Peter Kromhout

Current position: n.a.
Thesis title: The effect of media usage, trust and relationships on performance of teleworkers.

More than half of the organizations in the Netherlands offer their employees possibilities to telework, this is even more than 90% for large organizations with more than 500 employees. Telework is "a form of organizing and/or performing work, using information technology, in the context of an employment contract/relationship, where work, which could also be performed at the employer's premises, is carried out away from those premises on a regular basis." (EFILWC, 2010). For a firm, the adaption of teleworking programs can have several implications, it means introducing teleworking, changing the traditional offices into meeting places and adapting ICT's that support this new way of working. Telework affects mainly professional and managerial workers whose jobs may be classified as knowledge work (Taskin & Bridoux, 2010), i.e. work that is requiring the interpretation, communication and manipulation of data related to a variety of contexts (Daniels et al. 2001).

The benefits and drawbacks of teleworking in regard to numerous outcomes have been researched over the years, resulting in contradicting outcomes. Possible benefits related to teleworking are found in e.g. enhanced productivity, job satisfaction, improved performance (Bélanger et al. 2001), greater flexibility for employees (Egan, 1997) and a more healthy work/life balance for employees (Shamir & Salomon, 1985). But other research has shown that extensive levels of teleworking may result in lower satisfaction, and that other possible drawbacks are related to professional and social isolation (Cooper & Kurland, 2002), which can be assigned to a decrease in face-to-face social interactions and strained relationships with co-workers and managers (Golden & Viega, 2005).

These developments in the field of telework and the ambiguities about the results have been the inspiration for this thesis. The outcome of any telework initiative must benefit both the the organization and the individual, therefore not only the performance dimensions productivity and innovativeness are analyzed but also the individual flexibility is studied. Introducing telework succesfully has proven to be dependent on issues such as trust and relation (Eaton, 2003, Golden and Viega, 2005). therefore the direct effect of these two factors in the performance dimensions is studied. It is obvious that communication patterns change when individuals start teleworking, to assess how this changes and what its effect on the performance dimensions is the theory on media richness is used and adapted. Furthermore, as knowledge work is a characteristic of telework, the role of knowledge sharing in such a context is also analyzed. Finally, teleworking frequency is used to study the changes in all these dimensions when teleworking frequencies change.

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