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1 – 10 of 143Zauwiyah Ahmad, Arnifa Asmawi and Siti Zakiah Melatu Samsi
Work-from-home (WFH) arrangement is implemented to enable employees to achieve work–life balance. However, WFH arrangement can be less than ideal. This study developed a WFH…
Abstract
Purpose
Work-from-home (WFH) arrangement is implemented to enable employees to achieve work–life balance. However, WFH arrangement can be less than ideal. This study developed a WFH framework using qualitative data.
Design/methodology/approach
An open-ended survey was conducted and participated by 621 employees. The data were examined using the qualitative content analysis method.
Findings
Work performance and personal well-being have been identified as WFH outcomes, and 12 relevant research propositions have been developed. Constraints to WFH effectiveness include household and organisational factors whilst instrumental and emotional support were identified as the facilitating conditions. Two moderators were also identified: temporal flexibility and commitment orientation.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides a framework that support effective implementation of WFH and similar flexible work arrangements. Managing time, situation, emotions and attitudes are coping strategies used by WFH employees, and the efficacy of these strategies needs further empirical investigation.
Practical implications
Three main factors have been identified as significant in determining WFH effectiveness. Understanding these elements can help managers design solutions to help employees manage work-home boundaries, improving their work performance and well-being.
Originality/value
The Constraints–Coping–Effectiveness WFH framework and research propositions help organisations build WFH guidelines and policies. This study also recognises commitment orientation, which links resources, strategies and outcomes. The inclusion of this variable in future empirical studies could explain the gaps in the current literature.
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Ada Hiu Kan Wong, Joyce Oiwun Cheung and Ziguang Chen
Working-from-home (WFH) practice has been adopted by many companies of a variety of industries in a diverse manner; however, it is not until the recent outbreak of the coronavirus…
Abstract
Purpose
Working-from-home (WFH) practice has been adopted by many companies of a variety of industries in a diverse manner; however, it is not until the recent outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic WFH gains worldwide popularity. With so many different views out there and based on work–family balance theory, this study aims to find out the factors which affect peoples' WFH effectiveness and whether they want the extended WFH practice when the pandemic crisis is over.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adopted an online survey approach by posting questionnaires on the university website and different social media channels to collect views from full-time Hong Kong workers who have had WFH experience during the coronavirus outbreak. A total of 1,976 effective responses were collected for the data analysis.
Findings
The findings of this study indicate that WFH effectiveness is improved by personal and family well-being but reduced by environmental and resource constraints. When workers are experiencing higher WFH effectiveness, they have a higher preference for WFH even after the pandemic; the female workers preferred WFH twice per week, while the male workers more often preferred WFH once per week. Finally, workers from the management and the self-employed levels demonstrated a lower preference for WFH, compared to the front-line and middle-grade workers.
Originality/value
This paper fulfils to provide a timely reflection on workers' post-pandemic WFH preference, the factors affecting their WFH effectiveness and the demographic differences inducing to the differentiated preferences.
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Dao Le Trang Anh, Quang Thi Thieu Nguyen, Christopher Gan, Tung Duy Thai and Tu-Anh Nguyen
This study explores the impacts of COVID-19's strictest lockdown on Vietnamese citizens' living habits, wellbeing and work-from-home effectiveness.
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores the impacts of COVID-19's strictest lockdown on Vietnamese citizens' living habits, wellbeing and work-from-home effectiveness.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a survey questionnaire to gather relevant data from Vietnamese adults during the most recent, strictest lockdown in their cities/provinces since July 2021. The study employs ordinal regression and mediation models to examine the effects of the strict lockdown difficulties on the changes in living habits, wellbeing and work effectiveness of Vietnamese respondents.
Findings
The empirical result demonstrates that the strictest lockdown adversely affected the living habits of Vietnamese citizens, thus impacting people's wellbeing. Work-from-home lockdown difficulties led to unexpected health issues that bring produce lower working effectiveness.
Originality/value
This is the first study to investigate the changes in citizens' living habits, health and working conditions in adherence to Vietnam's strictest COVID-19 lockdown. This is also the first study to examine the impacts of lockdown difficulties on human wellbeing with the mediating effect of changes in living habits, and the influence of work-from-home lockdown difficulties on work effectiveness, with the mediating effect of lower wellbeing based on the literature. Our study suggests solutions to improve Vietnamese people's health and working productivity during and after a strict lockdown.
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Navya Kumar, Swati Alok and Sudatta Banerjee
Even after COVID-19 pandemic, several organizations intend extending work-from-home (WFH), to the extent of making it permanent for many. However, WFH's impact on productivity…
Abstract
Purpose
Even after COVID-19 pandemic, several organizations intend extending work-from-home (WFH), to the extent of making it permanent for many. However, WFH's impact on productivity remains uncertain. Therefore, this paper aims to study personal and job factors determining the likelihood of amount of work done at home being same/more vis-à-vis office.
Design/methodology/approach
Employees' basic psychological needs and job crafting tendencies; job-related aspects of task independence, technology resources and supervisory support; and several demographic factors are examined as determinants. Firth logistic regression analysis of data from 301 Indian white-collar employees is performed.
Findings
Demographically, longer exposure to WFH, greater work experience and being a support function worker increased the likelihood of same/greater amount of work done at home. Being a woman or married reduced the likelihood, while being a manufacturing/services worker was non-significant. Among psychological needs, greater needs for autonomy and relatedness decreased and increased the likelihood of same/greater amount of work done at home, respectively. Regarding personal and job resources, job crafting to increase structural job resources and supervisor support increased the likelihood of same/greater amount of work done at home versus office.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the limited India-centric literature on WFH; uniquely examining influences of individual personal attributes on amount of work done by combining job demands-resources (JD-R) model and basic psychological needs theory.
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Manish Gupta, Priyanko Guchait, Ofra Shoham-Bazel, Naresh Khatri, Vijay Pereira, Shlomo Tarba and Arup Varma
Remya Lathabhavan and Mark D. Griffiths
Working from home (WFH) was one of the major changes that occurred in many organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic. This also led to online training being conducted during this…
Abstract
Purpose
Working from home (WFH) was one of the major changes that occurred in many organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic. This also led to online training being conducted during this WFH period. The present study investigated the role of technology, manager support and peer support on self-efficacy and job outcomes (i.e. training transfer, work engagement and job satisfaction) of employees while WFH.
Design/methodology/approach
The study framework incorporated Bandura's self-efficacy theory. Data were collected from 852 employees in India, and structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.
Findings
The study found positive relationships between ease of technology use, manager support and peer support on self-efficacy and a negative relationship between self-efficacy and technostress. The study also found significant positive relationships between self-efficacy and training transfer, work engagement and job satisfaction. Moreover, the study also identified the moderating effects of WFH and technical issues in the relationships of self-efficacy with training transfer, work engagement and job satisfaction.
Originality/value
The study is novel in that it extended self-efficacy theory regarding the WFH context with influencers such as technology, managers and peers as organizational factors. It also demonstrated the effectiveness of remote working and online training considering the potential antecedents while WFH. Moreover, the study highlighted the simultaneous role of technology and people (managers and peers) in enhancing job outcomes by increasing self-efficacy among employees.
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Vivek Sridhar and Sanjay Bhattacharya
The purpose of this study is to find out the significant factor/s relating to an information technology (IT) employee’s household that determines the job effectiveness of an…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to find out the significant factor/s relating to an information technology (IT) employee’s household that determines the job effectiveness of an employee.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach involves surveying IT employees from across levels of work-experience, companies and cities on household factors that affect their job effectiveness while they work from home and uses discriminant analysis to find out important factor/s that determines if an employee’s job effectiveness remains constant or is better at the workplace that at home.
Findings
The number of elderly staying in the house, age of the eldest member of the household, observable power cuts at home and number of cars owned by individuals were found to be significant factors affecting an IT employees’ job effectiveness.
Originality/value
The study targets a very niche area of the impact of household factors on an IT employee. The findings of this research enable IT organizations from India with insights and enable them to come up with innovative interventions to manage employees on a personalized basis to improve an employees’ job effectiveness and drive organizational effectiveness on a whole, during and post the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Zahra Daneshfar, Aswathy Asokan-Ajitha, Piyush Sharma and Ashish Malik
This paper aims to create a better understanding of the challenges posed by work from home (WFH) during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, to investigate the public sentiment toward…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to create a better understanding of the challenges posed by work from home (WFH) during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, to investigate the public sentiment toward this transition, and to develop a conceptual model incorporating the relationships among the factors that influence the effectiveness of WFH.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses netnography method to collect data from the Twitter platform and uses Python programming language, Natural Language Processing techniques and IBM SPSS 26 to conduct sentiment analysis and directed content analysis on the data. The findings are combined with an extensive review of the remote work literature to develop a conceptual model.
Findings
Results show the majority of tweets about WFH during the pandemic are positive and objective with technology and cyber security as the most repeated topics in the tweets. New challenges to WFH during pandemic include future uncertainty, health concerns, home workspaces, self-isolation, lack of recreational activities and support mechanisms. In addition, exhaustion and technostress mediate the relationship between the antecedents and outcomes of WFH during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the fear of pandemic and coping strategies moderates these relationships.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the first efforts to comprehensively investigate the challenges of WFH during a crisis and to extend the remote work literature by developing a conceptual model incorporating the moderating effects of fear of pandemic and coping strategies. Moreover, it is the first paper to investigate the tweeting behavior of different user types on Twitter who shared posts about WFH during the ongoing pandemic.
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Santanu Mandal, Payel Das, Gayathri V. Menon and R. Amritha
With the emergence of COVID-19 and increased infections, organizations urged their employees to work from home. Furthermore, with the on-going pandemic, employees take measures to…
Abstract
Purpose
With the emergence of COVID-19 and increased infections, organizations urged their employees to work from home. Furthermore, with the on-going pandemic, employees take measures to ensure individual safety and their families. Hence, work from home culture can result in long-term employee satisfaction. However, no study addresses the development of work from the home culture in an integrated framework. Therefore, the current research explores the role of safety during the pandemic, organizational commitment and employee motivation on work from home culture, which may influence employee satisfaction. Furthermore, job demands and home demands were also evaluated for employee satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used existing scales of the factors to develop the measures and collect perceptual responses from employees working from home, supported with a pre-test. The study executed a survey with effective responses from 132 individuals spread across different sectors to validate the hypotheses. The responses were analysed using partial least squares in ADANCO 2.2.
Findings
Findings suggest safety concerns along with organization commitment enhances work from home culture. Such work from home culture enhances employee motivation and employee satisfaction. Furthermore, job demands and home demands also influence employee satisfaction.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors knowledge, the study is the foremost to develop an integrated empirical framework for work from home culture and its antecedents and consequences. The study has several important implications for managers.
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May Mei Ling Wong, Ka Hing Lau and Chad Wing Fung Chan
COVID-19 has changed the way we teach and learn, including service-learning (S-L). This study examines the impacts of the work-from-home (WFH) mode on the work performance and…
Abstract
Purpose
COVID-19 has changed the way we teach and learn, including service-learning (S-L). This study examines the impacts of the work-from-home (WFH) mode on the work performance and learning outcomes of student interns on an eight-week S-L internship programme, and the key factors in terms of its success.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research methodology is adopted by interviewing nine student interns and four supervisors from three community partner organisations (CPOs) to understand their experiences of how the WFH mode has impacted intern work performance and learning outcomes. Thematic analysis is used for the data analysis.
Findings
The interns uncover a number of negative WFH impacts on the S-L internship, including ineffective communication and management practice, low work efficiency and quality, a lack of task variety and learning opportunities and distractions in the home environment. Furthermore, five critical factors for WFH success are also identified, including prior preparation, effective communication systems, personal motivators at work, the nature of the job in relation to it being suited to the WFH mode, and organisational support.
Originality/value
The study examines impacts on student work performance and learning outcomes in an S-L summer internship programme operating under the WFH mode as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Key success factors and practical recommendations have been developed for enhancing the future success of S-L internships operating under the WFH mode.
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