS departments are not joining the telework bandwagon is critical if predictions of improved flexibility and productivity through telework are to be realized.This study used innovation theory to suggest key variables that may be related to telework use among IS programmer/analysts. A national survey of IS executives was used to obtain information on the variables relevant to IS telework assimilation. The survey resulted in responses from 252 IS departments describing their telework arrangements.Key variables related to both the adoption stage and the infusion stage of IS teleworking were middle management support for telework, administrative intensity, and professionalism. A variable significantly related only to the adoption decision was centralization. The key variable related only to the infusion stage was size. The variables that were not related to either adoption or infusion were specialization and formalization, suggesting that bureaucracy alone is not an obstacle to telework.Overall, the findings suggest a bottom-up initiation of telework; i.e., that programmer/analysts are initiating telework arrangements. Lack of middle management support for telework has a strong negative effect on the assimilation of telework. Thus, this study suggests that future research may wish to investigate further the reasons for lack of managerial support. Moreover, the lack of organizations getting on the telework bandwagon, together with the variables found significant in this study, suggest fruitful areas for future research may be an analysis of the type of publicity describing telework arrangements, managerial knowledge of telework arrangements, the nature of IS work appropriate for telework, and the managerial skills demanded by telework.

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Index Terms

• Information systems

  • World Wide Web

    • Web applications

      • Internet communications tools

• Social and professional topics

  • Professional topics

    • Computing and business