Why I don’t buy the mainstream’s embrace of the supposed deepening trend of urbanization? Because the past is hardly the future. Technological advances extrapolates to increasing decentralization of social activities. And this covers commercial activities that can be seen from corporate operations.
Proof?
With nearly half its employees working from home now, Aetna Inc. is convinced it is saving a good deal of money with no adverse effect on productivity.A nine-month experiment at Ctrip, China’s largest travel agency, overseen by academic economists at Stanford and Beijing University, suggests Aetna’s experience may not be unique.Ctrip, was looking to save money on real estate costs and cut turnover. It asked 996 employees in its Shanghai call center if they’d be interested in working at home four days a week. Half were interested, and 252 qualified for the experiment by virtue of having at least six months on the job and broadband access from a quiet corner of their home. Those with birthdays on even days were selected to work at home, those with odd birthdays stayed in the office, making this the sort of random experiment that academics relish.
And as I noted in the past
I would add that increasing specialization will hallmark the knowledge economy. And specialization will diminish the economics of urbanization.The changing nature of work can be exemplified by the telecommuting jobs, which have been rapidly growing.These jobs are based on the web, are flexible and are not location sensitive (working from home, or elsewhere).
The trend of web and knowledge based work localization and flexibility will further deepen.
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