Teleworking during the Covid-19 Crisis in Italy: Evidence and Tentative Interpretations

Oksana Tokarchuk, Roberto Gabriele () and Giorgio Neglia
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Oksana Tokarchuk: Faculty of Economics and Management, Free University of Bolzano-Bozen, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
Giorgio Neglia: Fondirigenti, Fondirigenti G. Taliercio, viale Pasteur, 10-00144 Roma, Italy

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-11

Abstract: The paper investigates the determinants and discusses the consequences of the switch towards Italian high-tech firms’ teleworking due to the COVID-19 crisis. Teleworking is important to reduce traffic congestion and increase the sustainability of cities, and as such, it is important to understand what helps the successful transition of firms to telework. COVID-19 crisis represents a natural experiment that allows studying organizational ability to adapt to unexpected environmental changes rapidly. The study is based on a survey conducted in mid-April 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown among Italian manufacturing firms’ managers in high-tech sectors. The final sample is composed of 179 observations. Using path analysis, we model the organizational e-readiness as a mediator of the firm’s technological and organizational characteristics in the rate of adoption of teleworking. Teleworking is also modeled as dependent on human resources and from the exogenous shock represented by COVID-19 lockdown. While teleworking has been imposed by COVID-19, organizational readiness plays a key role in shaping the rate of teleworking adoption during emergencies.

Keywords: teleworking; organizational readiness; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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