Teleworking

New International Perspectives From Telecommuting to the Virtual Organisation

Paul J. Jackson, Jos M. van der Wielen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9780415173544
• eBook ISBN: 9781134695621
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Teleworking is an up-to-date, groundbreaking and comprehensive assessment of teleworking. It includes
* multidisciplinary contributions drawing on sociology, management science, economics, philosophy and information technology
* analysis of post-modern and post-industrial theoretical contexts
* a selection of empirical studies from across the world
* accounts of different modes of teleworking, from homeworking to centre-based working
* examination of the links between teleworking and the virtual organisation
Wide-ranging, detailed and original, this book is a valuable introduction to teleworking and an important contribution to the debate on the future of the labour market.

1
INTRODUCTION

Actors, approaches and agendas: from telecommuting to the virtual organisation

Paul J. Jackson and Jos M. van der Wielen

Ideas, like commodities, have fashions. They come and go. One year something’s in; the next it’s out. But as tastes change and markets shift, we often find things coming around again – repackaged, refocused – sometimes reborn. Those who have followed the topic over the years may recognise the same pattern in discussions of telework. Trumpeted in the 1970s as an answer to energy consumption and commuting demands (for example, Nilles et al. 1976), the 1980s saw telework relaunched as a flexible working arrangement, by which job and family demands could be balanced, skill shortages addressed and economic peripheries integrated with core regions (Kinsman 1987; Huws et al. 1990). In the 1990s we find more attention being given to issues of workplace design, facility management and the need to manage work time and work space to encourage productivity and effectiveness (for example, Becker and Steele 1995).

In this sense, the ground sometimes appears to shift beneath teleworking discussions. Yet while the world may move on, many people still see telework as an answer waiting in the wings. The difficulty this presents is that the concepts and theories available to inform such discussions often reflect the priorities, mind-sets and values of earlier contexts. But as circumstances change – due, for instance, to the globalisation of markets and production, economic restructuring and the diffusion of new technologies such as the Internet – the need to question our old assumptions about teleworking becomes evermore important.

As interest in the idea is renewed, many different stakeholders become involved in discussing and promoting telework. These include, for instance, transport ministries, telecom companies, personnel managers and flexible workers. The consequence of this is that the meaning, role and value of telework became more ambiguous. To achieve a more thorough understanding of the complex nature of the phenomenon, therefore, we need to take a fresh look at the theories and concepts developed until now, rethink old assumptions and reconceptualise the issues at hand. To find new ways of looking at teleworking opportunities, we must build bridges with adjacent debates – on restructuring, re-engineering, business networking, and so on – as well as with relevant disciplines, such as social geography, economics, IT-sciences and work psychology. In short, we need to develop new, integrative perspectives that provide more robust ways of analysing and theorising teleworking phenomena and so aid the task of understanding, implementing and managing it. A recognition of this – and the fact that there is a range of interests involved – is essential if the debate on teleworking is to move forward.

This book presents a concerted effort to develop new perspectives. We intend it to provide a timely contribution to the debate on telework. In so doing, it draws upon a range of international experiences and reflects the variety of disciplinary backgrounds of the contributors. The present chapter provides an introduction to this by looking at the main teleworking approaches, actors and agendas. It starts with a discussion of the three dominant approaches to the subject. Next, the complexity in telework caused by the array of actors involved in research and practice is examined. The chapter then discusses the key social and organisational issues involved in teleworking developments, before concluding with a look at the emerging agendas that need to be addressed.

Different approaches to telework

Teleworking phenomena have been approached in many ways: as an icon of technological innovation, as a ‘new way of working’ or as a modern lifestyle for young dual-career couples with children. In conceptual terms, several authors have attempted to characterise developments using terms like ‘remote working’, ‘distance working’ (Holti and Stern 1986a and b) or ‘outwork’ (Probert and Wajcman 1988). Others seek to categorise the various forms of telework, like ‘homework’, ‘alternative officing’ and ‘mobile working’ (see Gordon 1996). Alternatively, distinctions have been made between residential workers with a fixed central workplace, hybrid workers with central and decentral workplaces, and nomads with no fixed workplace (for example, Stanworth and Stanworth 1991). More analytical approaches, such as Brandt (1983) and Holti and Stern (1986b), have sought to categorise flexible work arrangements according to forms of spatial dispersal and means of co-ordination (from market to hierarchy).

In theoretical terms, efforts have taken place to integrate teleworking issues within different contexts of change. These range from the role of teleworking within organisations (Lenk 1989; Stanworth and Stanworth 1991; Jackson 1992) to the broader issues of economic and industrial restructuring (for example, Pfeffer and Baron 1988; Probert and Wajcman 1988; Van der Wielen 1991; McGrath and Houlihan, this volume). In developing new ideas and lines of analysis we must therefore start by identifying the conceptual, methodological and theoretical strengths and weaknesses found in existing approaches.

Back to the future: technology, symbolism and telework

The last two decades have seen the steady realisation of teleworking ideas in the world of work. In the 1970s, at the time when Nilles et al. (1976) introduced the notion of ‘telecommuting’ (the American synonym for telework), research was aimed at giving public policy-makers technology-supported solutions for several societal problems, such as urban crowding, energy shortages, transportation congestion, environmental pollution and the peripheralisation of economic regions. The main idea here was that geographical dispersion of the labour force from central business districts would significantly decrease the number of daily commuters, with IT used to bridge distances.

The idea was adopted by futurists such as Toffler (1980), who integrated the notion of telecommuting into broader speculations about the future of Western society. Telecommuting here was encompassed by Toffler’s notion of the ‘electronic cottage’, and became an important icon in revolutionary (post-industrial) predictions about the birth of the Information Society. The electronic cottage exemplifies a disjuncture with previous ways of living and working. This involves a new world in which technology allows for a reintegration of work, family and community, and contrasts with the harsh divisions caused by life under industrialism. The approach sees IT as the fundamental factor explaining economic development, and the emerging information economy more generally.

Several problems are created by this line of thinking. One is that discussions of telework, as well as the technologies that support it, may pay more attention to symbolic issues than those of practical usefulness (see also Sturesson, this volume). This treats telework as a vision of the future, rather than considering its practical merits as a technology-supported work innovation. Another problem is that the role of technology in social and organisational change is under-theorised and treated in a deterministic way (Jackson 1992). It is presumed, for instance, that technologies will be appropriated and configured in ways that accord with teleworking, rather than supporting alternative arrangements in general.

It is now widely recognised that while fundamental changes in organisation and production are associated with technological advances, we cannot regard technological development as a unique, independent factor determining social and organisational change. We instead need to understand the adoption of IT as a social and political process, in which actors do not passively ‘adapt to’ new technologies but actively shape them to their own ends, transforming them as they conceive of new configurations (for example, McLoughlin and Harris 1997).

Telework as an objective phenomenon

As the amount of studies on the subject shows, there is enormous interest in ascertaining the extent, shape and potential of teleworking. However, in order to gain a picture of developments in the field, there is a need to define the phenomenon under study. Moreover, in extrapolating from this to identify the potential for, or growth in, telework, we need to establish a link between telework developments and changes in areas of technology, the economy, industry, demographics and society.

Conceptual difficulties therefore compound the problems involved in theorising and predicting telework developments. As the literature shows, defining telework is easier said than done (see for instance, Huws et al. 1990; Korte and Wynne 1996; Quortrup, this volume). The presence of information technology in a particular work arrangement does not in itself define it as telework. Moreover, whilst it might support its development and help to accelerate the rate of adoption, the diffusion of new technologies does not correlate in a straight-forward way with the growth in teleworking. This in part explains the difficulties involved in (and failures of) projecting a spread in teleworking based on the takeup of technology. The same goes, of course, for the relationship between teleworking and the growth of information processing work.

Despite this, understanding the viability of telework, the reasons behind its use and the potential for its growth, has been a matter of interest to many people. Initially, this mainly concerned governments, consultants and academics, although in more recent years it has been vendors of the technology who were keen to track and extrapolate trends. So far as this latter group is concerned, there is a clear interest in the market potential for products targeted at potential teleworkers and their organisations.

Forecasts and estimates of teleworking developments

Many studies have sought to calculate existing and future teleworking developments. Statistics fall into three general areas: measurements of actual penetration (for example, Huws et al. 1990; Korte and Wynne 1996); estimates of the potential for take-up (Nilles et al. 1976); and predictions of future growth (Holti and Stern 1986b). In setting about the task in each of these areas, a variety of definitions, approaches and methods have been used. Certain studies (such as Kraut 1987, 1989; Find/SVP 1995) place the home as a defining attribute, while others include a variety of workplace arrangements. Others place new technology or activities related to the spread of new technology as a central factor (Find/SVP 1995). So far as calculations are concerned, some figures are based on occupational employment data, others on home-based work statistics, whilst some utilise opinion surveys regarding awareness and interest in teleworking.

Nilles et al. (1976), for instance, estimated the number of US information workers in 1978 at 48.3 per cent or 38 million of the total US workforce (78.6 million in 1970) and 55 per cent by the year 2000. This was used to suggest a massive potential for telework. Simarly, Kraut (1987) sees a significant potential for teleworking growth through analysis of data on ‘professional occupations’ (such as para-legal personnel, computer systems analysts and computer programmers). These, he argues, are growing quickly in percentage terms and are likely to be accompanied by a rapid growth in teleworking.

More recently, Miller estimated the total number of homeworkers/teleworkers in the US at 5.5 million (4.5 per cent of the workforce) – including about 876,000 full-time telecommuters – based on the number of part-time teleworkers in the US (Miller 1990). A similar study conducted by Find/SVP a few years later indicated that 9.1 million workers in the US workforce could be considered telecommuters, an increase of almost 100 per cent compared to 1990 (Find/SVP 1995).

In Europe, the potential for telework has also been considered vast. In an early study, Holti and Stern (1986b) reported that whilst the actual amount of teleworkers in Europe was still very small, it was expected to rise dramatically within 10 to 15 years. The European Commission, who are actively promoting and supporting telework developments, even expects as many as 10 million teleworkers in Europe by the year 2000 (see Qvortrup, this volume). An opinion survey, conducted with more mediodological rigour, and based on a sample of more than 16,000 households in the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy and the UK, showed that 13 million workers (14 per cent of the labour force) showed serious interest in home work (Huws et al. 1990).

A recent study by Korte and Wynne (1996) on the penetration of telework in the five largest countries of Europe (Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Spain) concluded that the actual penetration of telework in European organisations is around 5 per cent (1.1 million workers). Extrapolated for the whole of Europe this would mean 1.25 million teleworkers. This study shows that the extent of telework practice varies considerably beween member states: nearly half of European teleworkers live in Britain (560,000), France has 215,000, Germany 149,000, with Southern Europe lagging far behind – Spain has 102,000 and Italy 97,000.

In many cases, though, the rigour of methods used to collect data is variable. As Kraut (1987) acknowledges, approaches based on occupation and employment data are often unreliable, and provide only a rough indication of the ‘outer limits’ of possible developments. Such difficulties are also reflected in figures based on homeworking statistics. The problem is that these accounts may fail to consider a number of important social, economic, legal and political forces that also influence the spread of telework. In addition to this, many studies are often undertaken by (or on behalf of) vendors and funding bodies who seek to promote teleworking or to legitimise the allocation funding. Where the actors involved here have considerable power and profile, they may therefore be in a position to skew the debate in terms favourable to themselves.

A central problem in quantitative studies of telework is the way in which the lack of co...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures
• Tables
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction: Actors, Approaches and Agendas: From Telecommuting to the Virtual Organisation
• Part 1: Making Sense of Teleworking Concepts and Contexts
• Part 2: Understanding and Managing Boundaries In Telework
• Part 3: Integrative Frameworks for Teleworking
• Part 4: Actors, Networks and Experiences: International Cases of Telework