Understanding employee and managerial acceptance of flexible working arrangements as a transport policy in the Philippines: A sectoral comparative analysis

• A modified UTAUT is used to analyze FWA acceptance among employees and managers. • Respondents are from the government and private sectors. • Multigroup analysis evaluated significant differences between sectors. • Personal attitude is the strongest indicator of both groups’ FWA acceptance behavior. • The government sector is more concerned about how FWA impacts worklife balance. Using behavioral theories, such as the modified unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT), we extended the analysis of non-infrastructure travel demand management (TDM) strategies, such as flexible work arrangements (FWA), in managing the urban mobility of employees and managers beyond the constraints of classical transport policy evaluation. This study uses the classical UTAUT constructs – performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), facilitating conditions (FC), and personal attitude (PA) – and additional psychological constructs, subjective wellbeing (SWB), work-life balance (WLB), and employee satisfaction (ES), to capture the underlying nuances, motivations, and concerns regarding the behavioral intention (BI) of adopting FWA. We further conducted a multigroup analysis to investigate whether the acceptance behavior of key stakeholders in the government and private sectors differ significantly. The findings suggest that the significant influence and perceived benefits of PA, PE, and WLB among employees and managers reveal the potential impacts of FWA in decongesting metropolitan urban spaces, especially during peak hours, reinforcing the idea of employing non-infrastructure TDM policies to help alleviate the worsening traffic conditions in major thoroughfares of the Philippines, as stipulated in the National Transport Policy. Additionally, these results identify the key areas of concern for both employees and managers affecting FWA adoption, enabling policymakers and organizational leaders to formulate more equitable sector-specific policies and guidelines to help achieve and sustain the identified potential benefits of time and cost savings, improved work performance, better quality of life, and positive environmental outcomes.