Telecommuting Life: Managing Issues Of Work, Home And Technology

The Telecommuting Life: Managing Issues of Work, Home and Technology Gigi G. Kelly and Karen Locke Idea Group Publishing IDEA GROUP PUBLISHING 1331 E. Chocolate Avenue, Hershey PA 17033-1117, USA Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com The Telecommuting Life 1 #IT5553 The Telecommuting Life: Managing Issues of Work, Home and Technology g n i h s i l b u P p u o r G a e d I t h g i r y p o C g n i h s i l b u P p u o r G a e d I t h g i r y Cop g n i h s i l b u EXECUTIVE SUMMARY P p u o r G a e d I t h g i r y Cop g n i INTRODUCTION h s i l b u P up o r G a e d I t h g i r y Cop Gigi G. Kelly, College of William and Mary, USA Karen Locke, College of William and Mary, USA Gigi G. Kelly is an assistant professor of Management Information Systems at the College of William & Mary. She holds a B.B.A. from James Madison University, an M.B.A. from Old Dominion University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. Dr. Kelly teaches in the areas of systems analysis and design, information resource management, and decision support systems. Her research interests focuses on the various effects of IT on the work environment, including telecommuting, virtual group development, and enterprise-wide systems implementations. She has extensive consulting experience in MIS and has published articles in Journal of MIS, Small Group Research, Computerworld, various conference proceedings and book chapters. Karen Locke, Ph. D., is Aassociate professor of Business Administration at the College of William and Mary’s school of business. She joined the faculty there in 1989 after earning her Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Case Western Reserve University. Karen uses qualitative methods to pursue her research interests. Her investigative work focuses on the written construction of scientific work in the organizational studies community, on the examination of emotionality in the workplace, and more recently on the impact of telecommuting on home and work. Karen’s work has appeared in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Management Inquiry, and Studies in Organization, Culture and Society. Additionally, she has co-authored a book, titled, Composing Qualitative Research, published by Sage. As the 21st century approaches, the work environment is transforming, driven in large part by technology. For example, technology is challenging ideas about where and when work needs to take place. Technology allows employees to work from home. However, this new distributed work arrangement brings with it many new challenges for both the employee and employer. In this case, we introduce one company that has decided to experiment with the telecommuting arrangement. Through the eyes of one teleworker, many of the benefits and challenges of telecommuting are explored. One doesn’t have to look vary hard at the business world to figure out that something significant seems to be happening with the current workplace. Look at the language we are using to describe our situation (emphases added): “A tidal wave of change is sweeping across the American workplace (Ehrlich, 1994:491); “The last decade, perhaps more than any other time since the advent of mass production, has witnessed a profound redefinition of the way we work (Business Week, 1994:76); and, the very notion of a job itself, is being questioned (Ancona, Kochan, Scully, Van Maanen, & Westney, 1996a). Whether one views the terms in which change is described as dramatic hyperbole or a reasonable representation of what is happening, it does seem that change, dramatic or evolutionary, is indeed taking place. Furthermore, the impetus to change is being felt across a wide variety of organizations, from Fortune 500 companies to government bureaucracies and even to the military.