A multi-level socio-technical systems telecommuting framework

Abstract

Telecommuting can help to create organisational efficiencies and improve competitive advantage. It has been studied from a variety of perspectives, including that of transportation, management, psychology, and information systems. However, telecommuting literature, while abundant and diversified, often reports contradictory results, creating dilemmas for practice and research. Past researchers noting such conflicting findings often identify the lack of guiding theoretical bases as a key problem. In an attempt to explain the contradictory results found in prior research and in practice, we review telecommuting literature and expose conceptualisation issues that need to be addressed in the development of a telecommuting research model: telecommuting as both a context and an aspect of work, as a multi-level concept and as a time-dependent concept. The proposed multi-level model, guided by socio-technical systems theory, illustrates the inter-relationships of telecommuting antecedents and outcomes across levels of analysis and over time. The research offers a number of important implications for future research, as well as for managers involved in or affected by telecommuting in their organisations.

Keywords:

• telecommuting
• telework
• socio-technical systems
• mobile work
• multilevel
• time

Notes

1. The context of interest in this article is work away from an office but related to the organisation as opposed to full-time home work. In the review, we also focused on empirical studies since the purpose of the review is mainly to identify conceptualisation issues.

2. We thank an anonymous reviewer for pointers to this set of papers.

3. We thank an anonymous reviewer for this insight.