Which Telework? Defining and testing a taxonomy
of technology-mediated work at a distance
An article by CRITO Associates Kelly Garrett and James Danziger,
titled “Which Telework? Defining and Testing a Taxonomy
of Technology-Mediated Work at a Distance” is forthcoming
in the Social Science Computer Review. Telework has
been the subject of study for three decades, and scholars
have defined it in many different ways during that time. This
article aims to clarify the meaning of telework by presenting
a taxonomy that distinguishes between three distinct forms:
fixed-site telework, mobile telework
and flexiwork. The authors use data collected
in a national survey of more than 1,200 US computer-using
workers to demonstrate that the three types of teleworkers
are unique along key dimensions regarding their individual
characteristics, organizational and technological contexts
and the impacts on their work.
The authors define Fixed-site teleworkers
as those whose remote work occurs in the home. These workers
must work in the home or split their time between the home
and the office, spending more than 90% of their time working
in these two locations. Mobile teleworkers
are defined as those who spend more than 90% of their time
in the field or split between the field and an office. Flexiworkers
are teleworkers who spent at least 10% of their work time
in each of three locations: the office, the home and the field.
Based on their findings, Garrett and Danziger offer the following
generalizations regarding the three types of teleworkers:
Fixed-site teleworkers, whose ICT-supported
remote work is primarily at home, constitute about 11% of
all computer-using workers. Fixed-site teleworkers seem to
be work-pressured professionals employed in technologically
sophisticated organizations. Members of this group express
relatively high job autonomy. They are the group least likely
to express concern about computerized work monitoring. At
the same time, fixed-site teleworkers also experience more
work-related stress than either flexiworkers or mobile teleworkers:
almost three in five report having trouble keeping up with
their workload. The fact that fixed-site teleworkers, like
other types of teleworkers, work longer hours than office
workers could be both a cause and a consequence of technology.
For some fixed-site teleworkers, having home access to work
resources might enable them to do more of their existing after-hours
work in the home. That is, longer hours might make telework
more likely. For others, the flexibility afforded by telework
might increase their sense of obligation to the employer.
For this group, longer hours are a consequence of teleworking.
Mobile teleworking constitute 9% of computer-using
workers and represent a different approach to telework, emphasizing
use of ICTs in field locations. The use of the technology
by this group appears less likely to be viewed as a discretionary
privilege. It is deployed more broadly among workers and is
met with more suspicion. They represent a wider range of occupations.
Mobile teleworkers are more likely than other teleworkers
to view computers as a tool for monitoring their work, and
they are twice as likely as other teleworkers to report low
job influence. On the positive side, mobile teleworkers are
also far less likely to report difficulty in keeping up with
their workload compared to the other groups.
Flexiworkers constitute about 5% of all
computer-using workers, are the teleworkers who tend to use
ICTs to support work in both the home and the field. While
they come from a variety of occupations, among all teleworkers
they include the largest proportion in sales, closely followed
by management/business/financial occupations. They report
the highest level of influence over their job of any type
of teleworker. They are arguably the closest to the current
conception of the “anytime/anyplace” technology-enabled
worker. They are twice as likely of either of the other teleworker
types to describe their organization as technically unsophisticated,
suggesting that they have the highest expectations about how
ICTs can support their work and that they might take more
initiative in adopting and shaping their use of these technologies.
Other interesting findings include:
- Regarding total work time, teleworkers, who average close
to 50 hours a week, work longer hours than office workers,
who average less than 45 hours.
- A slight majority (53%) of fixed-site teleworkers are
female, while a slight majority of flexiworkers are male
(55%). More than 75% of current mobile flexiworkers are
male.
- More than three-fourths of all types of teleworkers have
remote access to organizational data, and surprisingly,
one in four teleworkers does NOT have remote access to such
data.
- Overall, job satisfaction is very high among all groups
of teleworkers.
Both the remarkable advances in remote information and communications
technologies and the extent to which organizations and workers
are integrating these ICTs seem central to the emerging world
of anytime/anyplace telework. The researchers believe that
telework is an important concept, and that the use of ICT
capabilities away from the office will become more widespread
and more significant.
.
(CRITO Research Spotlight, December 2006)
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