What are the positive and negative consequences of telecommuting? How do these consequences come about? When are these consequences more or less potent? The authors answer these questions through construction of a theoretical framework and meta-analysis of 46 studies in natural settings involving 12,883 employees. Telecommuting had small but mainly beneficial effects on proximal outcomes, such as perceived autonomy and (lower) work-family conflict. Importantly, telecommuting had no generally detrimental effects on the quality of workplace relationships. Telecommuting also had beneficial effects on more distal outcomes, such as job satisfaction, performance, turnover intent, and role stress. These beneficial consequences appeared to be at least partially mediated by perceived autonomy. Also, high-intensity telecommuting (more than 2.5 days a week) accentuated telecommuting's beneficial effects on work-family conflict but harmed relationships with coworkers. Results provide building blocks for a more complete theoretical and practical treatment of telecommuting.

Despite their widespread adoption, concerns remain that virtual work arrangements can harm employee job performance and citizenship behavior. Does telecommuting really hamper these critical dimensions of employee effectiveness? To answer this question, we develop a theoretical framework linking telecommuting to task and contextual performance via a dual set of mechanisms-reflecting proposed effects of i-deals and job resources. Further, we propose that the meaning of and outcomes from these paths depend on the social context surrounding telecommuting. We test the framework with field data from 323 employees and 143 matched supervisors across a variety of organizations. As predicted, we find that telecommuting is positively associated with task and contextual performance, directly and indirectly via perceived autonomy. These beneficial effects are contingent upon two aspects of the social context: leader-member exchange and signals of its normative appropriateness among coworkers and one's supervisor.

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Over the past 30 years, the nature of communication at work has changed. Leaders in particular rely increasingly on e-mail to communicate with their superiors and subordinates. However, researchers and practitioners alike suggest that people frequently report feeling overloaded by the e-mail demands they experience at work. In the current study, we develop a self-regulatory framework that articulates how leaders' day-to-day e-mail demands relate to a perceived lack of goal progress, which has a negative impact on their subsequent enactment of routine (i.e., initiating structure) and exemplary (i.e., transformational) leadership behaviors. We further theorize how two cross-level moderators-centrality of e-mail to one's job and trait self-control-impact these relations. In an experience sampling study of 48 managers across 10 consecutive workdays, our results illustrate that e-mail demands are associated with a lack of perceived goal progress, to which leaders respond by reducing their initiating structure and transformational behaviors. The relation of e-mail demands with leader goal progress was strongest when e-mail was perceived as less central to performing one's job, and the relations of low goal progress with leadership behaviors were strongest for leaders low in trait self-control. (PsycINFO Database Record

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