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The Flexible Workplace: Regional Tendencies and Daily Travel Implications
by
Mohja Lynn Rhoads
Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Policy, Planning and Development
University of Southern California
May 2015
Object Description
| Title | The flexible workplace: regional tendencies and daily travel implications |
| Author | Rhoads, Mohja Lynn |
| Author email | mrhoads@usc.edu;mlr40@columbia.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Policy, Planning and Development |
| School | School of Policy, Planning and Development |
| Date defended/completed | 2014-06-30 |
| Date submitted | 2015-01-29 |
| Date approved | 2015-01-29 |
| Restricted until | 2015-01-29 |
| Date published | 2015-01-29 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Giuliano, Genevieve |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Boarnet, Marlon Schweitzer, Lisa |
| Abstract | Flexible workplace options such as the ability to work remote from the workplace (telework) or to adjust working start times has interested scholars and policymakers for decades. In a transportation context, flexible workplace options are proposed as alternatives to peak-hour commuting as the commute trip can either be eliminated or adjusted. Transportation scholars and policymakers are also interested in how flexi-workers travel in general. Within human resource and management domains, flexible workplace options are of interest in understanding how organizations adjust to competitive climates. Flexible work arrangements allow organizations to hire talent from a wider geography or through offering their employees benefits in the form of flexi-work. Flexible workplace practices have also been proposed as tools to engender better work-life balance to fit the specific needs of households. ❧ Within the last decade renewed interest in flexible workplace practices has arisen due to the recent and rapid advances in information communication technologies (ICTs). ICTs have made remote work more possible than ever. The ubiquitous and cheaper availability of portable devices, cloud technologies and 4G networks allow for the portability and feasibility of one’s workplace virtually anywhere. Organizations have new labor demands for talent that has the necessary skills for the emerging digital environment. The global and networked nature of many business operations means that communication and collaboration is occurring not only within near proximity, but simultaneously around the world. Not only is a new language being spoken in the workplace, but the language is being spoken with a new set of tools that are continuously expanding, evolving and becoming obsolete, causing employers, employees and customers to communicate, transact, collaborate and coordinate in a host of virtual ways. ❧ Overall, the research on flexible workplace practices has not reached a consensus as to why people engage in flexible workplace practices and why organizations allow these practices. Studies considering why individuals adopt flexi-work have not comprehensively examined the occupations and industries of these individuals. Ultimately, one’s organization and type of work determine whether or not the individual can engage in flexi-work. Concomitantly, studies considering why organizations provide flexible workplace practices have not comprehensively considered the larger competitive forces under which the organizations operate. These studies seek to understand how organizations adjust to their competitive environments through flexible employment practices, yet have not examined the competitive variations under which different organizations operate. The literature on individuals and organizations has generally been kept at small scales of analysis at varying locations rendering results inconsistent and un-generalizable. ❧ Parallel to the study of why individuals adopt flexible workplace practices is the investigation of how those who adopt flexi-work, travel. Flexible workplace practices are inherently bound to ICT use in order to conduct remote work and are therefore a measure of ICT use. ICT use has the potential to substitute trips (e.g. replace a commute trip), compliment trips (allow one to modify their trip while en route), or incentivize trips (encourage more travel). ❧ Concepts such as fragmentation and fixity have been developed to understand such behaviors. ICTs can engender more travel by informing or requiring extra travel, or they can reduce travel by bringing more activities within the domain of the home. The literature on fragmentation and fixity has focused on individual aspects such as gender and socio-demographics, generally leaving out how one of the main pivots in an individual’s travel, the workplace, influences travel. It is still unclear as to how the use of ICTs affect travel and how people who partake in more fragmented work behaviors (e.g. work from home) as a result of ICTs travel in general. The research is new on this front and large-scale data are hard to come by. ❧ This work explores the above mentioned issues in three papers. The first paper conducts a literature review on flexible workplace practices. The literature review is followed by two quantitative papers: the first of which examines flexible workplace practices at the level of the region and the second, which examines the travel patterns of individuals who have flexible workplace options. ❧ A regional analysis of the nation has several benefits. Small-scale analyses only convey results with respect to the institution or area surveyed. A national analysis allows for larger patterns to be detected. Because there is no national dataset which simultaneously incorporates an individual’s flexible workplace options and her occupation, examining trends at the regional level allows for the consideration of industry and occupation. ❧ The second paper also uses a national dataset and looks at the travel patterns of individuals who have flexible workplace options such as self-employment status, ability to work at home and the ability to adjust working start times. These individuals serve as a group who can utilize ICTs to conduct remote work. Comparing these groups to groups who do not have flexible workplace options and measuring behavior such as number of trips they make and their duration of activities can shed light on how flexibility and ICT may be resulting in non-traditional travel patterns. |
| Keyword | telework; telecommuting; high tech industries; flexible work; virtual work; fragmentation; fixity; flexible workplace; flexible start times; work at home |
| Language | English |
| Format (imt) | application/pdf |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Rhoads, Mohja Lynn |
| Physical access | The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given. |
| Repository name | University of Southern California Digital Library |
| Repository address | USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-RhoadsMohj-3152.pdf |
| Archival file | Volume1/etd-RhoadsMohj-3152.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | The Flexible Workplace: Regional Tendencies and Daily Travel Implications by Mohja Lynn Rhoads Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Policy, Planning and Development University of Southern California May 2015 |
