Knowledge and willingness to use telework in service organizations of the Maule Region, Chile

Abstract

The article identifies the degree of knowledge possessed by in directors and executives of medium and big companies, regarding to telework and it determines the degree of utilization of this labor modality for organizations oriented to the service sector located in a central geographic area of Chile (Region on the Maule) that has a population close to one million of inhabitants. The informaiton comes from a questionnaire and focus groups. The universe of institutions was composed by 195 service entities, of medium and big size, located in the main cities of the territory. Talca, Curico and Linares, costituting a sample of 143 cases. A probability sampling procedure, random and proportionally stratified was implemented according to the criteria of annual sales, geographic location and economic activity sector. The data was statistically analyzed with significance tests. The main results show that in more than 50% of the organizations, the cultural and human variables are important for any way of work and that the lack of technologies and means of information transport and communication to telework, make it impossible. It emphasizes a high disposition to use it. In the organizations, the hierarchical levels with bigger knowledge of the topic were the superior executives. Pointing out significant differences among the organizations that apply or not the telework in these performance levels.