Telecommuting Satisfaction, Lifestyle Choice and Geography

With telecommuting becoming so popular and the technology that enables it becoming more advanced, is geography still important to innovation of the firm? Geography, along with satisfaction and telecommuting as a lifestyle choice, will be examined in this study. Telecommuters often report both positive and negative effects of telecommuting. When the two are weighed together, are telecommuters more satisfied than dissatisfied? Primary data from a survey administered to 500 telecommuters and 500 traditional employees of a Fortune 500 firm are used to answer these questions. With construct validity, using cross tabulation and a chi-square value as an indicator, this study finds that telecommuters are satisfied despite negative effects of telecommuting and satisfaction is not dependent on having physical ties to the office. It is also determined through executive interviews and chi-square values of certain constructs that telecommuting is indeed a lifestyle choice. Although geography is still deemed important, this will likely change in the future as more people entering the workforce are accustomed to less face-to-face interaction.