Abstracts Category : Other

Explaining the intention of IT workers to telework: A South African perspective

by Joseph Morrison

The concept of teleworking has been around for more than 40 years. Telework is commonly defined as the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) by employees to perform their day-to-day activities while being away from the traditional office. Telework or telecommuting, as it is also known, has received a lot of attention from researchers and organisations over the years due to its many reported benefits. Literature on telework is extensive, covering a wide range of topics including the demographics of teleworkers, different societal, organisational and individual perspectives on telework as well as the role of technology in telework. Despite all of this attention, telework adoption rates have remained low over the years. In South Africa, telework adoption is particularly low when compared to the rest of the world. The majority of past telework research has been focused on the organisational aspects of telework and adoption factors from the worker's perspective are not well understood. Furthermore, the literature reflects that the Information Technology (IT) profession could benefit from remote work practices due to high levels of stress amongst IT workers. This study therefore attempted to answer the question, "What factors influence South African IT workers' intention to telework?". Using an existing research model based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), an explanatory research approach was followed with the objective of determining the influence of the TPB elements namely attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control on IT workers' intention to adopt telework. The model was tested by means of an online survey, for which a total of 120 valid responses were received. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods were used to analyse the data collected. The sample size was fairly small and the geographical location of survey respondents could not be reliably established. These factors impact on the generalisability of the findings, which is a limitation of the study. Analysis of the data revealed a number of interesting findings. IT workers' attitudes towards telework were found to have little bearing on their intention to adopt this style of work. Similarly, the influence of significant others (subjective norms) did not significantly influence IT workers' intention to telework. Instead, a key determining factor of the intention to telework was the perceived behavioural control of IT workers which was, in turn, determined mainly by the availability and cost of the technology that enables telework, the level of support for teleworking provided by employers and the level of self-efficacy experienced by these workers. These findings are in contrast to the results of prior research, supporting the idea that initial adoption and telework continuance behaviours are different. The results also suggest that the South African context of this study is potentially significant and that the cost of bandwidth is still a major inhibitor of telework amongst local IT workers. The implications ofAdvisors/Committee Members: Chigona, Wallace.