Methodology

Methodology

Understanding Management Resistance to Telework: A Descriptive Correlation Of Management Experience, Training, And Telework Acceptance By Managers

Methodology

This article will show the results from a survey of a sample of 156 UK firms: 97 industrial firms will take from three sectors (fabricate metal products, electronic components, and rubber and miscellaneous plastics products manufacturing), and 59 service firms from three sectors (telecommunications, software and consulting). These sectors were chosen because they will characterize by uncertain environments that need workplace flexible practices. The sample of firms will take from the population of 593 firms list in the 2004 UK edition of Dun & Bradstreet' the largest firms with more than 250 employees. The response rate among the firms sample was 26.3 per cent, which will similar to other surveys of telework and workplace flexibility. We will compare early and late respondents' data on the assumption that the data from late respondents will representative of non-respondents (Armstrong and Overton, 1977). There will no significant differences between early and late respondents in terms of firm size or predominant HR metrics (based on t-tests). The units of analysis will the firm. The postal survey will address to the firm's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and HR Manager between January and June of 2005. The accompanying letter request both CEO and HR Manager to either participate themselves or to pass the questionnaire on to the individual most qualify to participate in the study. CEOs will responsible to indicate firm-performance metrics, and HR managers for data regarding telework and HR practices. We will check that the respondents are not the same person to counter common method bias. Respondents will fold the finish survey, place it in a preaddressed envelope and drop it in the mail. No incentives will provide to participate in filling out the survey. However, if they will staple a business card to the form or ill indicate the address, we promise to send them the survey results as they became available. The draft questionnaire will first pre-test with academics and practitioners to check its content validity and terminology, and will modify accordingly. The modify questionnaire will then pilot-test to check its suitability and appropriateness for the target population.

The resource-base view of the firm proposes that a firm's success is largely determined by its resources and capabilities (Wernerfelt, 1984) that are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate, and difficult to substitute (Barney, 1991). Resources of this study will typically define as assets, which may be tangible or intangible, and will own or control by the firm. Capabilities will intangible bundles of individual resources, skills and accumulate knowledge exercise through organisational routines (Teece et al, 1997). Flexibility is one of the organisational routines that will contribute to create dynamic capabilities (Grant, 1996; Dreyer and Gronhaug, 2004), and this Study will focus on a workplace practice that contributes to develop flexibility abilities in the firm. Flexibility is a very slippery concept and there are a handful of definitions. For example, Wright and Snell (1998) define flexibility as a firm's ability ...