An analysis of the effects of family responsibility and teleworking volume on satisfaction with teleworking in the United States federal government
Creators: name: Sa, Yongjin
Publisher: name: Maryland Shared Open Access Repository
Year: 2015
Subjects: family responsibilities
federal agencies
job satisfaction
teleworking

description: This dissertation primarily aims to provide a better understanding of the factors that influence teleworkers’ satisfaction with teleworking in United States federal agencies. Specifically, this study empirically tests and examines how and the extent to which federal government teleworkers’ family responsibilities (i.e., child and elder care obligations), satisfaction levels with the dependent care programs provided by their organizations, and teleworking volume (frequency) are associated with their teleworking satisfaction levels. This study utilizes the 2011 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey published by the Office of Personnel Management to address the hypotheses and research questions. The respondents are U.S. federal employees who are full-time, permanent employees of all 29 departments and large agencies represented in the President Management Council and 54 small and independent agencies. The dependent variable in this study is a federal employee’s satisfaction with teleworking. The independent variables include an employee’s child and elder care responsibility, level of satisfaction with the child and elder care program, and volume (frequency) of telework. In addition, this study examines respondents’ demographic factors and characteristics as its control variables. These variables include gender, age, supervisory status, years of tenure in the federal government and current agency, and work location. This study also includes several organizational factors or constraints that may influence the dependent variable of an employee’s teleworking satisfaction level. To examine the hypotheses and research questions, this study employs both ordered probit analysis and ordinary least squares regression. The empirical findings are summarized below. First, regarding the association between a teleworker’s family responsibilities and her or his satisfaction with teleworking, the empirical findings of this study confirm that federal teleworkers who have child and elder care obligations exhibit lower levels of teleworking satisfaction than do the teleworkers who do not have such obligations. Second, with respect to the relationship between a teleworker’s level of satisfaction with the dependent care programs provided by her or his organization and teleworking satisfaction, this study finds that the federal teleworkers with higher levels of satisfaction with their child and elder care programs report higher levels of teleworking satisfaction. Third, regarding the link between a teleworker’s satisfaction with teleworking and the volume (frequency) of teleworking, the empirical results show that federal teleworkers who telework 1 or 2 days per week report higher levels of teleworking satisfaction compared with teleworkers who telework 1 or 2 days per month and teleworkers who telework very infrequently on an unscheduled or short-term basis. However, teleworkers who telework 1 or 2 days per week exhibit lower levels of satisfaction with teleworking than the teleworkers who telework 3 or more days per week. In conclusion, this study contributes to the teleworking and family-friendly policy literature in the public sector with the theoretical, methodological, and managerial implications. Several limitations that must be noted and that future research should address and some influential suggestions for future research that can contribute to the development of the body of teleworking scholarship are also discussed.