Antecedents of telecommuting in emerging countries: The role of knowledge complexity

Abstract

This research investigated the role of knowledge complexity and the individual, organisational, and technological determinants in telecommuting in an emerging economy. A sample of 452 Brazilian workers was surveyed, and PLS‐SEM was used for analysing the data. The results suggest that knowledge complexity matters, and its joint effect together with task interdependence has a negative impact on telecommuting performance. It was also found that technology‐based communication skills are more important for enhancing both telecommuting performance and satisfaction than the technology itself. Furthermore, it was found that telecommuting outcomes may be affected by demographic variables and the national culture. Identification of the antecedents of telecommuting in emerging countries helps managers to adapt their business models and work arrangements to achieve firm sustainability and respond to a complex socio‐economic landscape generated by the coronavirus crisis.

“No Need to Dress to Impress” Evidence on Teleworking during and after the Pandemic: A Systematic Review

“…According to the author (Ha 2022), female, young, highly qualified, and high-paid individuals are more likely to work remotely. Other authors have also studied gender (Custodia de Oliveira 2023; Dávila et al 2022;Kumar et al 2023;Pigini and Staffolani 2019;Raišien ė et al 2022;Zhang et al 2020), level of education (Pigini and Staffolani 2019), and marital status (Dávila et al 2022;Magnier-Watanabe et al 2022;Raišien ė et al 2022;Zhang et al 2020) as antecedents. Regarding occupation/job function, (Ha 2022), found that large companies tend to offer more opportunities for remote work, especially in the ICT, finance, and education sectors.…”

“…There are antecedents associated with the characteristics of teleworking in emerging countries, such as Brazil, which affect its implementation and results (Dávila et al 2022). These authors highlight the intense nature of teleworking, that is, the number of hours working outside the conventional location (Dávila et al 2022;Golden and Gajendran 2019;Labrado Antolín et al 2022;Lazauskaite-Zabielske et al 2022;Park and Jae 2022). The feeling of greater social isolation (Mosquera et al 2022;Sahai et al 2022) and work overload (Mosquera et al 2022) are also considered antecedents that can affect the implementation of teleworking.…”

“…Some authors included in this review explore these aspects to understand how they can influence the teleworking experience. One of the factors often discussed is the family structure, namely the presence of dependents, both children (Chung and Van der Horst 2018;Dávila et al 2022;Laß and Wooden 2023;Pigini and Staffolani 2019;Raišien ė et al 2022;Rieth and Hagemann 2021;Tahlyan et al 2022;Zhang et al 2020) and the elderly, who need care (Kumar et al 2022). One such article highlights teleworkers who live with their parents as having the most positive evaluations of teleworking (Raišien ė et al 2022).…”

“…The availability of technological devices (Mayer and Boston 2022;Park and Jae 2022), accessibility to ICT (Kumar et al 2022;Park and Jae 2022;Vilhelmson and Thulin 2016), including digital literacy (Dávila et al 2022;Dias et al 2022), communication via ICT (Park and Jae 2022), and the use of the computer system and its quality (Kuruzovich et al 2021) are fundamental antecedents of the successful adoption and implementation of teleworking.…”

“…Identifying the antecedents of teleworking helps managers adapt their business models and work structure to achieve company sustainability (Dávila et al 2022).…”