Why hybrid workers abandon the office: a regret perspective on workplace choice

Abstract

Work is increasingly liberated from its traditional spatial and temporal anchors, establishing hybrid work as the most prominent work mode among knowledge workers. Hybrid workers often enjoy autonomy in deciding whether to work from the office or remotely, giving them the freedom to bypass the office as a place of work. Previous research has primarily focused on individual factors driving remote work intentions, overlooking employees’ direct office experiences. We shift attention to what we term “office-work regret”, a negative emotion hybrid workers experience within the office. This paper first conceptualizes office-work regret through regret theory and proposes its emergence through disconfirmations. Next, this study empirically investigates the impact of office-work regret on hybrid workers’ intentions to forgo the office in favor of remote work. This paper yields theoretical contributions by adding office-work regret as a negative emotion induced through disconfirmations within the office to the discussion of remote work’s emergence antecedents. By highlighting the role of space for remote workers, we posit that organizations must manage office-work regret when deeming office attendance.