Controlling Telework: An Exploratory Investigation of Portfolios of Control Applied to Remote Knowledge Workers

Enabled by the development of information technologies, telecommuting and telework have been incorporated into organizations for around 30 years. However, there still exists resistance to this work arrangement, particularly from middle-level managers. Formal knowledge about how to manage telework is needed to keep the managers better informed. I conducted a qualitative exploratory study to investigate how managers exercise controls in the telework environment and examined the role of the use o f information technologies in organizational controls in this work environment. Based on interview data with people from two work groups that participate in telework program, I found that the managers exercise a portfolio of controls that consist all four documented control forms (outcome, behavior, clan and self control), and controlling the employees' adoption and use of information technologies is a new form of behavior control in the telework environment.