The good, the bad, and the unknown about telecommuting: Meta-analysis of psychological mediators and individual consequences.
verifiedrich profile · Journal of Applied Psychology · 2007
Gajendran, Ravi S.; Harrison, David A.
How this was studied
A meta-analytic synthesis — it pools many primary studies rather than running a single design, so there is no single-study diagram.
What this article reports
The findings we extracted from this work, normalized into Principia’s relationship form (X → Y). Each feeds the synthesized models below.
telework → turnover intention
telework → job satisfaction
Models this article informs
The meta-analytic priors this article contributes evidence to — its place in the broader synthesis.
telework predicts job satisfaction
telework predicts turnover intention
telework predicts work family conflict
In the authors’ words
The article’s own abstract.
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.
What the literature says about it
Attributed, open-access quotes from other works that cite this article, plus the citation-graph verdict tally. Corroborations and disputes, in one place — the honest-broker view.
supports “Reduced behavioral control among neurotic individuals in teleworking scenarios may lead to lower work performance, increased work stress, and a greater likelihood of experiencing work-life conflicts (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007).”
supports “In their meta-analysis, Gajendran and Harrison, (2011) found that telework was associated with increased job satisfaction and reduced intentions to turnover, with these relationships”
supports “Previous research has generally concluded that working primarily from home (also referred to as teleworking) is associated with higher levels of job satisfaction (Gajendran and Harrison 2007).”
supports “It is possible that at low levels of satisfaction with telework, employees may struggle with the challenges of remote work, such as reduced communication and collaboration, leading to lower supervisor evaluations (Gajendran and Harrison, 2007).”
supports “…Stumpf & Dawley, 1981), higher salary (Gattiker, 1989; Trevor, Gerhart, & Boudreau, 1997), an older age (Carless & Arnup, 2011; Kellough & Osuna, 1995), union membership, or a teleworker status (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007; Hunton & Norman, 2010), they tend to show a low level of turnover intention.”
supports “…of jobs and telework introduces new and unique job demands and resources, significantly affecting employee wellbeing, performance, and satisfaction (Gajendran and Harrison, 2007; Pulido-Martos et al., 2021; Chambel et al., 2022; Demerouti, 2022; Peiró et al., 2023b; González-Anta, 2024).”
supports “Teleworkers have higher job satisfaction and better performance when they do not experience work family conflict (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007), which is consistent with the suggestion that stressful family social ties can negatively affect teleworkers, for example, by causing them to avoid their…”
supports “Because telework blurs the boundaries between work and family (Chen & Karahanna, 2018), teleworkers often face family related hindrance stressors such as work family conflict while teleworking (Shi et al., 2023), which potentially harm their telework success (Gajendran & Harrison, 2007).”
Ancillary research
Neighbouring works in the citation graph around this article.
- 10.21818/001c.84551
- 10.2139/ssrn.4114763
- 10.61426/sjbcm.v3i4.343
- 10.28945/4575
- 10.1177/00197939241301704
- 10.1097/jom.0000000000002948
- 10.3389/forgp.2024.1430812
- 10.20899/jpna.8.3.302-322
- 10.1111/isj.12463
Assembled from Principia’s registry — bibliographic record, extracted effect sizes, the models they inform, and open-access citing literature.