Effects of remote working on academics: The example of TRB2 region

All processes related to technology have affected every aspect of our lives and have also led to changes in working life and employment structure. Remote working, which is the process of carrying out all work-related processes such as service and production outside the traditional office through technological, digital, etc. infrastructure systems, has become a working system used by academicians at universities with the transition to online education during the pandemic period and after the Maraş earthquakes in our country. Due to the rapid spread of alternative employment forms such as virtual workforce, remote working, part-time working (working from home, teleworking, temporary working), this study aims to reveal the causal relationships between the flexibility (E), institutional trust (KG), work-life conflict (IYC) and productivity (V) sub-dimensions of remote working and to examine the reflections of remote working in academic circles and its effects on productivity and work-life conflict. In the study, a face-to-face survey was conducted with 389 academicians working in the Van sub- region (TRB2- Van, Bitlis, Muş and Hakkari), one of the 26 statistical regions of Turkey's Statistical Regional Units Classification, using the quantitative research method. The Remote Work Life Scale, developed by Grant et al. (2019) and adapted to Turkish by Akman et al. (2023), was used in the survey study. The data obtained from the study and the participants' opinions about remote work were compared by performing parametric tests (independent t-test, ANOVA analysis) and nonparametric tests (Mann Whitney U test, Kruskall Wallis test). SPSS 19 and LISREL12 programs were used for data analysis. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was applied to test the structural validity of the survey we used in the study and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was applied to test the structural validity of our research model. As a result of the research, it was found that the flexibility provided by remote work and the institutional trust provided by remote work increased productivity, and productivity reduced work-life conflict in remote work.