Transportation planners have traditionally focused on physical travel only, and disregarded the fact that other modes of communication may influence travel demand. However, modern telecommunications are rapidly increasing the accessibility to activities that previously only could be reached by physical transportation. This development calls for methods to analyse interactions between telecommunications and transport systems. The objective of this thesis is to accomplish a better understanding of if and how impacts of information technology could be implemented in travel demand models. An important part of this issue is to investigate what kind of data that is needed. This thesis also aims at investigating whether the Communication Survey, KOM, collected by Swedish Institute for Transport and Communications, SIKA, can be used to improve transport modelling with respect to how modern telecommunications influence travel demand. KOM is a one-day travel and communication diary survey, including information on the respondents telecommuting habits as well as socio-economic status. One problem was the small sample size in KOM, which made the analyses uncertain. Since KOM is collected on a yearly basis, it is still possible to apply similar analysis methods within a few years, using a larger data set, which might enable extended analyses. The small sample in KOM available to date is best suited for general descriptive analyses of communication patterns in Sweden. The main conclusions of the paper are therefore connected to the methods and future data collection. The thesis includes three papers. The first paper tested a model approach that assumes substitution between travel and non-travel based communication, using the KOM database. Travel demand models are in general constructed as nested logit models with frequency, mode and destination choice levels. In the paper, non-travel based modes of communication were included in the choice set of such a model. The non-travel based modes of communication considered were Internet (and e-mail), ordinary mail and telephone contacts. The second and third papers investigate telecommuting. As a first step to reach the goal of forecasting telecommuting, the second paper examined the characteristics of current telecommuters by use of KOM. This was mainly accomplished by estimating a telecommuting adoption model of logit type. However, only 122 employees out of 7578 actually telecommutes full days at home. These telecommuters work primarily in information- and service-based industrial sectors concerned with computers, finance or communication. The difficulties in describing the utility of the telecommunications based alternatives (representing ”no travel”) concerned also the telecommuting adoption model. The third paper used data collected from a working site within the company Ericsson, located in the office district of Nacka Strand in Stockholm during the autumn 2002. The telecommuting frequency was substantially higher at Ericsson than in the workforce as a whole. The propensity to adopt telecommuting was modelled as a function of socio-economic variables and access to technical equipment, work task suitability and management attitudes, as perceived by the employees. The focus was to identify tools that the company can use to promote telecommuting, and to find incentives for the company to promote telecommuting. Technical equipment, suitable work tasks and managers attitude were identified as constraints for telecommuting. / <p>NR 20140805</p>

Tidigare forskning framställer ofta distansarbete som en produktivare metod än att arbeta på arbetsplatsen. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka åsikter om distansarbete hemifrån samt hur de individer som arbetar som tjänstemän upplever att deras produktivitet och effektivitet påverkas i samband med detta. Undersökningen syftar också till att utveckla kunskaper om effekterna av distansarbete, vilka faktorer som är viktiga samt hur produktivitet och effektivitet påverkas av dessa. Studien ska slutligen generera vägledning för hur arbetsmetoden kan användas på bästa sätt. Distansarbete är ett arbetssätt som under senare tid anpassats och utvecklats i takt med datorteknologin och blivit ett mer aktuellt arbetssätt för organisationer och tjänstemän. Empiriska data samlades in genom tolv semistrukturerade intervjuer med respondenter ifrån fyra olika organisationer. Intervjuerna utfördes enligt en intervjuguide som formats utifrån en framtagen teoretisk referensram. Studien genererar kunskaper om faktorer och effekter kring distansarbete hemifrån utifrån åsikter och upplevelser. Vad som återkommer frekvent både i tidigare forskning och i empiriska data kring distansarbetets faktorer och effekter är att social isolering är ett stort problem, men att störningsmoment kan minimeras och generera bättre resultat genom att en högre koncentrationsnivå kan uppnås. Arbetsuppgiftens karaktär bestämmer om distansarbete är fördelaktigt eller inte, varför en kombination lyfts som den bästa metoden. Det är dock viktigt att individen är lämpad för att utföra distansarbete hemifrån och att inte arbetstiden som spenderas på distans är för omfattande om önskad produktivitet och effektivitet ska uppnås. / Previous research presents teleworking as a more productive method than working in the workplace. The purpose of this study is to investigate opinions about teleworking at home as well as how the individuals working as office workers feel about how their productivity and effectiveness are affected. The study also aims to develop knowledge about the effects of telework, which the important factors are, and how productivity and effectiveness are affected by these. This should generate guidance on how to best use the working method. Telework is a working method that has been adapted and developed in line with the computer technology and has become a more current way of working for organizations and office workers. Empirical data was collected through twelve semi-structured interviews with respondents from four different organizations. The interviews were conducted according to an interview guide formed based on a developed theoretical reference frame. The study generates knowledge about the factors and effects of teleworking from home through opinions and experiences. What is recurring frequently in both previous research and the empirical data regarding the factors and effects of teleworking is that social isolation is a major problem, but disruptive moments can be minimized and generate better results by achieving higher concentration. The task decides if teleworking is advantageous or not, that is why a combination of both teleworking and working in the workplace highlights as the best combination. However, the individual must be suitable for doing the telework from home and the working time spent at distance can not be too extensive if the desired productivity and effectiveness should be achieved.

More public and private organisations offer working from home as an alternative way of working for their employees. Working from home (WFH) has both benefits and drawbacks for the employees when it is compared to the office working. While some of the researchers, such as Shafizadeh et al. (2000) claim that working from home increases the productivity of the employees, other researchers, such as Monteiro et al. (2019) claim the opposite. This study analysed five research articles published in year 2000 and five research articles published in years 2019 and 2020 to discover the factors having an influence on the productivity of the employees who work from home, whether the influence of these factors have on the productivity is positive or negative and whether the factors have changed from year 2000 to the recent years (2019 and 2020). The study results indicate that working from home has an influence on productivity of the employees. While influences of some of the factors are either positive or negative, the influence of some of the factors depend on the characteristics and attitude of the employees and the circumstances.

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Continuous information technology development changed traditional ways of management and business operations. Nowadays there is a high demand for new innovative business solutions and the ways of managing people that enables to fully elicit their potential. Physical boundaries are removed; work is becoming incredibly dispersed around the world enabling growth of 24/7 customer service, home banking, online shopping and other services that were seemed incredible just a few years ago. In this fast paced environment the companies are seeking for any possibility to increase their competitiveness. Implementing flexible working is considered by most of organizations as a tool to adapt to never-ending changes. This paper aims to test the hypothesis that flexible working increases organizational productivity from the perspective of the property as well as from the perspective of employees. In current work organizational productivity from the perspective of property is analyzed from economic standpoint when flexible working decreases operational and real estate costs per employee, thus, allowing saving and investing in other business areas that would increases profitability of the company. Productivity from staff perspective is measured by employee's satisfaction of his working environment, work-life balance, and increased efficiency through team collaboration, flexible hours and telecommuting. Methodology used is case study and literature review. Case study was performed on-site in Alcatel-Lucent in Singapore. It is limited to six months from planned full year of 3 implementation project. Set of interviews with company managers was conducted to support the case results. The thesis suggests the hypothesis, according to the literature review and overview of some cases in different countries, that flexibility in property as well as in working mode increases productivity both in terms of real estate costs savings and in terms of employee’s increased productivity due to better team collaboration in open space, flexible working hours, ability to choose preferred location for work, telecommuting that creates a positive work-life balance. The case study performed for this paper in Alcatel-Lucent Singapore shows that the aforementioned benefits are not there yet due to the project timeline but are highly anticipated by local and global management. Nevertheless, thorough assessment of business requirements and the needs of employees should be undertaken before deciding on flexible working. It is extremely crucial to secure efficient and open internal communication and employees’ involvement in all stages of the project in order to achieve fast acceptance and adaptation to new environment. Based on the current example, future research suggests investigating in cultural aspect of global strategy deployment by corporate decision in different countries.

Date: 2021-06-03 Level: Bachelor thesis in Business Administration, 15cr Institution: School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University Authors:    Nabil Abdullah   Linnéa Rossander    Damilola Samuel                     (98/09/02)          (98/08/14)           (98/01/10) Title: Telecommuting and Motivation during the pandemic Tutor: Ali FarashahKeywords: Telecommuting, motivation, COVID-19, Self-Determination Theory, work-life balance. Research questions: 1. To what extent has the rapid increase in telecommuting due to the COVID-19 pandemic affected the motivation of employees and managers? 2. What aspects affect employee motivation in a telecommuting environment? Purpose: The research aims to understand how motivation amongst employees and managers has been affected while telecommuting, compared to when they previously worked at the office before the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.' Method: The research has a deductive approach, building on existing theories and studies as a premise for secondary data. The authors utilize primary data through a quantitative survey, collected from employees and managers across several industries. Conclusion: The study found that the overall motivation in the telecommuting context was equally neutral and positively affected. Competence was the predominant predictor variable for employee motivation.

Working remotely away from the traditional office is a continuously growing trend. Due to advancements in technology, workers can conduct their work remotely through the use of electronic technologies. While there are benefits for both the companies and workers due to this change in working arrangements, some negative effects have also occurred. Previous studies on remote working have found positive effects such as increased productivity or higher levels of job satisfaction. Whereas, other studies have found negative aspects such as overworking, hard time to switch off after work and social isolation. Previous research has focused on examining telecommuters (employees who work from home part-time). Hence there is a research gap for studying employees who work solely from home. Also, most of the previous studies have focused on samples where all the respondents have the same profession/work-role, rather than contrasting between different ones. Moreover, previous studies stress the need for further investigation on the impact that remote work has on well-being. Since previous research is mostly quantitative, there is a need for more in-depth understanding of the effects of remote working. Given the identified research gaps, our purpose in this thesis is to compare remote workers to workplace bound workers in terms of productivity and well-being. In order to help fill the research gaps and reach the purpose of this study we formulated the research question: How do remote workers and workplace bound workers compare in terms of productivity and well-being? In order to answer the research question and achieve the purpose of this thesis, we conducted a qualitative study. The data was gathered through six semi-structured interviews with workers who have previously worked in the traditional office and are currently working solely remotely in the same job position. Mainly, our research found that the remote and office setting were quite balanced in terms of well-being and productivity in our sample. However, the remote setting proved to have more challenges related to it than the office setting in our case, such as higher levels of work intensification, social isolation and management style. No significant difference was identified in terms of how work-role affects remote work in terms of productivity and well-being, however, the personal characteristics of the respondents seemed to play a part in the results. Our study contributes to the growing literature on remote working by offering insights on both the challenges and positive aspects of working solely remotely from home within different work-roles and organizations. Moreover, we offer some managerial implications on how to mitigate the challenges connected to remote working. Lastly, we offer some recommendations for future research in the context of remote working.

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by Chou Hsin Yi, Samtani Lavina Santu. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-90). / ABSTRACT --- p.iii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.v / Chapter CHAPTER I --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / The Concept of Telecommuting --- p.1 / """Telecommuting"" and ""Teleworking""" --- p.1 / "Definition of "" Telecommuting “" --- p.3 / Driving Forces --- p.4 / Who is a Telecommuter? --- p.6 / Telecommuting in the Context of Hong Kong --- p.8 / Methodology --- p.10 / Chapter CHAPTER II --- TELECOMMUTING AS A PRACTICE --- p.13 / Pervasive in Traditional and IT-Related Industries --- p.13 / Successful Examples --- p.13 / Nationwide Figures --- p.14 / Actors and Driving Forces --- p.16 / Individual Perspective --- p.16 / Organizational Perspective --- p.19 / Societal Perspective --- p.21 / Not as Pervasive --- p.21 / Chapter CHAPTER III --- MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS & LOCAL TELECOMS --- p.23 / Background --- p.23 / The Two Voices: Managers and Employees --- p.23 / The Managers' Perspective --- p.24 / The Employees' Perspective --- p.30 / The Other Two Voices： Men and Women --- p.35 / Synopsis --- p.38 / Chapter CHAPTER IV --- INTERNET STARTUPS --- p.40 / Background --- p.40 / The Two Voices: Managers and Employees --- p.41 / The Managers' Perspective --- p.41 / The Employees' Perspective --- p.41 / The Other Two Voices: Men and Women --- p.47 / Synposis --- p.52 / Chapter CHAPTER V --- SELF-EMPLOYED ENTREPRENEURS --- p.54 / A Commercial Software Consultant --- p.55 / Technical Director at InstruX.com.hk --- p.55 / Synopsis --- p.58 / Chapter CHAPTER VI --- DISCUSSION --- p.60 / Type of Organisation --- p.62 / The Notion of Teamwork --- p.62 / Relationship Between Managers and Employees --- p.63 / Job-Related Perceptions --- p.66 / Gender-Related Perceptions --- p.65 / The Connection Between Work and Non-Work Domains --- p.67 / The Role of Technology --- p.69 / The Role of Relationships --- p.70 / Concluding Remarks --- p.71 / Food For Thought --- p.75 / APPENDIX --- p.76 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.81