ABSTRACT
This chapter will discuss the way virtual working relates to the processes of control and commitment within organisations, as well as the relationship between the two processes. We will consider these issues against the background of new paradigms in organisation theory that present new concepts of organisation, in contrast to the traditional Taylorist-bureaucratic concepts. This shift from traditional models of organisations to new concepts has had an impact on the dimension of control, with new concepts like ‘empowerment’ and ‘coaching’ being opposed to direct supervision and standardisation of labour. The issue of organisational commitment has gained renewed interest here, as it is considered to be an important condition for empowerment and, ultimately, organisational performance and efficiency. At the same time, however, from the point of view of employees, commitment and loyalty to an organisation is no longer self-evident. This seems all the more difficult when organisations start teleworking on a large scale. We will therefore consider how teleworking affects the generation of organisational commitment and point out some measures organisations can take to manage actively for commitment in a teleworking environment. Before considering these issues, we will clarify how virtual working and teleworking are understood in this chapter. We will also situate the research on which this chapter is based.
