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This study examines whether group-level homogeneity in telecommuting status is associated with performance differences between teleworkers and non-teleworkers at the individual level. The authors further investigate the impact of group-level task interdependence on this relationship.

A group of 225 employees in 41 work groups were surveyed, and employee performance data from the organization was used. A multilevel perspective was used to examine the influence of normative telecommuting on individual performance.

It was found that while performance differences between telecommuters and non-telecommuters in mixed groups favor non-telecommuters, those differences become non-significant as the proportion of telecommuters increases. Results further show that when group task interdependence is low, there are no performance differences between telecommuters and non-telecommuters. When group task interdependence is high, telecommuters perform better as the proportion of telecommuters in the group increases.

Future studies should examine the group norms that are formed in predominantly telecommuting groups that support successful telecommuting outcomes.

Telecommuters perform better in groups with proportionally more telecommuters, even when task interdependence is high.

This study furthers our understanding around how telecommuting can be managed at the group level to maximize performance potential.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine how status-based labels, based on future capabilities, can impact people's risk tolerance in decision making.

In this paper the authors developed and tested theoretical arguments using a set of three studies employing a scenario-based approach and a total of 449 undergraduate business students.

The findings suggest that labeling people in terms of future capabilities can trigger perceptions of public scrutiny and influence their risk preferences. Specifically, the results reveal that individuals who are recipients of high-status labels tend to choose lower risk decision options compared to their peers.

The study employed scenarios to examine the issue of employee labeling. The extent to which these scenarios have truly captured the dynamics of labeling is questionable, and future research should employ a field-based study to examine whether the reported effect can be observed in a “real” work context.

Organizations are concerned about their future leadership capacity and often attempt to grow leadership talent by identifying high-potential employees early on. The results of this study suggest that such practice may have an unintentional negative effect of reducing high-potentials’ tolerance toward risky decision making, thus potentially impacting these future leaders’ decision making in the realm of corporate strategy, R&D, etc.

The issue of how labeling individuals in terms of future capabilities can impact their risk preference has been largely ignored by organizational research. This paper suggests that the popular practice of identifying high-potential employees may have unintentional negative effects by lowering their risk tolerance.