The subject of this paper is work performed in the home with computer and communications technology, also known as telecommuting . The article reports on two studies of work at home: a quasi-experimental field study of organizational telecommuting pilot programs, and an attitude survey comparing computer professionals who work at home to employees doing similar jobs in traditional office settings. The results of the field study demonstrated that working in the home had little impact on employee performance; however, supervisors were not comfortable with remote workers and preferred their employees to be on site. In the survey, work in the home was related to lower job satisfaction, lower organizational commitment, and higher role conflict. The survey also included computer professionals who worked at home in addition to the regular work day. The author suggests that performing additional unpaid work in the home after regular work hours may be an important trend that merits further investigation. The studies demonstrate that while computer and communications technology have the potential to relax constraints on information work in terms of space and time, in today's traditional work environments, corporate culture and management style limit acceptance of telecommuting as a substitute for office work.

Information Systems Working Papers Series

Article Free Access Share on Using a computer-based tool to support collaboration: a field experiment Authors: Bonnie Johnson Corporate Technology Planning - Aetna Life & Casualty Corporation Corporate Technology Planning - Aetna Life & Casualty CorporationView Profile , Geraldine Weaver Corporate Technology Planning - Aetna Life & Casualty Corporation Corporate Technology Planning - Aetna Life & Casualty CorporationView Profile , Margrethe H. Olson New York University New York UniversityView Profile , Robert Dunham MCC Conference on Computer Support for Cooperative Work, Austin, Texas MCC Conference on Computer Support for Cooperative Work, Austin, TexasView Profile , Grady McGonagill MCC Conference on Computer Support for Cooperative Work, Austin, Texas MCC Conference on Computer Support for Cooperative Work, Austin, TexasView Profile Authors Info & Claims CSCW '86: Proceedings of the 1986 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative workDecember 1986Pages 343–352https://doi.org/10.1145/637069.637114Published:03 December 1986Publication History 11citation482DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations11Total Downloads482Last 12 Months42Last 6 weeks4 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF