Organisational adoption of telecommuting: Evidence from a developing country

Abstract

Even though telecommuting has been a growing phenomenon in the more advanced world over the past 2 decades, businesses in Africa and more specifically West Africa are yet to adopt the practice, hence providing a gap for research into telecommuting in a developing country such as Ghana to be filled. The study sought to investigate the technological, environmental, and organisational factors that influence telecommuting adoption and to also examine the potential benefits of adopting telecommuting in the operations of Ericsson Ghana.

Technology–organisation–environment (TOE) framework was used as the guiding lens. The study, from the critical realism perspective, adopted the qualitative research approach. Hence, Ericsson Ghana was selected as the case. Miles and Huberman's transcendental realism data analysis approach was used for the case study.

This study's findings established that the staff and the company as a whole benefited from the adoption of telecommuting practices. The study also identified some factors that influence the adoption of telecommuting. Contribution is therefore made by the findings of the study to the body of knowledge by probing into strategies and guidelines for implementing telecommuting in Ghana and to a larger extent West Africa. Arguably, few studies have been conducted on telecommuting from a developing economy's perspective using the TOE framework. Again, this study provides the guideline for policy discourse in relation to telecommuting adoption in Ghana.

The originality of this study lies in the ability to identify an organisation in a developing country such as Ghana, which has institutionalised telecommuting practices for a case study.