Theoretical foundations for distributed work: multilevel, incentive theories to address current dilemmas

Distributed work literature has sought to explain why and under what conditions workers choose to use distributed work arrangements, but often has resulted in contradictions and dilemmas. The literature has reached the point where significant progress can be made by applying existing organizational theories to explain past distributed work dilemmas and to serve as a foundation for future research. We propose a multilevel conceptual framework integrating constructs from several well-established incentive-related organizational theories: Hertzberg´s theories on explicit and implicit motivation, expectancy theory, managerial control theory, group process theories, socio-technical systems theory, and resource allocation theories. From this integrated conceptual framework, we derive functional models to explain why workers do not take advantage of distributed work arrangements in two high tech sales organizations. Results illustrate the compounding effects of multiple incentives and disincentives over time and across levels of analysis. This theory-based conceptual framework extends both the distributed work and incentive literatures helping them overcome dilemmas existing between research and practice.