Location-Specificity and Relocation Incentive Programs for Remote Workers

Thomaz Teodorovicz (), Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury () and Evan Starr ()
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Thomaz Teodorovicz: Copenhagen Business School, Department of Strategy and Innovation, DK-2000 Frederiksberg (Copenhagen), Denmark
Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury: Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts 02163
Evan Starr: Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20740

Organization Science, 2025, vol. 36, issue 1, 186-212

Abstract: The precipitous growth of remote work has given rise to a new phenomenon: the emergence of relocation incentive programs that localities use to compete for the physical presence of remote workers. Remote workers with high general human capital may create value for their new destinations and reverse net talent outflow from smaller cities in middle America and globally. However, localities seeking to attract, retain, and create value from remote workers face significant challenges because such workers may have a low attachment to their new destination. Analogizing these challenges to the problem of creating and capturing value from workers with general human capital, we argue that localities can benefit from using relocation incentive program by leveraging location-specific attributes that create value for the individual and the locality. We examined these ideas in the context of Tulsa Remote, a program that provides relocation incentives and a bundle of services to increase engagement and embeddedness in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We found that Tulsa Remote increased community engagement, real income, and entrepreneurship of remote workers, benefiting both the community and the individual. Tulsa Remote increased the worker’s willingness to stay, and local community engagement is a key driver of this relationship. This work thus suggests that location specificity enables localities to both create and capture value from remote workers.

Keywords: geographic competition; remote work; location specificity; general human capital; prosociality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:36:y:2025:i:1:p:186-212

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