‘Reframing’, a managerial tool for understanding organizational complexity (Bolman & Deal,
1997), is applied to Australian households that possess a large amount of information and communication
technology (ICT). Applying reframing to interviews conducted in households indicates
that major changes, including some contradictory changes, are occurring as a result of
adopting ICT and home-based working. Viewed through the structural frame, boundaries between
work and home are blurring, while simultaneously attempts are being made to reinforce the
separation of these activities. The human resource frame indicates ICT is improving communication,
convenience and recreation, but hampering relationships and increasing interference and
distractions. Looked at through the political frame, power shifts and new ICT-related conflicts
occur, but members are also empowered by having their own ICTs to achieve individual goals.
Finally, symbolism arises from the very presence of ICT and work activities in the home,
enabling the emergence of dual identities, ‘household’ and ‘workplace’. The findings are discussed
in the context of contradictory organizational consequences of ICT reported in other
situations. In relation to remote working, it is suggested that the household is a vital third element,
in addition to the employer and employee, and that reframing can be used by those considering
home-based working, to help them understand the likely impacts on their household and to
facilitate the transition to home-based working.
Rapid increases in information and communication technology (ICT), dramatic
falls in communication costs, and a shift to work involving information, ideas, and
intelligence mean that the location and time of work are less relevant than ever before
(Cairncross, 1997; Davenport & Pearlson, 1998; Wilde, 2000). For some workers, the
office no longer means a permanent desk, chair, phone, or piles of physical files. At
least one day per week, their office may instead be in their home or car, at a client’s
premises or telecenter, or in their briefcases — in the form of their mobile phone,
computer with modem, and organizer.
This ‘anytime, anyplace’ work-world is underpinned by ICT that allows people
to work remotely. In this paper, the general term ‘remote working’ is adopted, but
researchers elsewhere may use ‘teleworking’ (UK) or ‘telecommuting’ (US) to refer
to a range of working arrangements outside the traditional workplace (Davenport &
Pearlson, 1998). Kurland and Bailey (1999) distinguish four broad categories of
remote working arrangements: home-based working, satellite offices, neighborhood
work centers, and mobile working where people have no fixed work location.
Our focus is on home-based working, which itself can encompass a variety of
different arrangements. It can involve carrying out work that is either central to or
supplemental to the person’s normal work. Arrangements can be formally or informally
made with the employer, and cover either full-time or occasional work at
home. In addition, home-based work need not involve an employer–employee
relationship at all, but instead may involve people who are self-employed or
operating a small business using their homes as their principal workplace.
Current estimates for the number of remote workers in the US vary between 3
and 11 million (3–8 percent of the workforce), depending on the definition of remote
working (Scott & Timmeran, 1999). European estimates of ‘home-based teleworking’
range from 1 percent in Spain and France to 6 percent of the workforce in
Sweden and Finland, according to a 1999 survey (European Telework Online, 2000).
Nilles (2000) predicts that nearly 30 million US workers will work remotely by 2003.
For employers, encouragement of remote working appears to be driven by a variety
of considerations, from enhancing employee productivity and saving rental and other
costs, to attracting and retaining valuable staff (Apgar, 1998; Behr, 1999; Bond,
Galinski, & Swanberg, 1998; International Telework Association and Council, 1999;
Kurland & Bailey, 1999). Different motivations underlie individuals’ choosing to
work remotely, particularly at home. These include the need for extended periods
of concentration and avoiding the interruptions found to prevent workers from being
productive in the office (Perlow, 1999), the convenience of not having to go to an
external workplace (Avery & Baker, 2000), and as a possible way to redress a perceived
deteriorating work-family balance.
Since ICT enables home-based working to occur, studying infomated households
provides a useful starting point for understanding the impacts of ICT-mediated homebased
working on the household, a frequently overlooked perspective. Reframing is
an appropriate tool for highlighting the complex social and organizational changes
occurring in the infomated household-workplace. We believe that reframing has
enhanced our understanding of how infomated households struggle with work and
technology issues. Specific concepts such as the virtual household have emerged as
a result of applying the frames. A range of contradictions has been identified to
guide future research. The hope is that not only will this analysis stimulate future
research, but that it may benefit practitioners. Employers and home-based workers
alike can be made more aware of the complexities and potential contradictions likely
to arise in home-based working as a result of this study.
