Perceived Usability of Teleworking Options in Creative Knowledge Work

While contemporary IT and communication technologies provide ample opportunities for efficient teleworking, the potential of distance work is still underutilized. This study is based on a survey among IT and product developers, engineers, applied researchers and other creative R&D employees in Estonia who do not have a distance work option. The paper presents ordered probit estimates of employees' perceived usability of teleworking in these jobs. The paper finds that in the IT and product development units in banks, in comparison to private R&D companies, employees feel with a 24 percentage points higher probability that teleworking could be fully used in their job, but it is not. The higher the creativity intensity of work, the higher the probability that the employee finds there to be a possibility to work fully from the distance. The more highly paid the employee is, the less opportunities for teleworking the employee perceives. Those working with a permanent contract perceive with a significantly higher probability that teleworking could be usable in their work compared to creative knowledge employees with a temporary contract. This study reveals some potentially important drivers of the usability of teleworking in creative R&D jobs, and sheds light on jobs where working from distance may be particularly usable.