Skip to ContentGo to accessibility pageKeyboard shortcuts menu
OpenStax Logo
Psychology

Introduction

PsychologyIntroduction

A collage of three color photographs is shown. From left to right appear a person in front of a laptop computer sitting outdoors, a person sitting on the floor with a laptop, and a person sitting on the couch with a small child and a laptop.
Figure 13.1 What does an office look like? For people who telecommute, their workspace may be adapted to fit their lifestyle. (credit: “left”: modification of work by Cory Zanker; credit “center”: modification of work by “@Saigon”/Flickr; credit “right”: modification of work by Daniel Lobo)

In July 2012, Yahoo!, one of the largest and oldest web companies, announced the appointment of Marissa Mayer as CEO. Yahoo! had struggled to define itself and excel in the industry for several years, and the appointment of Mayer, a top Google executive, made big news. Among her many decisions, in February 2013, Mayer announced that employees would no longer be allowed to telecommute. Telecommuting is representative of many management innovations that have been made in recent years, largely by tech companies. Telecommuting reflects a belief on the part of companies that employees are responsible, self-motivating, and perhaps work best when they are left alone. It also has an impact on work–family balance, though which way is yet unclear. And telecommuting reflects the more general trend of increasing overlap between workers’ time spent on the job and time spent off the job.

The reversal of this policy at Yahoo! brought controversy and a lot of questions about what it meant. Mayer has stayed largely quiet on her reasoning behind the decision, except to say that it was meant to better the company. She finally addressed her decision briefly at the 2013 Great Place to Work conference (Tkaczyk, 2013) by saying, among other things, that while “people are more productive when they're alone, they're more collaborative and innovative when they're together.” Interestingly, shortly after the Yahoo! change, consumer electronics retailer Best Buy also eliminated telecommuting as an option for their employees. Will the change make Yahoo! more innovative or more productive? How has the change affected employees at the company, particularly working parents and those taking care of elderly relatives? Was the change introduced in the most effective way? These are questions that are commonly studied by a branch of psychology called industrial and organizational psychology.

Order a print copy

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Citation/Attribution

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Attribution information
  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a print format, then you must include on every physical page the following attribution:
    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/psychology/pages/1-introduction
  • If you are redistributing all or part of this book in a digital format, then you must include on every digital page view the following attribution:
    Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/psychology/pages/1-introduction
Citation information

© Feb 9, 2022 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.