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OCR for page 66
Effects of Work Location
on Motivation
ArthurP. Br7ef
Advances in the technology of telecommunications and in the
availability of personal computers have stimulated questions
about the desirability of employees working at home rather than
at conventional locations. One can readily envision, for example, a
computer programmer working at home with a personal com-
puter linked to the personal computers of other programmers, as
well as to the centralized computing facilities of the program-
mer's organization. The question is whether this arrangement is
more advantageous than one in which the programmers perform
their duties at a centralized site.
The advantages and disadvantages of homework can be as-
certa~ned by using a number of different criteria. Here, only one
criterion will be used the potential impact on an employee's
motivation.
Working is not an end in itself; rather, it is a means of acquiring
a variety of satisfying results or outcomes. If it were not for the
personal satisfaction derived from these outcomes, individuals
would not seek to work.
According to V.H. Vroom (1964), working (1) requires the ex-
penditure of energy, (2) contributes to the production of goods or
Arthur P. Brief is professor of management/organizational behavior at New York
University.
66
OCR for page 67
EFFECTS OF WORM LOCATION ON MOTIVATION
67
services, (3) requires social interaction, (4) at least partially de-
fines social status, and (5} provides wages.) These characteristics
can be viewed as classes of outcomes associated with performing
work.2 In large part, an employee's motivation to work is a func-
tion of the degree to which he or she believes that the work will
lead to certain levels of these outcomes. This view of work motiva-
tion is analogous to Vroom's approach to the topic; that is, people
rationally choose work roles based on the expected utilities of
those roles.
Motivation involves the choice to initiate effort, to expend a
certain amount of effort, and to persist in expending that effort
over a period of time.3 Obviously, these choices not only influence
the role an employee selects but also the level at which the work is
performed. Thus, the interplay between work motivation and
work location has implications for job choice and job perfor-
mance. If working at home as contrasted with working in a more
conventional location does not influence an employee's expecta-
tions, an employer could conclude that location does not influence
motivation.
This analysis is based on several assumptions:
First, work performed at home is essentially the same as work
performed at other locations. If the work varies, then the level of
the outcomes might also vary. Outcome levels associated with
financial analysis of a large corporation, for example, and prepa-
ration of an individual's income tax return are likely to be differ-
ent. So, in comparing outcome levels of a financial analyst work-
ing at home with those of a tax accountant working at a more
conventional location, the differences observed may be due to the
nature of the work rather than to the locations.
Second, the personnel policies, practices, and procedures ap-
plied to employees working at home are like those applied to em-
ployees working in the office. In particular, it is assumed that an
employer does not vary selection, training, and compensation ac-
cording to work location. If different types of people are selected
to work at home and they are trained and compensated differently
from their conventionally located counterparts, then levels of out-
come would vary with location.
Compensation policies are an obvious example. If a typist work-
ing at home is paid according to the number of pages typed and a
conventionally located counterpart is paid according to the num-
ber of hours worked, then the wages of the two employees will
OCR for page 68
68
ISSUES AND PROBLEMS
differ. Any differences in work-related results attributable to lo-
cation per se would be confounded.
Differences in selection and training can also confound compar-
isons between outcome levels. If an employer selects more experi-
enced individuals to work at home, then work experience contrib-
utes to an employee's attained status. Differences in the status
outcomes acquired by the employees in this instance would be
attributable to work experience even though they are also af-
fected by location. As a final instance, training can help make a
job easier and reduce the amount of energy expended. [I such
training varies by location, so would outcome levels.
The third and last assumption concerns the choice of prospec-
tive home-based employees. Individuals vary considerably in
their preferences for work-related outcomes. Thus, people with
certain preferences may choose to work at home because they ex-
pect different levels of various outcomes from those who prefer
working at more conventional sites. Although this reasoning is
plausible, it is assumed here not to be the case. The logic underly-
ing the necessity for the assumption runs as follows: To a degree,
employees performing a given role can influence the levels of out-
comes available to them and, in fact, do so dependent on their
preferences. Therefore, if the preferences of those working at
home vary from those of their conventionaTiy located counter-
parts, outcome levels also would vary. Thus, differences in out-
come levels would be due to the types of employees working at
home and not necessarily to their work location.
An example should help to clarify this argument. People vary in
their need for affiliation with other people and, therefore, in their
preference for work-related social interaction. A person with a rel-
atively high need for affiliation can satisfy this need through
more social interaction at work. This person would need more so-
cial interaction regardless of work site but he or she may also se-
lect to work in a conventional site, expecting it to provide higher
levels of social contact than a homework site. This person would
place more emphasis on social interaction than another person
with less need for affiliation who gravitated toward work at home.
The reported differences in outcome levels between these two per-
sons would be attributable to both the actual levels of their re-
spective work locations as well as to the levels actively antici-
pated by each individual. Attributing the impact of location per
se on reported outcomes would be problematic.
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EFFECTS OF WORK LOCATION ON MOTIVATION
69
Collectively, the three assumptions compare the influence of
work at home on outcomes, hoisting constant across work loca-
tions (1) the nature of the work performed, (2) employer-applied
personnel policies, practices, and procedures, and (3) the outcome
preference of employees. It may be charged that these assump-
tions negate the exploration of many interesting questions raised
about work at home. The assumptions, however, are required to
allow an exploration of the impact of work location on work
motivation.
EFFECTS OF HOMEWORK ON OUTCOME LEVELS
Expenditure of Energy
While not wanting to be overworked, people do enjoy being
kept busy. Satisfaction derived from the expenditure of mental or
physical energy has been attributed to a belief that hard work per
se is morally correct.4 Others attribute it to neuropsychological
factors.5 How might this level of energy expenditure vary accord-
ing to work location? Does working at home adversely affect an
employee's activity level?
Adverse effects would be expected only if less work is required
from those working at home than from those at conventional
sites. This could occur in one of two ways. First, the flow of work
to homeworkers may be more difficult to manage than the flow to
employees in a conventional site. Second, because of the lack of
close supervision of employees working at home, employers may
demand less output from their home-based employees. Both prob-
lems should be manageable, particularly with the use of available
telecommunications technologies. Furthermore, homeworkers
may find it easier to satisfy their need to expend energy than their
conventionally located counterparts because of the opportunity
to substitute domestic tasks when luBs in their work loads do
occur.
Thus, if one assumes that employees working at home do not
necessarily prefer to expend more or less energy than their con-
ventionally located counterparts, it seems safe to conclude that
they need not suffer the consequences of too little activity simply
because of where they work. Indeed, if work flows and demands
are equally managed across sites, the employee working at home
may be in a more advantageous position.
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70
ISSUES AND PROBLEMS
Production
For a variety of reasons, the goods or services an employee pro-
duces may serve as an outcome. J.R. Hackman and G.R. Oldham
(197516 have argued, for example, that tasks perceived to have a
substantial impact on the lives or work of other people are satisfy-
ing. In this sense, the work of a farmer or physician can be seen as
potentially more important than that of an elevator operator or
gas station attendant. It has been assumed, however, that the
work performed by the employee at home is equivalent to the
work performed at a conventional site. This assumption ad-
dresses only the objective or physical attributes of the tasks per-
formed and is not concerned with the psychological meaning an
individual may attach to the goods and services produced. A large
part of that meaning is derived from the objectively defined tasks
performed, but two individuals performing the same tasks may
attach different levels of meaning to the impact of those tasks on
others. The clerk who transcribes medical records in a hospital's
patient service area, for example, may more readily see the impact
that work has on the quality of patient care than the clerk who
transcribes the same type of records at a remote site.
Generally, the context in which a job is performed can influence
the degree to which a good or service produced Is seen as meaning-
ful. In that regard, homeworkers may be relatively deprived of
the satisfaction derived from producing goods or services that are
perceived to have an impact on others. Employers might want to
consider ways to show their homeworkers the likely impact of
their work, ant! supervisors may need to be trained to communi-
cate with homeworkers. Such communications all too frequently
are ignored at conventional work sites to ignore communica-
tions in the case of homework may have negative motivational
consequences.
Social Interaction
Work is a social activity with the potential for frequent con-
tacts with subordinates, coworkers, superiors, and others. Such
social interactions can satisfy a worker's needs for affiliation.
These interactions are influenced considerably by work location.
Compared with conventional work sites, the home is socially iso-
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EFFECTS OF WORK LOCATION ON MOTIVATION
71
lated, at least in terms of face-to-face contacts with coworkers.
Telecommunications technologies can provide substitutes for
face-to-face interactions, but the extent to which these substi-
tutes provide satisfaction levels comparable to those supplied by
face-to-face interactions remains largely unexplored. Substitutes
for work-related interactions, however, can be found in the home.
Interactions with family members and friends outside of work
can satisfy affiliation needs. The efficacy of such substitution,
however, is open to question. it probably is safe to conclude that
the employee working at home is relatively deprived of satisfac-
tory levels of social interactions. if this conclusion is correct, it is
not only the employee's needs for affiliation that go unfulfilled.
The opportunity to learn "appropriate" role behaviors, directly or
indirectly, from others at work is hampered as well.
What can employers do to offset the negative consequences of
the limited work-related social interaction encountered by home-
workers? Available alternatives involve encouraging face-to-face
contact among employees. Whatever the form, these interactions
are intended to help the home-based employee establish social ties
at work that help fulfill affiliation needs and other useful func-
tions. An employer of home-based workers might consider a men-
tor program, which would assign more senior colleagues to newly
hired home-based employees to aid them in adjusting to their new
jobs. The mentors would teach the home-based employees the or-
ganization's informal norms and provide social support. Like any
alternative approach, such a program would have to be evaluated
in terms of the benefits accrued versus the direct production time
lost.
Social Status
Status is the ranking of people in a social system. It influences
two needs: the need for affiliation, and the need for personal
growth and development. In the former case, an individual's sta-
tus helps determine with whom he or she communicates and the
direction of those communications. Persons with high status
have a greater number of options in this regard and have more
communications directed to them. In the latter case, a person's
status at least partially reflects achievements and can be used by
an indiviclual to gauge the level of his or her personal growth and
development.
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72
ISSUES AND PROBLEMS
One's job or occupation is a principal determinant of status.
Some aspects of a job that contribute to status include (1) the skill
or knowledge required to perform the job, (2) rank, (3) wages, (4)
seniority, and (5) the status of one's associates.7 Whether working
at home contributes to status is an unanswered question. The an-
swer probably varies with employers. In this respect, symbols
perpetuated by employers are important because they denote sta-
tus. The symbols used by employers include titles, offices, and
furnishings, and perquisites such as a personal secretary, a car
and driver, and access to executive dining rooms. Clearly, the
availability and meaning of some of these symbols vary according
to work location. Take the case of offices and their furnishings.
Offices signal higher status if they have fewer occupants, are
larger, have more windows, and are better furnished. But what do
these features imply if they are supplied by the employee working
at home and not the employer and are not as readily apparent to
the employee's work associates as they would be if the employee
were located at a conventional site? It can be concluded that the
status implications of a home-based employee's office are less po-
tent than those of conventionally located coworkers.
The same case can be made for other status symbols; thus, the
home-based employee is handicapped to a degree by work loca-
tion. This disadvantage might be overcome by supplying the
home-based employee with nontraditional symbols of their at-
tained status. These might include the number and type of
employer-provided telecommunications devices and the people to
whom those devices are linked. Regardless of the symbols used, it
is important to recognize their motivational relevance and the ef-
fect of working at home on their availability and meaning.
Wages
Wages are probably the most important form of motivation be-
cause of the role they play in satisfying the greatest array of hu-
man needs economic support, job status, social affiliation, and
personal growth and development.
This analysis is based, in part, on the assumption that employ-
ers do not vary their compensation policies as a function of work
location. Given this assumption and the relative importance of
wages, it can be concluded that the impact of working at home on
the motivational bases of work is exceedingly limited. As long as
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EFFECTS OF WORK LOCATION ON MOTIVATION
73
employers do not vary their compensation policies, this conclu-
sion is sound; however, employers may choose to base a home-
worker's compensation on criteria different from those used for
conventionally located employees.
Should they do this? Clearly, the answer is no. Money moti-
vates high performance levels if it is allocated in an equitable
manner contingent on job performance.7 Compensation policies
based on these findings will prove to be effective regardless of
work location and thus should not vary by location. In a very
general and limited sense, wages can vary legitimately because of
homework; this variance is more attributable to employees than
employers. For a presumably small group of individuals the op-
portunity to work at home is an opportunity to earn wages not
otherwise available. Some people, for a variety of reasons includ-
ing family responsibility and health status, cannot work at a con-
ventional site. In such cases the motivation of homework wages
would be quite powerful and might attract new individuals into
the labor force. Further, for many individuals, homework may be
less costly than working at a conventional site, and real income
levels may be enhanced. Money saved by working at home could
include doBars spent on a work wardrobe, commuting, and meals.
On balance, it appears that working at home has no negative moti-
vational implications and might, in a limited sense, have some
positive ones in terms of the available wage levels.
SUMMARY OF EFFECTS
In terms of motivation, working at home has some advantages
and disadvantages. It appears to have a marginally positive im-
pact on two motivational bases of work: expenditure of energy
and wages, and a potentially negative impact on three others: the
production of goods or services, social status, and social interac-
tions. It appears that employers can act to mitigate the poten-
tiaBy negative consequences of the first two. Taking into consid-
eration these potential actions and the motivational dominance of
wages, this analysis suggests that while working at home will
have some impact on the motivational bases of work, it will be
minimal. People do differ in preferences, and these individual dif-
ferences will influence the nature of the relationship between
work location and the motivation.
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74
ISSUES AND PROBLEMS
CONTINUITY, CHANGE, AND MOTIVATION
On balance, the effects of homework on motivation will not be
profound. To some, this may be a welcome but unexpected and
therefore questionable conclusion. It should be. The empirical
data necessary to ascertain the impact of homework on the moti-
vation to work are not available. Cooperative efforts among em-
ployees, employers, and social and behavioral scientists are re-
quired to produce that data. The thoughts presented here may
serve to isolate some of the particular issues that neeci more re-
search. It has been predicted that the results of such research will
indicate some, but not considerable, influence of homework on the
motivational bases of work, and that these findings will be ques-
tioned due to their unexpected nature.
People have come to expect change, not continuity. They also
expect that technological advances necessarily produce signifi-
cant and immediate social and psychological changes. In the cur-
rent instance, attention has been focused on technology facilitat-
ing work at home and the effect of working at home on
motivation. History, however, suggests considerable continuity
rather than change as a result of a shift to work at home. The
Industrial Revolution brought with it a movement from work at
home to what are today considered conventional sites. Historians
have hypothesized that this shift contributed to the demise of the
so-called work ethic in America. Recent historical evidence, how-
ever, presents a more complex picture. D. T. Rodgers (197818 has
convincingly argued, "From the restless industrial workers of the
nineteenth century to the hard hats and survey respondents of
the twentieth, the tension between pride in one's job and es-
trangement from it has a long and enduring history" (p.180~.
More generally, D. Yankelovich (198119 has observed, "In
American life, continuity and far-reaching change do coexist with
each other" (p. XVII). Moreover, W.R. Nord (1982),~° in discus-
sing the future of the study of employee behavior, has asserted,
"Many of the changes that will occur can be better anticipated
and understood when a strong prevailing wind of continuity is
assumed" (p.946~. My analysis argues that continuity in the moti-
vational bases of work will coexist with the shift toward work at
home, and that the assumption that this continuity will occur will
help in the adjustment to homework.
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EFFECTS OF WORK LOCA TION ON MOTIVA TION
75
Thus, some anticipated changes in the motivational bases of
work may occur with a shift to work at home; however, most of the
negative consequences of these changes can be counteracted.
Necessary strategies should be formulated now and then built
upon the forthcoming empirical data required to ensure their
success.
NOTES
1. Vroom, V.H. Work and Motivation. New York: Wiley, 1964.
2. Aldag, R.J. and A.P. Brief. Task Design and Employee Motivation. Glenview,
Ill.: Scott Foresman, 1979.
3. Campbell, J.P. and R.D. Pritchard. Motivation theory in industrial and organiza-
tional psychology. In M.D. Dunnette, ed. Handbook of Industrial and Organiza-
tional Psychology. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1976.
4. Weber, M. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Allan and
Unwin, 1930.
Scott, W.E. Activation theory and task design. Organizational Behavior and Hu-
man Performance, 1:3-30, 1966.
6. Hackman, J.R. and G.R. Oldham. Development of the job diagnostic survey.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 60:159-170, 1975.
7. Aldag, R.J. and A.P. Brief. Managing Organizational Behavior. St. Paul: West,
1981.
8. Rodgers, D.T. The Work Ethic in Industrial America 1850-1920. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1978.
9. Yankelovich, D. New Rules: Searching for Self-Fullfillment in a World Turned
Upside Down. New York: Random House, 1981.
10. Nord, W.R. Continuity and change in industrial/organizational psychology:
Learning from previous mistakes. Professional Psychology, 13:942-953, 1982.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
outcome levels
