Gender & teleworking identities: reconstructing the research agenda

This paper seeks to examine from an employee perspective, the promises made on behalf of telework as a new work practice. We are especially concerned with the relationship between gender and telework in relation to home work boundaries, since gender roles in society are largely shaped by home and family. Drawing on management and organisation studies, in the first half of the paper we develop a critique of proposed advantages for women home workers by deconstructing the set of benefits which are said to be delivered by this new socio-technological ensemble. Having once outlined the problems to which teleworking is posed as the solution, an alternative set of issues are generated by recourse to existing literature on women and information technology. In the second part of the paper, we then move to construct an alternative research agenda which is focused to provide a more thorough-going review of concerns faced by employee’s working at home, using information and communication technologies, and at a distance from the host organization. The re-orientation on employee-centred priorities is enhanced by engaging with current writings on the changing nature of work identities in the risk society. In conclusion, we underline the contribution of this paper and the research agenda for IS research and for those agencies engaged in ameliorating employees rights at work.