Moderators of the curvilinear relation between extent of telecommuting and job and life satisfaction: The role of performance outcome orientation and worker type

What are the positive and negative consequences of telecommuting? How do these consequences come about? When are these consequences more or less potent? The authors answer these questions through construction of a theoretical framework and meta-analysis of 46 studies in natural settings involving 12,883 employees. Telecommuting had small but mainly beneficial effects on proximal outcomes, such as perceived autonomy and (lower) work-family conflict. Importantly, telecommuting had no generally detrimental effects on the quality of workplace relationships. Telecommuting also had beneficial effects on more distal outcomes, such as job satisfaction, performance, turnover intent, and role stress. These beneficial consequences appeared to be at least partially mediated by perceived autonomy. Also, high-intensity telecommuting (more than 2.5 days a week) accentuated telecommuting's beneficial effects on work-family conflict but harmed relationships with coworkers. Results provide building blocks for a more complete theoretical and practical treatment of telecommuting. (c) 2007 APA

Questionnaires were developed to assess the concept of workaholism, defined in terms of high scores on measures of work involvement and driveness and low scores on a measure of enjoyment of work, and to contrast this profile with work enthusiasm, defined as high work involvement and enjoyment and low driveness. Additional scales were devised to test several predictions about the correlates of workaholism. A test battery including these scales was given in a mail survey to a national sample of male (n = 134) and female (n = 157) social workers with academic positions. The psychometric properties of the scales are described. Cluster analyses for each sex revealed groups who corresponded to the workaholic and work enthusiast profiles as well as several other profiles. As predicted, workaholics were higher than work enthusiasts (among other groups) on measures of perfectionism, nondelegation of responsibility, and job stress. They were also higher on a measure of health complaints. Investigations are being initiated to determine the association of workaholism and other score profiles with objectively diagnosed cardiac disorders and with measures of occupational performance.