Telecommuting's past and future: a literature review and research agenda

Abstract

PurposeTelecommuting continues to be a topic of interest for practitioners and researchers alike. There are significant numbers of employees currently involved in telecommuting around the globe. Organizational implications, global workforce implications and the scarcity of scholarly publications make this research topic one that warrants our further investigation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the literature to identify the substantive work, examine the state of this phenomenon as of to date, particularly the failure and success factors, provide valuable insight to the practitioners and research directions to researchersDesign/methodology/approachAn extensive literature review was conducted in an effort to identify the significant, substantive work to date. We reviewed two major business data bases and limit our review to refereed journals because of the rigorous review process that these articles go through before publication.FindingsA schema was identified to help categorize topics found in the literature. A framework model is proposed to further explore the relationships between the motivating factors for telecommuting and the resulting outcomes from telecommuting programs.Practical implicationsThe literature review and the model should be useful information for both practitioners and researchers in a variety of disciplines including management, communication, and information technology.Originality/valueFew published papers have attempted to thoroughly review the telecommuting literature. Many of the articles concentrate solely on the individuals who telework. This review, looks at many facets of the telecommuting phenomenon like the workers, their managers, the organization as well as the technological and environmental issues.