Employers views on the preconditions and practice of the introduction of telework. Market research among employers applying for telework

The paper explored the view of owners/managers on the introduction and implementation of telework with the help of a special sample of companies, namely of those who have applied for support to telework jointly announced by the Ministry of Employment Policy and Labour and the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications. Based on their application for telework support, we have qualified the entrepreneurs belonging to this group of economic organisations as 'telework-conscious' ones. The supply of ICT changes in the light of the size of the organisation: similarly to the experiences of the 15 Member States of the EU the larger companies have more advanced ICT than the micro and small enterprises have. As contrasted to companies in the EU, the use of ICT is primarily limited by meagre financial resources in the case of Hungarian enterprises, the ICT-skills of the employees may be considered good, or may be achieved by training. The outsourcing of various business functions (such as planning and editing, administration, financial services, etc.) with the help of ICT (the so-called e-outsourcing), excepting financial functions, is more widespread in the practice of Hungarian companies than in the 15 Member States. As contrasted to common belief, the companies that have been involved in the survey intensively participate in inter-company networks, but for the time being those networks are being primarily organised regionally, within the country, and less in international dimensions. Finally, it should be stressed that the standard of ICT applied by companies and the frequency of the so-called a-typical forms of work (such as telework) indicate statistically significant relationship with the intensity of employers' interest in the new forms of work (such as telework).