Telecommuting's Past and Future: A Literature Review and Research Agenda <s> Measurements <s> Job satisfaction and productivity were compared for 34 in-house employees and 34 telecommuters performing data-entry and coding. Job satisfaction was measured on the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Ques... <s> BIB001 </s> Telecommuting's Past and Future: A Literature Review and Research Agenda <s> Measurements <s> Various distributed work arrangements have been enabled by advances in information system and communication technologies. To date, these new arrangements have met with varying success, and it is unclear what outcomes society, organizations, and individuals expect from such new work settings. Moreover, we do not understand how aspects of the work environment, tasks, employees, management, and technology might interact to result in different outcomes. This article attempts to provide an integrative view of research on distributed work arrangements and provides a framework for exploring the impacts of these arrangements. <s> BIB002 </s> Telecommuting's Past and Future: A Literature Review and Research Agenda <s> Measurements <s> As information technology becomes more pervasive, the structure of the traditional work environment is changing. A number of alternatives are emerging where work is performed at remote locations. Existing work practices and managerial strategies are often not appropriate in this environment. In particular, traditional office communication with coworkers and management, which is often dependent on physical proximity, is disrupted. In this study, individual satisfaction with office communication in the telecommuting and conventional work environments is compared through a study of telecommuters and a comparison group of non-telecommuters in nine firms. We investigate the influence of certain organizational factors, such as job characteristics, IT support, and coordination methods, on satisfaction with office communication in the two work environments. We find telecommuters report higher satisfaction with office communication. Our findings indicate that task predictability, IT support, and electronic coordination have similar influences for both groups. We discuss implications of these findings for research and practice. <s> BIB003 </s> Telecommuting's Past and Future: A Literature Review and Research Agenda <s> Measurements <s> Today, with the increasing proliferation of telecommuting in firms, information technology managers are confronted with yet another challenge of what telecommuting technologies and services to offer and to whom these technologies and services should be offered. This study intends to identify the telecommuters' patterns of usage of computer and communication technologies based on their background, employment, residential, and occupation characteristics. Based on a sample of 375 responses, this study finds that all of these factors can help to explain the usage of computer and communications technologies. The implications of the findings for researchers and technology managers are discussed. <s> BIB004 </s> Telecommuting's Past and Future: A Literature Review and Research Agenda <s> Measurements <s> Summary Telework has inspired research in disciplines ranging from transportation and urban planning to ethics, law, sociology, and organizational studies. In our review of this literature, we seek answers to three questions: who participates in telework, why they do, and what happens when they do? Who teleworks remains elusive, but research suggests that male professionals and female clerical workers predominate. Notably, work-related factors like managers’ willingness are most predictive of which employees will telework. Employees’ motivations for teleworking are also unclear, as commonly perceived reasons such as commute reduction and family obligations do not appear instrumental. On the firms’ side, managers’ reluctance, forged by concerns about cost and control and bolstered by little perceived need, inhibits the creation of telework programmes. As for outcomes, little clear evidence exists that telework increases job satisfaction and productivity, as it is often asserted to do. We suggest three steps for future research may provide richer insights: consider group and organizational level impacts to understand who telework affects, reconsider why people telework, and emphasize theory-building and links to existing organizational theories. We conclude with lessons learned from the telework literature that may be relevant to research on new work forms and workplaces. Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. <s> BIB005
There are major difficulties in measuring success factors and outcomes. BIB002 explained an example where the measures of outcomes for organizations and workers are contradictory. There is a need to find an agreed upon set of measure of BIB003 ,  and BIB001 admit that there are differences between their "control" group and "treated" group and that is an issue that future research must address. Is it possible to select samples from a homogeneous population to study differences between telecommuters and non-telecommuters? BIB004 state that there is a need for "a large sample, which is beyond the means of standard small-scale academic research." BIB005 referred to the errors in the assumptions used for some of the empirical research. We believe that there is a need for designing a longitudinal study to explore both the positive and negative long-term effects of telecommuting for workers and organizations. The empirical research also needs to consider an integrated set of variables such as job characteristics, family structure, degree of commuting and commuters individualities and skills. We also agree with BIB005 that there is a need for grounded theory building studies.