The sociocultural barriers ofwork‐from‐homearrangement due toCOVID‐19 pandemic in Asia: Implications and future implementation

Abstract

The rapidly escalating COVID‐19 pandemic entails many unprecedented life circumstances, including in the way people work. The social distancing policy has forced companies to adopt work‐from‐home (WFH) arrangement to maintain business sustainability amidst both health and economic crises. While in many developed countries, WFH arrangement has been a common practice, this is not the case in some Asian countries, particularly in countries where high power distance emphasising heightened supervision and punishment among workers are still a preferred managerial style, such as Indonesia, China, India, and Thailand. While acknowledging that WFH is considered as beyond an option in this pandemic period, this commentary paper, built on existing literature presented in the narrative fashion, aims to critically identify key barriers of WFH implementation in some Asian countries, particularly in autocratic societies, using both theoretical and contextual approaches. The paper concludes by discussing recommendation for future studies and proposing strategic implications for companies and workers to effectively adopt WFH arrangement, especially in societies where WFH is still a new practice or is involuntarily held.

Remote working during COVID-19 in Sri Lanka: lessons learned and what the future holds

“…At the same time, the country context too was found to influence the implementation of remote working. Indeed, some studies have explored national culture (such as Hofstede cultural values) and remote working practices (Himawan et al. , 2022; Ollo-Lopez et al.…”

“…Besides, since remote working and related HRM practices were initiated in the West, one can question its suitability for non-western contexts (Himawan et al. , 2022).…”

“…Indeed, numerous research highlight how national culture and socio-cultural characteristics can influence employees' and organizations attitudes towards remote working (Ollo-Lopez et al. , 2020) as well as related HRM practices (Raghuram et al ., 2001), such as those related to remote working (Himawan et al. , 2022; Ollo-Lopez et al.…”

“…, 2020). For example, Asian countries are said to be less suitable for remote working due to high power distance, high masculinity, high collectivism, high uncertainty avoidance, low long-term orientation and low indulgence cultures (Himawan et al. , 2022; Hofstede, 2001; Hofstede Insights, 2021).…”

“…In answering these research questions, we will specifically examine how the HRPs have implemented and managed remote working during different stages of the pandemic, that is, how remote working was practised and managed during the initial stages of the pandemic in early 2020 and how it was practiced in late 2021. We will thus address the call for more studies in the Asian context on remote working and HRM practices (Donnelly and Johns, 2021; Himawan et al. , 2022) to see whether it would and could continue to the future as a popular work arrangement and what HRM practices should be introduced to make it a success.…”