“Trust not control!” Where is the comma? : The role of managerial control and trust in employees’ shirking in the virtual work setting

Abstract: Background: The literature has traditionally seen shirking as a negative phenomenon that leads to the productivity loss of individuals and organizations and thus has to be confronted with the help of control in the form of monitoring. However, considering that in the nowadays popular virtual work setting the ability to apply some controls can be hindered and the ethicality of electronic performance monitoring is questioned, there is a need to rethink the established view on shirking and explore the role of trust in it. Aim: Examine how managerial controls and trust impact employees’ shirking in the virtual work setting through the lens of employees’ perceptions. Methodology: A qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured interviews. The interviewees are nine employees from various industries in Sweden who have less than 5 years of working experience in total and have been working within their last company for at least 6 months face-to-face and at least 6 months virtually under the supervision of one manager. Findings: The analysis revealed that employees who receive the control and trust that they want from their managers generally do not shirk, even with none or little monitoring when working virtually, but those who experience mismatches between control and trust wanted and received either tend to shirk or risk getting burnout and/or quitting the company. This highlights the importance of considering employees’ needs for both control and trust when addressing shirking in the virtual work setting. Moreover, a potential positive aspect of shirking was found in the way that occasional moderate shirking in combination with control and trust matches can have a positive impact on employees’ well-being and productivity in the long-term.