Telework: a challenge to knowledge transfer in organizations

Over the last decade, teleworking has gained momentum. While it has been portrayed as both employer- and employee-friendly, we question the positive normativity associated with teleworking by showing how it may endanger an organization's knowledge base and competitive advantage by threatening knowledge transfer between teleworkers and non-teleworkers. Drawing on the literature on knowledge we present the cognitive and relational components of organizational socialization as key facilitators of knowledge transfer and we demonstrate that teleworking may negatively affect these cognitive (shared mental schemes, language and narratives, and identification with goals and values) and relational (quality of relationships) components, depending on its frequency, location(s), and perception. Finally, we suggest some managerial avenues for addressing these potential negative side effects of teleworking.

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