Exploring smart workers’ willingness to sacrifice and its managerial entrepreneurship implications towards a new mobility paradigm

Abstract

Smart working has been the subject of extensive research over the past years, but it has become a hot topic following the Covid19 due to its impact not only on human resources and management, but also on mobility patterns. The pandemic highlighted the critical role of entrepreneurship in adapting to new work modalities, pushing organizations to innovate and reevaluate their smart working strategies and its implications on mobility. Where initial studies suggested that smart working could enhance mobility by reducing commute trips, recent studies are concluding that smart working has a limited impact on mobility improvement for various reasons, including an increase of usage of private car over public transport. To provide further insights over this topic, this empirical research aims to evaluate if smart workers are willing to spend more resources (monetary and temporal) in its mode of transport decision-making and, to identify factors that may moderate the smart worker willingness to dedicate more resources. To address this research targets, a conceptual model has been developed and has been tested in a sample of 338 smart workers in Madrid through Structural Equation Modelling. The research findings confirm that (i) smart workers tend to use private car for commuting for non- smart working days, (ii) that smart workers are willing to spend more money and time trip, especially more money, but (iii) to a certain extent. These findings provide new insights into this field, revealing significant entrepreneurship implications as enterprises must develop strategies and policies fostering the new social and mobility context.