Effect of Teleworking and Human Resources on Performance

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the contribution of human resource (HR) commitment practices to firm performance through the adoption of workplace practices that require the organizational climate created by HR commitment practices. The approach is a survey of 156 senior executives and human resource managers of Iranian companies and organizations and statistical test of research hypotheses through structural equation modeling. The results indicate that the extent that employees have access to HR commitment practices and HR social benefits is positively related to the intensity of telework adoption. Firm performance is positively associated to the intensity of telework adoption, functional flexibility and internal numerical flexibility, and negatively related to external numerical flexibility. HR commitment practices impact directly and indirectly on different measures of firm performance. Cross-sectional, survey-based data that cannot infer causality. Longitudinal and qualitative designs are needed to get a better understanding of the relationships. Data were analyzed by using hierarchical regression and t-student tests. The adoption of HR commitment practices can facilitate the organizational change required by the adoption of telework. The findings provide evidence that HR commitment practices are indirectly related to firm performance through their effects on the use of flexibility practices like telework that require organizational climates containing high levels of trust