teleworker insights on the expansive concept of work

8/8/2019 Teleworker Insights on the Expansive Concept of Work

1/9

Protecting the boundary: Teleworker insights on the expansive concept of "work" Gender & Society ; Thousand Oaks; Apr 1998; Kiran Mirchandani ;Volume: 12Issue: 2Start Page: 168-187ISSN: 08912432SubjectTerms:

Work at homeWomenEmploymentDefinitions

Abstract: Drawing on interviews with women who work at home, Mirchandani examines how and why women narrowed the meaning of work and explores some of the costs that may accompany a more expansive definition of work.Full Text:Copyright Sage Publications, Inc. Apr 1998[Headnote]Feminist scholars have consistently argued for broadened definitions of work that include the invisible family and emotion work done

predominantly by women. This article focuses on women's resistance.r to placing these various activities into the common category of work Drawing from interviews with teleworkers (women who work at home), it examines how and why women narrowed the meaning of work and explores some of the costs that may accompany a more expansive definition of work.Feminist theorists have illuminated the numerous ways in which conventional definitions of work are fundamentally gendered. AsKobayashi, Peake, Benenson, and Pickles note, the myth of the "masculine work norm" assumes that production is a male domain thatoccurs in the public sphere and that men's labor can be used as a general standard to understand all work activities (1994, xv; see alsoAcker 1992; Ferree 1990; Tancred 1995). This masculine work norm ensures that many of the activities that women (and some men)engage in on a day-to-day basis are unseen, devalued, and labeled as less important than the "real work" done by men.This article focuses on one feminist challenge to the assumption of the masculine work norm. Theorists suggest that the concept of work should be redefined to include many of the activities that women assume responsibility for and that are currently unrecognized andtherefore devalued (Daniels 1987; DeVault 1991; Fisher and Tronto 1990; Rutman 1996; Smith 1987). This broadening of the definitionof work, it is suggested, would ]lead to the recognition of the effort involved in creating and sustaining family life, both physically andemotionally. It would also involve a revaluation of much of the interaction and emotion work that women engage in as part of their paidwork jobs.In keeping with the strong tradition of developing theoretical insight by taking the daily lives of women as starting points of inquiry(Harding 1992; Smith 1987), this article draws on interviews with 30 teleworkers (women who do their paid work in the home) to evaluatethe consequences of broadening the concept of work. Telework (or telecommuting, as it is referred to in the United States) is a work arrangement whereby an individual does paid work within her or his home rather than at a central office. Unlike women doing piecework at home (such as garment sewing or data entry), teleworkers are highly educated and well-paid salaried employees who work for a widerange of public and private sector organizations. Recent Canadian data show that there are 600,000 salaried workers who do their paidwork at home (Siroonian 1993, 50; see Cray, Hodson, and Gordon 1994 for data on the United States), although these figures are likely to

be conservative estimates given the difficulties associated with counting home-based work (Huws 1988; Mirchandani 1996; Pratt 1987).Telework is often targeted at highly valued employees and is situated within company "work-family" initiatives that serve to ease theconflict employees experience between their work and family lives.The teleworkers interviewed for the present study are among this group of highly paid and organizationally valued employees. Thesewomen work in a variety of occupations and do their paid work at home during regular business hours. Given that they do their paid work and their other activities in the home, they draw the boundary around the concept of work on a daily basis. Their insight on, and resistanceto, various definitions of work provide a guide for future theoretical reflection on the concept.EXPANDING WORK Building on the insights about gendered conceptions of work, feminist theorists attempt to develop notions of work that do not exclude theactivities and contributions of women. Accordingly, several theorists call for an expansion of the concept of work into a "more ample andgenerous fon" (Smith 1987, 165). As Daniels writes, work should also include domestic and child care activities that are currently carried

out in the private sphere, volunteer work in the public sphere, as well as emotion and "invisible" work in both the public and privatespheres. It should be recognized that "all these activities involve real work" (Daniels 1987,412; see also DeVault 1991; Friedson 1990;Kahn-Hut, Daniels, and Colvard 1982; Wadel 1979; Wallman 1979). Similarly, Armstrong and Armstrong argue that feminist theories of work "must consider all labor involved in acquiring what is deemed necessary for survival by different social classes in different racial andcultural groups and in different historical periods" (1990,13). There are two areas of scholarship through which feminist theorists haveattempted to broaden the definition of work.Family Work During the past 20 years, feminist scholars have attempted to excavate the nature, complexity, and skill involved in the work done in thesphere conventionally associated with leisure-the home. Attempts to gain recognition of these activities as work have included the focuson the ways in which domestic work is an integral part of capitalist economy (Adkins 1995; Bris]cin 1980; Finch 1983; Glazer 1993), thehazardous nature of this work (Rosenberg 1990), and the skill and energy it involves (Luxton 1990). DeVault, for example, focuses on theneed to recognize "doing a meal" as work. Feeding work is, in fact, the "staging of the . . . complex social events that we label meals"(1991, 35). In looking at feeding as work, DeVault is able to show how it involves not only cooking but also continuous attention to family
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=305&SQ=AUTHOR(Kiran%20Mirchandani)&SMR=1&SAid=0&SAName=sa_menu&JSEnabled=1&TS=1005862197http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=305&SQ=AUTHOR(Kiran%20Mirchandani)&SMR=1&SAid=0&SAName=sa_menu&JSEnabled=1&TS=1005862197http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=305&SQ=SUB(Work%20at%20home)&SMR=1&SAid=0&SAName=sa_menu&JSEnabled=1&TS=1005862197http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=305&SQ=SUB(Women)&SMR=1&SAid=0&SAName=sa_menu&JSEnabled=1&TS=1005862197http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=305&SQ=SUB(Employment)&SMR=1&SAid=0&SAName=sa_menu&JSEnabled=1&TS=1005862197http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=305&SQ=SUB(Definitions)&SMR=1&SAid=0&SAName=sa_menu&JSEnabled=1&TS=1005862197http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=305&SQ=SUB(Work%20at%20home)&SMR=1&SAid=0&SAName=sa_menu&JSEnabled=1&TS=1005862197http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=305&SQ=SUB(Women)&SMR=1&SAid=0&SAName=sa_menu&JSEnabled=1&TS=1005862197http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=305&SQ=SUB(Employment)&SMR=1&SAid=0&SAName=sa_menu&JSEnabled=1&TS=1005862197http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=305&SQ=SUB(Definitions)&SMR=1&SAid=0&SAName=sa_menu&JSEnabled=1&TS=1005862197http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=305&SQ=AUTHOR(Kiran%20Mirchandani)&SMR=1&SAid=0&SAName=sa_menu&JSEnabled=1&TS=1005862197


2/9

members' individual preferences, linking household needs to societal institutions through provisioning and caring about the nutrition of thefoods that family members consume. These activities take "thoughtful foresight, simultaneous attention to several different aspects of the

project, and a continuous openness to ongoing events and interaction" (DeVault 1991, SS). DeVault notes that many of these activities donot fit with narrow definitions of work that are based on the clear-cut dichotomization of social life into work or leisure, since much of family work seems to combine work and leisure. With a "broader understanding of work itself' (DeVault 1991, 237), the invisibledimensions of feeding and caring work can be acknowledged and its critical importance for group life recognized.In a similar way, Abel and Nelson (1990) identify caregiving as encompassing both caring about (affective relations) and caring for (instrumental tasks). Fisher and Tronto highlight the fact that all activities involve a caring dimension; caring is defined as "a speciesactivity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue and repair our 'world' (1990, 39-40); they note that time, materialresources, knowledge, and skill are preconditions for caring activity. By broadening the scope of caring to include a "whole range of

human activities that serve to sustain us" (1990, 40), Fisher and Tronto attempt to document the widespread prevalence of caring work,which is done predominantly by women and is seldom recognized as multidimensional, difficult, and sometimes contradictory (1990,3740). Hochschild (1983) similarly notes that just as jobs involve "feeling management," families too have emotional cultures that have to

be continually recreated. Hochschild focuses on the labor involved in "relating to a brooding adolescent, an obstreperous toddler, rivalingsiblings cr a retreating spouse" (1996, 28). Fishman (1982) draws attention to women's work in establishing and maintainingconversations; approaching interaction as work, she reveals the gendered division of labor in this work and argues that through theassumption that women naturally interact, the "idea that it is work is obscured" (1982,180). Finally, feminist scholars have documentedwomen's work in linking the public and private spheres. For example, Glazer notes that the work involved in "linking or knitting together for-profit enterprises and state programs with daily life" is often obscured and hidden from view (1993, 10); Daniels likewise argues thattailoring is "part of the invisible work in social life" (1987, 405).Emotion Work on the JobAnother approach to broadening the definition of work begins with the insight that many of the activities that are integral to individuals'

jobs are, in fact, not recognized as work. Adkins's study of the British tourist industry (1995) reveals the ways in which work in hotelmanagement requires managers to have wives, who do not have any employment contract but care for their husbands and families as wellas perform many of the routine and hidden administrative tasks, boost sales in pubs by doing "sexual work" (since men like to be served

by women), and cut the wage bill by being on call 24 hours a day. Women are encouraged to think of the hotel as their homes.Forms of emotion work are also illuminated by Hochschild in her study of flight attendants. Hochschild notes that management and

passengers expect flight attendants to continuously "induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that producesthe proper state of mind in others" (1983, 7). Building on Hochschild's analysis, Gubrium (1989) shifts the focus from expectations to theactual labor involved in emotion work and characterizes emotion work as a craft. Common to these approaches is the attempt to constructemotion work as an integral part of women's and men's jobs.These aspects of emotion work are particularly hidden in jobs that involve extensions of women's domestic responsibilities (Daniels 1987).Often considered a natural part of women's work, the skill and effort in emotion work is not acknowledged. Aronson and Neysmith, for example, study home care workers and note that emotional and practical work are inseparable in caring work. In fact, emotional labor isfrequently recognized as an integral part of the job by both caregivers and care receivers, yet there is "little space accorded to these in[home care workers'] job descriptions . . . [and workers are] not officially compensated for such time and effort" (1996, 67). Through ananalysis of child care workers, Rutman similarly notes that their competence and expertise as caregivers is seldom recognized, and thatfuture child care policy should rethink concepts of caring work so that "the more invisible, relational dimensions of caregiving are fullyand formally recognized" (1996, 646).In response to these compelling arguments lor the need for broader definitions of work, Wright (1995) develops a model of work thatattempts to move away from conventional dual-spheres approaches. On the basis of the experiences of rural women, she argues that labor can be conceptualized as a multidimensional continuum that ranges from formal labor market work, to informal sector work, to unpaidhousehold work . Wright argues that such an approach allows us to understand work as not only that which generates a wage but as thatwhich "generates benefits for women and their families" (1995, 231; see also Mies 1986).THE POLITICS OF THE BROADER DEFINITION OF WORK Underlying all these attempts to broaden the definition of work is the recognition of the negative consequences of a narrow view of theactivities in which women engage. First, as Waring (1995) notes, women may spend every minute of the day looking after the needs of their families, and yet they are recorded by national economists as "unproductive," "unoccupied," and "at leisure." This not only distortsand devalues much of women's work but also assumes that no assistance needs to be provided to women, and, as Glazer notes, "promote[s]the view of women as a `sponge,' capable of absorbing new responsibilities without dropping old ones" (1993, 12). Second, the exclusion

of many of women's activities from definitions of work supports the dichotomization of social life into "public" and "private" spheres,which, in turn, entrenches distinctions between "productive workers (men doing "real" work for wages) and nonproductive workers(women supporting, raising, and rehabilitating those real workers)" (Daniels 1987, 404). Third, women themselves do not treat theseactivities as work. Although women who do caring work, for example, may realize that their activities require time, skill, and planning,they lack a language for calling these activities work (Aronson and Neysmith 1996; DeVault 1991), especially in the context of the lack of societal recognition of these activities (Connelly and Armstrong 1992). This is augmented by societal assumptions that women have an"inherent" propensity toward these activities and they are women's natural responsibility (Aronson 1992; DeVault 1991; Fishman 1982).While much of the feminist literature to date has focused on the need to broaden the definitions of work, relatively little attention has beenfocused on the processes through which current restrictive notions of work continue to be maintained and reproduced. Underlying someexplanations for why women themselves do not label many of their activities as work is a construction of women as reactors to, rather thancreators of, new meanings of work.I argue instead that women's resistance to call certain of their activities "work" must be taken seriously. Its significance does not lie in their reluctance to use the word work. Rather, the fact that women sometimes construct boundaries between different forms of work suggests


3/9

that they do not wish to place their various activities into a single conceptual category. Hence, it is not the naming of this category that isof interest here but rather women's assumption that such a common category would allow for a lack of recognition of the value of their family and caring responsibilities.Resistance is conceptualized in the context of this article as women's avoidance of particular strategies of empowerment, many of whichhave been identified in the feminist literature. Collins notes the importance of recognizing women's multiple strategies of resistance, notonly warfare and revolt but also "doing something that `is not expected'" (1990, 92; see also Hochschild 1983). In a related fashion,Ribbens draws attention to the importance of women's lack of response to questions posed by a researcher. She notes, for example, that toask, " `Did you plan to have your first child?' is to ask something women may not wish to answer unambiguously," signaling theinappropriateness of the language of rational planning for discussions on family life (1994, 60). These comments are mindful of the needto do research and consider the consequences of proposed theoretical directions starting from the everyday experiences of women.

Teleworkers in the present sample are highly paid salaried employees who work at home. Insofar as the physical location of their work and other activities is the same (the home), and that they have a high degree of autonomy in how they organize their work, they themselvescreate the boundary around the concept of work. Teleworkers reproduce and maintain notions of work on a daily basis. For all teleworkersin the present study, work at home is a voluntary arrangement; many of these women have actively lobbied their employers to be allowedto work at home, and they believe that their work and family lives are greatly enhanced by telework. While the experiences of this groupcannot be generalized to all workers, they provide insight into how the concept of work might be broadened and raise questions as wellabout its desirability.METHODThe SampleOpen-ended interviews were conducted between July 1993 and June 1994 with 30 female teleworkers living in Toronto, Ottawa, andMontreal. ' A snowball method was used to locate teleworkers, and individuals who met certain criteria were included in the study. Onlythose who were salaried employees of companies were interviewed. This criteria ensured a homogeneity in the employment conditions of the respondents. In addition, the sample for the present study was limited to individuals who were in occupations that were traditionallyoffice based; this allowed respondents to compare their experience of working at home and working in a central office (e.g., academics or real estate agents were excluded). Teleworkers doing overtime work at home were also excluded from the sample; only those who workedat home in lieu of office-based work were interviewed. Since these women worked at home during traditional work hours, they regularlystructured their lives to accommodate their paid work activities within their homes.Within these criteria, attempts were made to achieve a degree of heterogeneity within the sample. Women from 16 different organizations(in both the public and private sectors) were interviewed; they performed a variety of jobs in management (business managers, projectmanagers), administration (auditors, researchers, editors), natural and applied sciences (computer programmers, systems analysts), andsales (marketing representatives, sales representatives).2 Three women in the sample did paid work for less than 30 hours a week; theremainder worked full-time. On average, these teleworkers earned Can$50,000 a year, although their incomes ranged from Can$21,000 toCan$77,000.In terms of demographic characteristics, the sample was similarly varied. Half of the women were between 35 and 44 years old, a littlemore than one-quarter were below 35, and the remainder were over 44 years of age. Only 6 percent of the sample were "visibleminorities." While this represents a significant limitation of the sample, it also underscores the fundamental differences between this groupof workers and "homeworkers" (pieceworkers) who are predominantly immigrant women (Johnson and Johnson 1982). Two-thirds of thewomen in the sample were living with their partners; almost all of these were in dual-earner families. Nineteen of the 30 womeninterviewed had children, and 14 of these women had children aged 6 and under. Four women were providing elder care.About one-third of the cohabiting women in the sample say that they have spouses who share equally in the domestic work. Despite this, itwas women who continued to be responsible for managing child care arrangements. Only three women (all doing part-time paid work)

provided child care or elder care while they were engaged in paid work; the remainder had day care or home care workers to provide carefor part of the day.The InterviewsIndividuals who met the criteria were contacted and asked to participate in an interview about their teleworking experiences. Allinterviews were voluntary, and respondents were ensured confidentiality. On average, interviews lasted about 90 minutes and wereconducted in person, in teleworkers' homes, at their central offices, or in restaurants. An "interview guide approach" was used, where thegeneral topics and issues to be covered were determined in advance, but the exact wording and sequence of the questions were decided inthe course of the interview (Patton 1990, 228). This method allowed me to "create space for the respondents to provide accounts rooted inthe realities of their lives" (DeVault 1990, 98). The interview guide contained five sections: Work ]History (how individuals came to be

teleworking), Nature of Work (job tasks and a "typical" day), Strengths and Weakness of Telework, Effects on Personal Li.fe(relationships with family members and friends, division of household responsibility), and Plans for the Future. Often I found thatindividuals' responses to the opening question of each interview (on how they came to be teleworking) provided the structure for the order in which I would raise the issues on the interview guide. Respondents were asked to complete a short demographic questionnaire at theend of the interview. All interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded in-depth (Strauss and Corbin 1990). A computer software package (The Ethnograph) was used to aid in the later part of the data analysis.PROTECTING "WORK"In the beginning of this research project, I expected to come across examples of women broadening the definition of work. These womenhad chosen to work at home to ease the stress they attributed to office-based work. Many experienced severe time constraints with office-

based work; as one woman says, "you can't slip five minutes this way or that because it can throw everybody off." I expected these womento demand a recognition of the real work involved in fulfilling their domestic and child care responsibilities. In lobbying their employers tointroduce telework policies, these women were demanding such recognition, yet, once at home, teleworkers set up extremely rigiddistinctions between what they called their work and their household responsibilities; in :fact, they narrowed the meaning of work to


4/9

include only a small group of activities directly related to measurable work goals. Consequently, this project looks at why and how womendo telework and how they resist the broadening of the definition of work."The Laundry Sort of Happens Itself"-Doing Family Work Teleworkers' experiences provide vivid illustrations of the nuanced and multifaceted nature of the family work done by women. Althoumost of the women with children or elderly relatives do not provide child care or elder care during the paid workday, they stress thatworking at home allows them to effectively care for, as well as care about (Abel and Nelson 1990), their families. Caring for their familiesoften involves being able to provide occasional care for a sick child (this "caring for" clearly cannot be neatly separated from "caringabout"). As one woman with two school-age children says, "not worrying is [a] big asset for me. Being far away [at the central office] Iwas always worried that I was not there when the kids got up in the morning [especially] if they had a temperature." Women appreciate theability to work at home, making them accessible for the provision of such care. It also means, however, that they do not need to take leave

to meet these obligations. A woman with a two-year-old child says, "if my daughter got sick . . . then instead of a totally wasted day, Ihave . . . some things that could keep me busy while she's sleeping." Caring also sometimes involves the restructuring of paid work timesaround family time, as one woman with a 1-year-old says:I have staggered my hours so that I still sort of get to do Mom things. I work from 7:00 in the morning until about 1:00, and I take [mychild] to day care during that time. And then I pick him up and we have the afternoon. When my husband gets home, I carry on working inthe evening.Aside from caring for their children in these ways, women spoke extensively about how telework allows them to care about their families.This caring about involves being part of the significant moments of their children's lives (and indeed creating these moments assignificant). One woman says,I can walk my daughter to school and talk to her teacher, which I normally [when I do not telework] don't have time to do... If there is anassembly at school and I want to take an hour and go watch my kids sing in the Christmas concert, I can do that.Another woman with a 16-year-old daughter notes, "If I have a special occasion . . . my daughter wants to go shopping. Well, I'll take anafternoon and I'll go shopping with her. I'll work that night, or another night," Hochschild characterizes families as having a "sacred coreof private rituals and shared meanings" and "secondary zones of less important daily, weekly, seasonal rituals which back up these corerituals" (1996, 20). Together these form "the ritual core of family life" (1996, 21). She argues that with work-family speed up, fewer family rituals get accomplished. In talking to teleworkers, however, I saw little evidence of the fact that their family lives were becomingderitualized. Instead, teleworkers seem to consciously and continuously recreate family rituals. One woman, for example, says that withtelework, her relationship to her two school-age children has changed: "I see them grow . . . I can give them a kiss in the morning nowwhich I couldn't do before . . . I can check on them-how they dress, see what they eat, check their lunch boxes." Another woman says,I get to have breakfast with my kids [before they go to day care] . . . it is a lot more relaxed [and] leisurely. You get to spend some timetogether. I usually pick them up by 4:30 or 5:00 and they can help me make dimler and we can do things together.In fact, this reaffirmation of family life often involves creating as much houseworkfree family time as possible. Work around laundry is

particularly rescheduled. One woman, who does part-time paid work while caring for her two pre-school children, says, "I'm trying to getaway from [leaving the laundry till the weekends] . . . so that Saturdays are for the family. Saturday and Sunday are for the family to livetogether." Another woman who does full-time telework and has three school-age children says,I don't do my spring cleaning in the middle of the day. . but I do enough to keep on top of everything.... Laundry's mostly done ... thenthere's ironing.... Whereas before [I started teleworking] the whole weekend[ you just dreaded because you would have to do it all.It is clear, therefore, that these women perceive telework as a strategy through which they can ease some of the pressure of their "doubleday of labor" (Hamilton 1996, 174). At the same time, teleworkers do not label the care they provide for their families as work. For example, some women talk about the family work they do as a "break" from work. One woman caring for a teenage son and a parent says,"Sometimes you need a break. . . I might go out and water the garden . . . or I may go down and put a load of washing in the laundry . . or Imight go and do my mother's hair, she's [sick] . . . so the breaks that I take are things that I have to do anyways." Another woman notes,"Sometimes I just need a break . . . it's kind of relaxing because you accomplish the [wash and vacuum] and it gets your mind off work."The effort involved in coordinating and doing family work is de-emphasized and defined as "no big deal." One woman says, "When I takea break, the laundry room is just next door. I can do a load of laundry-it's no big deal. I can sweep the floor . . . supper is no longer astruggle." Another notes, "I can't stop and do [all] the housework, but the laundry sort of happens itself." Often teleworkers compare thetime it takes them to do this work to the time they "waste" in the office environment. One woman who began to telework four months agosays,I have no difficulty in justifying working at my desk [at home] and I hear that the washing machine is done and putting [the clothes] in thedryer. Because in my mind . . . I know . . . that [at the central office] going down for coffee takes me seven minutes and that is not even

considered a break.Three points arise from this evidence of teleworkers' family work . First, although teleworkers do not refer to their household activities as"work" (calling them "breaks" which help them to "relax"), they also do not refer to these activities as leisure (they are things that one hasto "accomplish" or "do anyways"). Hargreaves notes that leisure has historically been defined as "the polar opposite" (1989:136) of paidemployment serving primarily to refresh workers so that they can return to their jobs. Parallel to the masculine work norm is a masculineleisure norm within which little attention is paid to the ways in which unpaid family work affects individuals' experience of leisure (Deem1990; Wearing and Wearing 1988). In this context, teleworking women define their family work neither as "work" nor as that whichreplenishes them for work. Family work occupies an "in-between space" (Doucet and Mirchandani 1997) for which there is littlelanguage outside of the discourses of work or leisure.Second, given that these women adopt and lobby for the opportunity to work at home specifically so that they can do family work , it isworth exploring why they avoid using the common label of "work" to refer to both paid and family activities. Their reluctance to broadenthe definition of work to include the in-between space that family work occupies suggests that women may not perceive the broadening of the definition of work as a strategy that will automatically result in the greater validation of their family work . Glazer notes that while


5/9

social theorists often attempt to treat socially valued activities as work in an attempt to gain respect for those who perform these activities,the relabeling of activities as work can serve little use with little change in the material conditions of life (1993, 36-37). In fact,teleworkers' reluctance to label their family work as work suggests that there may be certain dangers accompanying the expansivedefinition of work.Teleworking women frequently maintain the boundaries between their paid and family work and identify several "costs" that wouldaccompany the dissolution of these boundaries. Women mention, for example, the need to reinforce the separateness of paid and familywork to control the extent to which their paid work "invades" their family activities. One woman with pre-school children says, "You'renever away from your work [when you work at home] . . . I felt that I was on duty twenty-four hours a day . . . you felt that because youworked from home, they could invade your life anytime they wanted." Another woman with a one-yearold son notes,I was feeling very keenly a sense of intrusion into my house. I had my . . . family around me and my work was a bothersome knock at the

door . . . couriers showing up, a telephone line ringing, a fax machine going in the middle of the night . . . [I thought] that this was not . . .a pristine environment, that I had sullied it . . . I think I really wanted to feel that there was some place 1 could hide and be with my family. . . I want[ed] this house to be ours, not part of my work.A woman who works as a program assistant said she preferred to check her voice mail on her office phone rather than giving her hometelephone number out because, "I think there are a lot of people who would abuse [having my home telephone number]. I would be gettingcalls at 9:00 at night because some catastrophe has happened [which] . . . could have very easily been dealt with in the morning."By maintaining a separation between their paid and family work , women also challenge the assumption that they can do paid work whilesimultaneously caring for their children. One woman notes that she routinely receives phone calls from colleagues at home, even on dayswhen she is officially on leave. Describing one such day when her daughter was sick, she says,It was just like Grand Central Station in here . . . it was stressful . . . my daughter [was] crying in the background. . . and I had threedifferent people from work wanting input from me . . . they figure I'm here and if it's just going to take a minute then I won't mind toomuch . That was the one day I finally said this is too much.She partly blames herself for this situation, though, saying it arose because "I want to be a bit flexible too because [the work has tocontinue even if] I'm not available . . . so I kind of let the boundary slip. . and there were some that were taking advantage of that."

Not only do women maintain the boundary between paid and family work to control the extent to which they are assumed to be endlesslyavailable to their colleagues; they also do so to diminish the negative effect of the location of paid work in their homes on members of their family. One woman, for example, says that she does not accept calls after a certain time or have meetings at home. She has a 13-year-old son, and says,When he comes in at about 3:30 . . . I don't want to be on a conference call, or have people there [because]. . . he might bring his friendshome. . I don't want to disallow him to have his family life . . . I don't want to, make it a business environment for [him].Another woman says that she avoids working outside of business hours, because "if [your family is] sitting down at the kitchen table andyou want everybody to shut up because you're working every night. . . I don't think it would be fair to them."In these ways, although teleworkers do both paid and unpaid work when they work at home, they maintain a boundary between these twotypes of activities. They do this, it can be seen, to resist assumptions made by their supervisors and colleagues that they are "endlesslyavailable to work" (Seron and Ferris 1995, 23) and that their home is an extension of the organization. These assumptions are no doubtaugmented by the fact that teleworkers are continually present at their workplaces (their homes).Teleworkers' need to "protect" the intrusion of the organization into their family lives coexists with their need to constantly stress thelegitimacy of the paid work that they do in their homes. Nearly all teleworking women interviewed noted that they are often perceived byfriends, family, and even colleagues to not be working because they do their paid work in the sphere traditionally associated with leisure.They feel that they are perceived as "having a day off," "being on holidays," "goofing off," "getting away with something," "watchingsoaps," "doing a woman's thing," "being in weekend mode," "being on vacation," and "cheating." In the context of this perception of telework, women have to constantly legitimize their paid work activities and label them as reaL work. One woman, whose parents are in anursing home, notes, "Because I'm at home they don't understand that I still have a job." Another woman, who had been teleworking for about a year, recounts the typical reaction of her peers to her arrangement: "You meet somebody you haven't seen for months and they say,'I haven't seen you for a while. What happened to you?' and you say, 'I work at home.' And they go, `Aren't you lucky. You can watch TV.You can clean. You can cook.' "Other women wonder if their colleagues think that they are, in fact, caring for their families whileteleworking; a mother of a one-year-old worries that her colleagues may be saying, "she's a Mom. The kid's probably home. They're

playing and she's not doing anything."Teleworkers' comments reveal that broadening the definition of work to include family work clearly has accompanying costs. As thisdiscussion reveals, teleworkers face the continuing threat of being perceived by their coworkers as always available to fulfill

organizational needs or, simultaneously, as illegitimate organizational members. Teleworking women protect: the boundary of work as away to control both of these threats.A third point about teleworkers' family work relates to the nature of the "double bind" that arises from their "double day" (Gannage 1986).While teleworkers perceive certain costs associated with broadening the definition of work to include family work , they simultaneouslyrecognize the limitations of conventionally held narrow definitions of work that assume that work is separate from the rest of life, that ithas first claim on the worker, and that caring for families is "outside job and organizational boundaries" (Acker 1992, 257). Indeed, theexperiences of teleworking women suggest that women's strategies of managing their double days often involve choices betweenimperfect solutions. By avoiding the label of work to refer to their family work , teleworkers often maintain the invisibility of the skill and

planning that these activities involve. If they were to not avoid this label, however, they would risk diminishing the seriousness with whichtheir paid work is treated by colleagues, friends, and family. In the same way, by avoiding the label of work for their family work ,teleworkers reinforce the notion of the home as an essentially private, extraorganizational space. On the other hand, if they were to stressthe continuity of their paid and unpaid work, they would face the risk of exposing their homes to continual organizational intervention.Indeed, teleworkers' experiences reinforce Christensen's observation that it is a "cruel illusion" that "a woman will be able to resolve [her


6/9

work and family problems] by simply changing the place where she works" (1988, 6). It is clear that women may face risks from both theintegration and the separation of the spheres."Things Not of a Real Work Nature"Several theorists have focused on the central role of emotion work in "frontline service" jobs (Wharton 1993; see also Armstrong andArmstrong 1990; Ashforth and Humphrey 1993; Hochschild 1983), many of which are in occupations predominated by women (Aronsonand Neysmith 1996; Gubrium 1989; Heimer and Stevens 1997; Rutman 1996). Certain job tasks in particular have been identified asrequiring employees to do high levels of emotion work. These include tasks involving the care of others (Aronson and Neysmith 1996),"boundary-spanning" tasks where people represent their organizations to individuals outside the organization (Ashforth and Humphrey1993, 90; Fineman 1996, 555), tasks that involve voice or facial contact with others or close collaboration with work teams (Hochschild1983, 144; Van Maanen and Kunda 1989, 56), or tasks in which employees are expected to "foster a particular emotional climate during

occupational interactions" (Erickson and Wharton 1997, 191).The teleworkers interviewed for the present study do not occupy frontline service roles; their jobs do, however, involve interactions withcolleagues, supervisors, or customers. Their experiences shed light on the ways in which certain activities become defined as peripheraleven if important to many jobs. In changing the context within which they do their paid work from a central office to the home,teleworkers "name" various aspects of emotion work and recognize that they do not do these tasks in the same ways when they work athome. Interestingly, they go on to argue that these tasks are, in fact, not part of their jobs, even though they are important. In this way,these women clearly identify interaction and emotion work as important but do not broaden definitions of work to include these activities.The reasons for this exclusion are explored throughout this section.Teleworkers frequently compare their experiences of doing their paid work at a central office and doing this same work at home andidentify most types of on-the-job interaction and emotion work as "waste." This waste includes social interaction with their colleagues aswell as ad hoc meetings on work issues. One teleworker, who works two days a week at home, says that in the office, "I feel like I've . . .wasted time . . . I bumped into you in the hall and we chatted about something or I went down for a coffee . . . you just feel that was awaste." Another woman similarly notes that in the office,Everybody. . . is talking out in the hall and the photocopier is there and the fax is there and people congregate and talk about everything

but work. And the people beside me [are] ... asking me questions and it's hard to concentrate.... There is nothing wrong with being face toface with somebody. . but a lot of it is unnecessary.Some women also recognize that emotion in the workplace often takes the form of office politics. One woman said that she asked to work at home because she was having difficulties in her personal life and in the office "there is a lot of politics, gossip. It's just annoying."Another woman notes that "when things become very political or heated in an office environment .. I like being a teleworker because I canavoid that." Wadel (1979) argues that the maintenance of a work community often requires effort and this effort is frequently trivialized.Accordingly, these forms of interaction in the office environment are largely conceptualized as hindering women's ability to do their "real

jobs." Women clearly recognize that these are the unpaid and unrecognized aspects of their jobs. As one woman working as a systemsanalyst says, "I classify my work as a developmental role . . . I don't get any of that done when I'm here [at the office], I'm usually talkingto people. . . people are walking by and they ask questions they could have easily found out themselves." Another woman working as aconsultant notes, "Our job is supposed to be strategic in design. That's what we're supposed to get paid for . . . a small proportion of it issupposed to be interruptions and day-to-day support." In their attempts to define the emotion work they do on the job as "waste,"teleworkers resist the expectation that they should automatically perform various caring and relational activities for their employers. Theyrecognize that this work largely benefits the organization. As one woman (an Editor) put it,[Being at home] allowed me to get further ahead than anybody else in the office because I wasn't being slowed down by meetings . . . notgoing to meetings enabled me to get as far ahead as I did in planning and organizing my own work . . . the meeting wasn't contributing. . .to my production, but my presence at the meeting was contributing to a general sense of coherence in the organization.This reluctance to perform such activities does not suggest that all teleworkers identify emotion work on the job as unimportant. Thewoman quoted above, for example, goes on to say,The random corridor encounters with people that say-"God, I'd like your opinion on this"-that's part of what makes my heart beat . . . as a

professional . . . it's not just the fulfillment of. . work that you feel contributes to the world . . . it's hanging out at the water cooler withyour colleagues.This tension between defining social interactions as both important and not part of their jobs is expressed by a sales trainee in these terms:For me, personally it [social interactions with colleagues] happens to be a very important thing . . . you have to believe that is part of your

job description whether it's written down on a piece of paper or not. I recognize the value of human contact on a nonbusiness level as being helpful to me business- ise as well as personal[ly]. So it has to be a conscious effort.

When she worked in the office environment, however, this woman says that she was so busy trying to get her work tasks completed that "Ididn't feel that I had the energy level or anything valuable to contribute in terms of socializing at the office." Now working at home for four days a week, she says that when she does go to the office, "I make the time for . . . that socializing. Because I have a certainty aboutthe other tasks that I have to perform and how they are well organized. I feel comfortable, I feel safe, I feel secure about taking the time totalk to people." While recognizing that social interaction should be seen as part of the job description, this woman also clearly recognizesthat she needs to be "secure" about having her other job tasks organized before taking the time to "`contribute" to the socializing at theworkplace.Teleworkers do not, it can be seen, lobby for these tasks to be formally recognized as part of their work. Generally extremely positiveabout telework, they strive to have more, rather than less, of their jobs definable within the terms of clearly measurable outcomes, since itis these tasks that can most easily be supervised remotely. These women seem to recognize that the inclusion of thus far "invisible" work into definitions of work could be used to bolster organizational resistance to telework.


7/9

They describe much of this resistance to telework as evidence of the prevalence of an "old school" of management within which employeevisibility is a precondition to effective supervision. One woman with a long commute to the workplace asked to telework two years ago.She notes, however, thatthere is a very big amount of trust involved in letting a person work at home from a supervisor's point of view and a lot of old-stylemanagerS[do not like it] if they can't see you working. It's a very look, see, feel type of attitude that a lot of people have.Another woman says, "Some people think that to manage, they have to see the person." Many women are also aware that some ot their

peers are resistant to work-at-home arrangements because they perceive teleworkers as less available to do emotion work on the job (rather than because teleworkers Porkers are less productive in terms of their measurable work outputs). One women says, for example, "I find ina work group people like to see your face . . . I'm not exactly sure [why, but that is how] they assess your value to the team." Another notesthat some people at her office "expect to be able to go to [her] desk and they're not used to somebody not being there." Knowing that her

ability to work: at home is dependent on approval from those at her workplace, one woman who lobbied for months to be allowed to work at home notes,[Some of my peers] think. . if you want to work, [you should]be prepared to come into the office like the rest of us and spend the time onthe highway. . . [so] one of the things that I've tried to do . . . is to minimize any inconvenience and disruption to people back at the office-like the support staff and my supervisors. . . I'm trying to minimize that because I figure if it becomes an inconvenience for someone. . .

people are going to resent it and management may say "no."While teleworkers recognize the importance of emotion work on the job, therefore, they also realize that such work, to the many "old-stylemanagers" who surround them and to some of their peers, could be seen as a justification to require employees' presence at the workplace.Teleworkers' emphatic identification of emotion work as "waste" therefore serves as a strategy through which they protect their ability towork at home.The exclusion of certain activities from work also gives teleworkers the opportunity to recreate emotion work on the job on their ownterms. In this, they challenge the notion that emotion work requires their physical presence at the workplace. Several teleworkers who feelthat emotion work may not be part of their jobs but remains important develop their own methods of interacting remotely with their peers.One woman who never goes into a central office says, "I have found a way of compensating for [not having the interaction] . . . I just pick up the phone and talk to [one of the people I work with] about things that have nothing to do with the job. And we'll talk for 10 minutes. . .and that's my office chitchat." Another woman notes,When you transfer expertise. . . to other individuals and go back and forth, you're giving them ideas creatively . . . that's kind of a hiddenthing but [being at home and not having that] I could see that being a potential problem. . . I decided one day. . maybe it is up to me. So Istated phoning and asking questions [even for small things].... They got used to me [just] phoning.In a situation where receiving formal recognition of aspects of their work often also involves greater organizational control over their work situations, women resist rather than promote such a strategy.The experiences of teleworking women suggest that there is a need for reflection on the different strategies that facilitate the recognition of work done by women in various occupations. For the women in the sample of teleworkers interviewed, broadening the definition of "work" to include emotion work affords little benefit and may potentially curtail their ability to choose their place of work. For women in

jobs in which caring work is central, such as home care work, elder care, or nursing, the need for the inclusion and appropriateremuneration of emotion work may outweigh the risks that teleworkers highlight. While most theoretical reflection on emotion work todate has focused on frontline service jobs, the present research suggests that there is much to be gained from comparisons betweenemotion work done by these and other groups of workers. In particular, comparisons between women in different occupations may revealthat their strategies to gain recognition for their work may not only be diverse but also sometimes contradictory (where advances made byone group of women may not represent advances for all women).CONCLUSIONThis article has focused on some of the difficulties associated with expanding the concept of work. While the broadening of the definitionof work may challenge the devaluation of women's lives, such a broadening also involves the placing of various activities into a commoncategory. Through an analysis of the experiences of teleworkers, it is clear that women themselves sometimes resist an expansive notion of work. First, women are wary of the organizational intrusion into family life that may accompany the closer association between paid work and family or emotion work. Second, women are unable and unwilling to compromise the legitimacy of their paid work, which has often

been achieved through much struggle; they view the loss of this legitimacy as a real cost to drawing attention to their other work activities.Third, women recognize that emotion work in the office can sometimes take the form of office politics and harassment, and they see thisas wasteful. Fourth, teleworkers worry that a greater recognition of emotion work on the job may be used as justification for greater management control over their activities, which would give them less individual freedom to determine their work settings.

The empirical evidence suggests the need for reaffirmation of the importance of context in theoretical debates on the broadening of thedefinition of work and the recognition that different experiences of oppression for women are likely to give rise to different, andsometimes contradictory, conceptions of liberation (Ramazanoglu 1989). Several projects require future research attention. Twocomparative studies are important, one comparing women working in service and nonservice occupations, and a second comparing womenof color or women of lower socioeconomic status doing home-based piecework and predominantly white, highly paid teleworkers.More discussion is needed on the redefinition of work to include the invisible work done by women. Indeed, to talk of women's resistancesto the broadening of work is really to explore the mechanisms that keep the masculine work norm in place. While much feminist theoryhas focused on the need to broaden what we call work, the experiences of teleworking women suggest that more reflection is needed onthe interrelated structures through which narrow definitions of work are maintained and reproduced, and the risks that might sometimesaccompany a more expansive notion of work.[Footnote]

NOTES


8/9

[Footnote]1. For this project, interviews were conducted with both female and male teleworkers. This article, however, focuses only on theinterviews with women. This is primarily because I am interested in how teleworkers define work in the context of the fact that theyassume primary responsibility for the family activities of domestic work and child care.2. Teleworkers jobs can be broadly classified as professional work. Seron and Ferris (1995) argue that distinguishing features of

professional work are autonomy and control over work, and given that these conditions accurately describe teleworkers' jobs, their work can be defined as professional.

[Reference]REFERENCES

[Reference]Abel, E. K., and M. K. Nelson. 1990. Circles of care: Work and identity in women's lives. Albany: State University of New York Press.Acker, J. 1992. Gendering organizational theory. In Gendering organizational analysis, edited by A. J. Mills and P. Tancred. NewburyPark, CA: Sage.Adkins, L. 1995. Gendered work-Sexuality, family and the labor market. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.Armstrong, P, and H. Armstrong.1990. Theorizing women's work. Toronto, Canada: Garamond. Aronson, J. 1992. Women's sense of responsibility for the care of old people: "But who else is going to do it?" Gender dc Society 6:8-29.Aronson, J., and S. M. Neysmith. 1996. "You're not just in there to do the work": Depersonalizing policies and the exploitation of homecare workers' labor. Gender & Society 10:56-77.Ashforth, B. E., and R. H. Humphrey. 1993. Emotional labor in service roles: The influence of identity. Academy of Management Review18:88-115.Briskin, L. 1980. Domestic labor: A methodological discussion. In Hidden in the household, edited by B. Fox. Ottawa, Canada: Women'sPress.Christensen, K. 1988. Women and home-based work: The unspoken contract. New York: Henry Holt.Collins, P. H. 1990. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York: Routledge.

[Reference]Connelly, P., and P. Armstrong, eds. 1992. Feminism in action. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press.Daniels, A. K. 1987. Invisible work. Social Problem.r 34:4C13-15.Deem, R.1990. Gender, work and leisure in the eighties-Looking backwards, looking forwards. Work, Employment and Society. SpecialIssue (May): 103-23.De Vault, M. L.1990. Talking and listening from women's standpoint: Feminist strategies for interviewing and analysis. Social Problems37(1): 96-116.DeVault, M. L.1991. Feeding the family: The social organization of caring as gendered work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Doucet, A., and K. Mirchandani.1997. In-between spaces: Flow to speak about and theorize the invisible aspects of household life. Sessionorganized at the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association annual meetings, St. Johns, New Foundland, Canada.Erickson, R. J., and A. Wharton. 1997. Inauthenticity and depression: Assessing the consequences of interactive service work. Work andOccupations 24:188-213. Ferree, M. M. 1990. Beyond separate spheres: Feminism and family research. Journal of Marriage and theFamily 52, November: 866-84.

[Reference]Finch, J. 1983. Married to the job: Wives ' incorporation in men's work. London: Allen and Unwin. Fineman, S. 1996. Emotion andorganizing. In Handbook of organization studies, edited by S. R. Clegg,C. Hardy, and W. R. Nord Newton. London: Sage.Fisher, B., and J. Tronto. 1990. Toward a feminist theory of caring. In Circles of care: work and identity in women's lives, edited by E. K.Abel and M. K. Nelson. Albany: State University of New York Press.Fishman, P. M. 1982. Interaction: The work women do. In 'Women and work: Problems and perspectives, edited by R. Kahn-Hut, A. K.Daniels, and R. Colvard. New York: Oxford University Press. Friedson, E. 1990. Labors of love in theory and practice: A prospectus. InThe nature of work Sociological perspectives, edited by K. Erikson and S. P. Vallas. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

[Reference]Gannage, C. 1986. Double day double bind: Women garment workers. Toronto, Canada: The Women's Press.Glazer, N. Y. 1993. Women's paid and unpaid labor: The work transfer in health care and retailing. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Gray, M., Hodson, N., and G. Gordon. 1994. Teleworking explained. Sussex, UK: Wiley.Gubrium, J. F. 1989. Emotion work and emotive discourse in the Alzheimer's disease experience. Current Perspectives on Aging and theLife Cycle 3:243-68.Hamilton, R.1996. Gendering the vertical mosaic: Feminist perspectives on Canadian society. Toronto, Canada: Copp Clark.Harding, S. 1992. Rethinking standpoint epistemology: What is strong objectivity. Centennial Review 36:437-70.

[Reference]Hargreaves, J. 1989. The promise and problems of women's leisure and sport. In Leisure for leisure: Critical essays, edited by C. Rojek.


9/9

London: Macmillan.Heimer, C. A., and L. Stevens. 1997. Caring for the organization: Social workers as frontline risk managers in neonatal intensive careunits. Work and Occupations 24:133-63. Hochschild, A.1983. The managed heart. Berkeley: University of California Press. . 1996. Theemotional geography of work and family life. In Gender relations in public and private: New research perspectives, edited by L. Morrisand L. E. Stina. London: Macmillan. Huws, U. 1988. Remote possibilities: Some difficulties in the analysis and quantification of telework in the UK. In Telework: Present situation and future development ofa new form ofwork organization, edited by W. B. Korte, S. Robinson,and W. J. Steinle. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Johnson, L., and R. E. Johnson. 1982. The seam allowance. Toronto, Canada: The Women'sPress. Kahn-Hut, R., Daniels, A. K., and R. Colvard.1982. Women and work: Problems and perspectives. New York: Oxford UniversityPress.Kobayashi, A., Peake, L., Benenson, H., and K. Pickles. 1994. Placing women and work. In Women, work and place, edited by A.

Kobayashi. Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queens. Luxton, M. 1990. Two hands for the clock: Changing pattems in the gendered division of labor in the home. In Through the kitchen window, edited by M. Luxton, H. Rosenberg, and S. Arat-Koc. 2d ed. Toronto, Canada:Garamond.

[Reference]Mies, M. 1986. Patriarchy and accumulation on a world scale. London: Zed.Mirchandani, K. 1996. Living in the office: Telework and its critical reflection of the public-private dichotomy. Ph.D. diss., McGillUniversity, Montreal, Canada.Patton, M. Q. 1990. Qualitative evaluation and research methods. 2d ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Pratt, J. H. 1987. Methodological problems in surveying the home-based workforce. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 31:49-60.Ramazanoglu, C. 1989. Feminism and the contradictions of oppression. London: Routledge.Ribbens, J. 1994. Mothers and their children: A feminist sociology of child rearing. London: Sage.Rosenberg, H. 1990. The home is a workplace: Hazards, stress and pollutants in the household. In Through the kitchen window, edited byM. Luxton, H. Rosenberg, and S. Arat-Koc. 2d ed. Toronto, Canada: Garamond.

[Reference]Rutman, D. 1996. Childcare as women's work: Workers' experiences of powerfulness and powerlessness. Gender & Society 10:629-49.Seron, C., and K. Ferris. 1995. Negotiating professionalism: The gendered social capital of flexible time. Work and Occupations 22:22-47.

Siroonian, J. 1993. Work arrangements. Analytic Rep. no. 6. Ottawa: Statistics CanadaSmith, D. E. 1987. The everyday world as problematic. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.Strauss, A., and J. Corbin. 1990. Basics of qualitative research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Tancred, P. 1995. Women's work: A challenge to the sociology of work. Gender, Work and Organization 2:11-20.

[Reference]Van Maanen, 1., and G. Kunda. 1989. "Real feelings": Emotional expression and organizational culture. Research in OrganizationalBehavior 11:43-103.Wadel, C. 1979. The hidden work of everyday life. In Social anthropology of work, edited by S. Wallman. London: Academic Press.Wallman, S. 1979. Social anthropology of work. New York: Academic Press. Waring, M. 1995. Interviews in Who's counting. NationalFilm Board of Canada. Wearing, B., and S. Wearing. 1988. "All in a day's leisure": Gender and the concept of leisure. Leisure Studies7:111-23.Wright, M. M. 1995. "I never did any fieldwork, but I milked an awful lot of cows!" Using rural women's experience to reconceptualizemodels of work. Gender & Society 9:216-35.

[Author note]KIRAN MIRCHANDANISt. Mary's University, Canada

[Author note]

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A version of this article was presented as a paper at the 1997 annual meeting of the American SociologicalAssociation in Toronto. I would like to th,nk Peta Tancred for her guidance throughout this research project, as well as Nona Y Glazer,Janet M. Hunt, and Beth E. Schneider for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

[Author note]REPRINT REQUESTS: Kiran Mirchandani, Department of Management, St. Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3C3;e-mail:[email protected].

[Author note]Kiran Mirchandani is on the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada's (SSHRC)postdoctoral fellowship in thedepartment of management at St. Mary's University. She holds a PhD. in sociology from McGill University and has published articles ongender and work. Her current research is on home-based business ownership in Atlantic Canada.

teleworker insights on the expansive concept of work

Documents