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1. Introduction
Information technology has become an integral part of the office environment, and the physical location of a working place has been gradually losing its importance. According to Gallup’s annual Work and Education poll, only 9 percent of US teleworkers worked from home using a computer in 1995, but by 2015 this number had increased to 37 percent (Gallup, 2015). The average number of teleworkers in the European Union (EU) Member States is considerably lower, amounting to 17 percent in 2015 and ranges from 7 percent in Italy to 37 percent in Denmark (Eurofound and the International Labour Office, 2017). In Central and Eastern European countries, the corresponding telework figure is lower than the EU average at 14 percent. The rate of teleworking in Lithuania is 13 percent, and this is similar to the average of other post-Soviet countries. Despite the appropriate technological development of information technologies in these countries, the telework adoption is slower than expected due to organizational factors, such as lower trust of managers and people’s needs to meet other people face-to-face (Eurofound, 2017; Vilhelmson and Thulin, 2016).
Telework is defined as work that is performed from different locations (such as home) that enables workers to access to their labor activities by the use of information and communication technologies (Nilles, 1997; Perez Perez et al., 2003). It has been considered as an alternative way of organizing work. By offering the possibility to work anywhere and anytime, telework has attracted the attention of both academics and practitioners. It has been seen as a win-win scenario for employees and employers, making it possible to choose from different talents, to reduce real estate costs, to motivate employees and to maintain employee work-family balance (Madsen, 2003).
Previous studies have revealed a number of multifaceted implications and advantages of teleworking for individuals, organizations and society (Perez Perez et al., 2003). These advantages include time planning freedom (Gurstein, 2001; Morgan, 2004); increased autonomy (Harpaz, 2002); reduced informal communication (Khalifa and Davison, 2000); increased family and leisure time (Ammons and Markham, 2004; Johnson et al., 2007); lower stress (Fonner and Roloff, 2010); improved productivity (Bailey and Kurland, 2002; Fonner and Roloff, 2010; Golden and Veiga, 2008; Martinez-Sanchez et al., 2008; Tremblay and Genin, 2007);...