May I work from home? Views of the employment relationship reflected in line managers' telework attitudes in six financial-sector organizations

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to contribute to two related contemporary debates on the changing views of the employment relation and on the adoption of telework as a new work practice by analyzing line managers' general telework-attitude formation processes, and possible outcomes in concrete request situations, mirroring managers' views of the employment relationship.Design methodology approach - This multi-method study among 65 managers in six financial-sector organizations comprises two parts. The interview part focuses on managers' arguments for or against telework in their departments, and how these are weighed in the telework-attitude formation process. In the vignette study, managers assess their attitudes towards specific, hypothetical, but realistic telework requests of fictive employees in their departments.Findings - Combining the results of both studies, it is shown that the governance view dominates. Some managers, however, consider telework an "idiosyncratic deal." Particularly in telework-request situations, also the exchange view enters into the managers' perceptual frames. In order to decrease managers' ambivalence towards telework, the human resource management (HRM)-system needs to be internally consistent and based on a view of the employment relationship which stresses commitment and trust as guiding principles, rather than control and coordination.Originality value - Employing a "configurational approach to strategic HRM," this paper focuses on the importance of the "embeddedness" of telework practices in larger HRM-systems in general, and the role of cultural obstacles in particular. Telework arguments are considered the HR principles guiding the telework-attitude formation process, and mirroring managers' views of the employment relationship as part of their workforce philosophies.