Hugo Kamps

Current occupation: n.a.
Thesis title: How to manage the invisible employee - The effects of Control on Trust and Motivation in Telework.

Since the turn of the century, telework has seen a rapid growth in popularity as Internet and mobile technology enabled employees to engage in new work forms that fit with their 21st century life style. Telework is a relatively new work form in which employees can work in a flexible time and place independent way that is supported by the latest technology (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007). Telework can be a response to employees’ needs like improving work/life balance, reducing work-related stress, and having a comfortable environment (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007; Kurland & Bailey, 1999). Secondly, telework can be a solution for environmental pressures that demand companies to look at ‘green’ solutions that reduce pollution, for example by reducing home-work traffic and digitalisation of work (Baruch, 2000). Lastly, also economic pressures like the need to decrease costs of real-estate, overhead savings, and reduction of absenteeism can be reasons for telework (Baruch, 2000). However, one of the most important benefits of new work forms remains to be the actual performance or productivity of the employees (Baruch, 2001; Kurland & Bailey, 1999; Erasmus@Work, 2011). The dependent variable used in this study is therefore knowledge worker productivity (KWP).

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