ABSTRACT

Ideas, like commodities, have fashions. They come and go. One year something’s in; the next it’s out. But as tastes change and markets shift, we often find things coming around again – repackaged, refocused – sometimes reborn. Those who have followed the topic over the years may recognise the same pattern in discussions of telework. Trumpeted in the 1970s as an answer to energy consumption and commuting demands (for example, Nilles et al. 1976), the 1980s saw telework relaunched as a flexible working arrangement, by which job and family demands could be balanced, skill shortages addressed and economic peripheries integrated with core regions (Kinsman 1987; Huws et al. 1990). In the 1990s we find more attention being given to issues of workplace design, facility management and the need to manage work time and work space to encourage productivity and effectiveness (for example, Becker and Steele 1995).