Relationships between Managers Who are Innovators/Early Adopters of Flexible Work Options and Team Performance

Abstract

This article discusses the findings of an exploratory study that examined perceptions of managers (N = 332) about flexible work options (FWOs), an innovation in human resource practice. Using logistic regression, we created an index to identify managers who were Innovators/Early Adopters. The index included measures of managers' perceptions of risks and benefits, their perceptions of the extent to which they felt that it would be possible to implement FWOs, and reports of the percentage of their work units using FWOs. For the second part of the study, we focused on managers' perceptions of work unit performance, using linear regression to compare the responses of Innovators/Early Adopters with the other managers. We found that Innovators/Early Adopters perceived fewer barriers to the implementation of FWOs and were more likely to report that their work teams were high performing than managers who were not Innovators/Early Adopters.

Key words:

• Early adopters
• flexible work options
• managers
• team performance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This research was supported by grant [2011-6-23] from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College.