Matli Walter, Phurutsi Mashitishi
University of South Africa, Cnr Janadel & Alexandra Avenues, Midrand 1685, South Africa.
Tshwane University of Technology, 2 Aubrey Matlakala St, Soshanguve - K, Preotia 0001, South Africa.
Procedia Comput Sci. 2023;219:977-986. doi: 10.1016/j.procs.2023.01.375. Epub 2023 Mar 22.
Remote working has played an increasingly important role in accelerating alternative workplaces. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic emergency demands, this paper seek to demonstrate the resilience of knowledge workers and their ability to work remotely, despite the uneven distribution of enabling infrastructure during the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. The Belief Action Outcome (BAO) model for information systems was used to support the study as this underexplored theory was found to be worthy of further testing in real-world situations. This qualitative study used a range of sources consisting largely of search data from major online journal databases. The findings highlight that knowledge workers can successfully work from alternative workplaces and still deliver the required outputs, despite socio-economic problems such as locational disparities and inequalities in access to technology. The same technologies that empowered knowledge workers to transform their work locations during the COVID-19 crisis, however, are the same to enable certain sectors of society whilst hindering other cohorts residing in under resourced locations. Therefore, the benefits of working remotely cannot favour everyone because of the existing inequalities and disparities. Applying the BAO model in this context implies environmental issues are likely to play a growing important role in future when decisions are made around alternative workplace and adoption of IS/IT systems. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted working patterns and accelerated the trend towards working in alternative workplaces than the traditional office/factory premises, there are notable implications around this shift. The study confirmed the related behaviours, opportunities, and barriers (social systems and organisations), as well as the structures (both societal and organisational) of the BAO model. In addition, certain aspects of both the remote workers' and organisations' adoption behaviour were changed to a greater extent and more rapidly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a contribution, this qualitative study reveals in more detail the yet uncharted remote workers' beliefs.
远程工作在加速替代工作场所的发展方面发挥着越来越重要的作用。在新冠疫情紧急需求的背景下，本文旨在证明知识工作者的适应能力以及他们远程工作的能力，尽管在新冠疫情封锁限制期间，支持性基础设施的分布并不均衡。信息系统的信念 - 行动 - 结果（BAO）模型被用于支持这项研究，因为这个尚未充分探索的理论被发现值得在现实世界的情况下进行进一步测试。这项定性研究使用了一系列来源的数据，主要来自各大在线期刊数据库的搜索数据。研究结果表明，尽管存在诸如地理位置差异和技术获取不平等之类的社会经济问题，知识工作者仍能够在替代工作场所成功工作，并仍然能够交付所需的产出。然而，正是那些在新冠疫情危机期间使知识工作者能够改变其工作地点的技术，同样在使社会的某些部门受益的同时，却阻碍了居住在资源匮乏地区的其他人群。因此，由于现有的不平等和差异，远程工作的好处并非对每个人都有利。在这种背景下应用BAO模型意味着，当围绕替代工作场所和信息系统/信息技术系统的采用做出决策时，环境问题可能在未来发挥越来越重要的作用。尽管新冠疫情扰乱了工作模式，并加速了从传统办公室/工厂场所转向替代工作场所工作的趋势，但这种转变也带来了显著的影响。该研究证实了BAO模型的相关行为、机会和障碍（社会系统和组织），以及结构（社会和组织层面）。此外，由于新冠疫情，远程工作者和组织的采用行为的某些方面在更大程度上且更迅速地发生了变化。作为一项贡献，这项定性研究更详细地揭示了尚未被深入研究的远程工作者的信念。
