Making telework work: leading people and leveraging technology for competitive advantage
| Date | 23 February 2010 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14754391011022244 |
| Pages | 32-37 |
| Published date | 23 February 2010 |
| Author | Evan H. Offstein,Jason M. Morwick,Larry Koskinen |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Making telework work: leading people and
leveraging technology for competitive
advantage
Evan H. Offstein, Jason M. Morwick and Larry Koskinen
Abstract
Purpose – Teleworking is often indicated as a flexible working arrangement. This paper seeks to
highlight that flexibility is just one positive characteristic of telework and to demonstrate both the
strategic and practical implications of adopting telework. In addition, it aims to highlight best practices
and specific activities that enable telework to achieve its full potential.
Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on a series of interviews, personal experiences and
observations encompassing a wide range of organizations to include profit and non-profit/government
across a variety of industry sectors that include retail, high technology, manufacturing and hospitality
and service, the paper provides an overview on how to make telework work effectively and smoothly
within profit and non-profit organizations. Moreover,it confronts the leadership literature to examine how
leadership – not technology – is the critical variable in telework success.
Findings – In the most successful cases of telework, organizations and individuals were seen to fuse
technology and leadership to do work without the limitations of geography, time or physicalpresence.
Thus, while many may embrace telecommuting or telework almost exclusively for its flexibility benefits,
the most successful organizations and individuals welcomed telework, first and foremost, as a sourceof
competitive advantage.
Originality/value – The paper departs from traditional management thought on two fronts. First, it is
contended that the essence behind successful telework arrangements is more of a function of
leadership than of technology. Second, and related to the previous point, the paper suggests that a
creative, innovative and progressiveleadership mentality is necessary in the design and implementation
of telework programmes. As a result, many managers must be willing to depart from long-held and
conventional notions of leadership.
Keywords Teleworking, Leadership, Communication technologies, Environmentalmanagement,
Energy conservation
Paper type Research paper
For the better part of the last three decades, technology has made consistent, but
uneven, progress into organizati onal life to include work design and jobs.
Technology’s influence on how work actually gets done has moved beyond
telecommuting to what is now often referred to as teleworking. By its very name,
telecommuting puts an emphasis on eliminating the ‘‘commute’’ part of the job. Associated
with the telecommuting mindset is an overriding emphasis on the employee, in general, and
employee flexibility, in particular. For this reason, scholars and practitioners question the
efficacy of this perspective and the ultimate value it delivers to both the employee and
organization (Fenson and Hill, 2003; Offstein and Morwick, 2009). In this paper, we set out to
make the case for telework, as opposed to telecommuting, as a driver of organizational
competitiveness and of flexibility to employee and team.
The notion of telework is more of a theoretical framework of ideas as opposed to a singular
concept. Teleworkis an approach to applying technology in both strategic and tactical ways
to benefit organizations, teams and individuals (Fenson and Hill, 2003; Offstein and
Morwick, 2009). As such, this convergence of technology, accessibility of information and
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STRATEGIC HR REVIEW
j
VOL. 9 NO. 2 2010, pp. 32-37, QEmerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1475-4398 DOI 10.1108/14754391011022244
Evan H. Offstein is Assistant
Professor of Business
Management at Frostburg
State University, Frostburg,
Maryland, USA. Jason M.
Morwick is Program
Manager at CISCO
Systems, Ocoee, Florida,
USA. Larry Koskinen is
Associate Inspector-
General for Mission
Support, Treasury
Inspector-General for US
Tax Admin., Washington
DC, USA.
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