Teleworking and Development in Malaysia

From the Publisher
The emergence of Internet technologies has made it possible to carry out a wide range of service sector work at a distance from the main premises of corporate organisations. These can be performed either from home-based units or from institutions such as call centres. The ease with which work can be externalised also meant a massive rise in outsourcing which led to the transferring of jobs from affluent countries or regions, with high overhead costs and wages, to less prosperous ones. Teleworking, understandably, has significant implications both for regional development and urban planning. In addition, international telework makes it cost effective for corporate organisations in Europe and North America to look towards emerging economies as a source of service sector skills for areas that cover a wide range of activities, from software programming to customer care and secretarial work.

The spread of home-based telework has been slow in Malaysia. Concerns for the quality of work, delivery time, and confidentiality have so far inhibited management from initiating this mode of employment even when it presented the possibility of lowering rental and other overhead costs. Fear of loneliness, lack of career progression and insecure employment contracts similarly coloured the attitude of the groups that are likely to benefit from the convenience and flexibility of home-based work. Women, for example, although welcoming its flexibility, are cautious about home-based telework, lest it erodes liberation from domestic chores and obligations that women experience while going out to work. The main forms of telework, instead, in Malaysia, have taken place, so far, in emerging institutions such as call centres, data entry units or software houses. The analysis in the monograph indicates the strategies that the Government of Malaysia, the corporate sector, educational and training centres as well as the lobbying groups for women and disabled should adopt in order to facilitate socially desirable, yet commercially viable, home-based or institution-based telework.

This book [aims to examine] telework within five sectors: telecommunications, software, printing and publishing, banking and finance and airlines. It also includes a chapter dedicated towards reviewing the implications of telework for Malaysian women.

Table of Contents

• Foreword
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Introduction and overview: Teleworking in the national and global context
• Chapter 2: Telecommunications
• Chapter 3: Software
• Chapter 4: Printing and publishing
• Chapter 5: Banking and finance
• Chapter 6: Airlines
• Chapter 7: Teleworking: Blessing for Malaysian women in the information age?
• Chapter 8: Towards an enabling environment: Recommendations

Click here for more information and to order the book. Editor's note: As of October 2005, the book is out-of-print; the publisher is no longer accepting orders for the title.