Managerial telework allowance decisions - a vignette study among German managers

Autor(en)
Barbara Beham, Andreas Baierl, Steven Poelmans
Abstrakt

Managers play an important role in the implementation of telework in organizations since they frequently have final approval over employees' requests for telework arrangements. Drawing upon March's (1994) dual-logic theory of decision making, the study examines antecedents of managers' responses to employees' requests for telework. Using a vignette study with a balanced experimental design, we investigated the impact of person-related, task-related and organizational context factors on managerial telework allowance decisions in German organizations. Several person- and task-related factors were found to be significantly related to managers' telework allowance decisions. Organizational context factors, such as a family-supportive organizational culture and formal policies were found to either directly or indirectly influence managers' responses to employees' requests for telework. More specifically, formal telework policies were important in stimulating favorable managerial telework allowance decisions when applicant criticality was low and the organizational culture was family-unsupportive. In line with March's (1994) theory of decision making, the study shows that utility maximization is only one perspective of decision making which managers apply to telework allowance decisions. Rule following and considerations of appropriateness are also taken into account by managers when deciding upon employees' telework requests.

Organisation(en)
Projekt: Familienforschung in Österreich, Institut für Statistik und Operations Research, Department für Ernährungswissenschaften
Externe Organisation(en)
Technische Universität Berlin, EADA Business School
Journal
International Journal of Human Resource Management
Band
26
Seiten
1385-1406
ISSN
0958-5192
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2014.934894
Publikationsdatum
07-2014
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
504002 Arbeitssoziologie
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Strategy and Management, Management of Technology and Innovation
Link zum Portal
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/managerial-telework-allowance-decisions--a-vignette-study-among-german-managers(03f5cbac-8d5e-401c-9fc4-4ae838f1b0dc).html