Lakhasly

characteristics and (3) context-related character- istics. Whereas task-related characteristics refer to the assigned responsibilities, duties and tasks, an employee has to perform in order to meet the job description as well as the degrees of freedom she or he has in conducting these tasks (e.g., workload and autonomy) (Aldag et al. 1981; Morgeson and Humphrey 2006). Workplace-related characteristics describe surrounding work factors that go beyond the employees’ task (e.g., team psychological safety and social contact) (Edmondson 1999; Schepers and Berg 2007). Context-related characteristics emerge from individual and work-related circumstances regard- less of task and workplace-related conditions (e.g., family and household situation and commuting time) (Anakpo et al. 2023; Galanti et al. 2021). As context- related characteristics are usually beyond the control of firms, our study focuses on task- and workplace- related characteristics that might shape the individual preferences for working onsite versus WFH.
Task-related characteristics
Workload: The previous research has found that WFH increases workload because some tasks cannot be performed from home due to technical or commu- nication issues (Dikkers et al. 2007; Wu and Chen 2020). Additionally, workload can interfere with employees’ work–life balance and therefore reduce job satisfaction in WFH arrangements (Irawanto et al. 2021). In this vein, we assume that employees who are confronted with higher self-perceived workload prefer onsite work to WFH in order to prevent from work–home interference.
Hypothesis 1 High workload is positively related to onsite work.
Planning autonomy: Planning autonomy refers to the freedom of scheduling one’s own tasks and therefore to plan how and in which order to perform them. It is a construct of work autonomy that corre- lates positively with job satisfaction as it is one core element of positive job characteristics (Lopes et al. 2014; Morgeson and Humphrey 2006; Thompson and Prottas 2006). A higher level of planning autonomy allows employees to manage work–life demands due to self-scheduling tasks and in general how work is completed (Rockmann and Pratt 2015). We assume
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that employees with higher levels of planning auton- omy prefer WFH to onsite work.
Hypothesis 2 High planning autonomy is nega- tively related to onsite work.
Workplace-related characteristics
Job involvement: Job involvement refers to the degree an employee identifies with their work, actively par- ticipates in it, and derives a sense of self-worth from it (Kanungo 1982). Job involvement, therefore, has been found to mediate the effect of job satisfaction on organizational commitment (Ćulibrk et al. 2018; Williams and Anderson 1991), is a predictor of task performance (Rich et al. 2010) and predicts well- being when it is based on need congruence (Riipinen 1997). As job involvement describes the individual identification with the work and active participation in it, employees with a higher job involvement should prefer working onsite to WFH to ensure that all task- related materials are available and to show their iden- tification with the company.
Hypothesis 3 High job involvement is positively related to onsite work.
Team psychological safety: Team psychological safety refers to a shared belief of team members that the team it is safe for interpersonal risk taking as well as to speak up to work-related problems (Edmond- son 1999). Teams that are associated with high lev- els of psychological safety have been found to show a higher team performance mediated by factors such as learning behavior, task conflict or knowledge shar- ing (Bradley et al. 2012; Edmondson 1999; Kessel et al. 2012). Recent research shows that psychologi- cal safety is mainly enabled by spontaneous interac- tion, which is easy to facilitate in the office and hard to facilitate when WFH (Tkalich et al. 2022) and that remote psychological safety leadership requires more time, deliberation and intentionality than when working face to face (Sjöblom et al. 2022). Hence, for employees to foster a psychological safe team climate, direct face-to-face interactions at the onsite office should be preferred to WFH arrangements.
Hypothesis 4 High team psychological safety is positively related to onsite work.