Faculty of Social Science, Arts and Humanities

Bachelor of Creative Multimedia (Honours) in Multimedia Design

YEAR 2


BHMD 3424 WEB TECHNOLOGY

Assignment 1 Research Essay


GROUP NAME ID
O2RML3 Lim Pui Shuen 13WHR10112



1.0.1 Introduction

With the technology nowadays, our lives have becoming easier and convenient. Everything
these days done easily by using internet: marketing, billing, meeting and even invoicing.
Internet provides a strong connection between computers or networks globally, bringing
people and their work closer with each other (Tyler, 2006). Internet becoming an important
part of our daily social and business life and there is a new trend is forming that may
someday develop into the new norm, which is working online from home. Working from
home is a new work arrangement in which the employees do not need to go to a central place
of work. Working from home also known as telecommuting, telework, or remote work. The
terms of telework and telecommuting were coined by Jack Nilles in 1973 (Wikipedia,
2013). The information technologies and Internet availability nowadays allow us to find
anything just with few clicking, and this is the reason why the employees are desire to work
at home. Nowadays, working from home is becoming popular and more accepted by
managers and more grateful by employees than ever before.
A global workplace provider, Regus conducted a research in 2013 about this issue (Regus
Global Economic Indicator, 2013). The result proved that 48% of the 26,000 business across
90 countries are now working remotely for at least half of their working week. Besides, his
survey also showed that 65% of the remote managers in Malaysia are using video calls to
communicate with their teams, and their favorable tool is Skype. This result claimed that
video capabilities are the largest part of the tools that the employees need to have for their
work at home.
In this research, I will focus on the advantages of working from home to endorse the reason
of why information technologies and Internet availability should make work from home the
norm.
2.0 Method of Literature Selection

An electronic database search was conducted through Tunku Abdul Rahman Universitys
Digital Library. The ACM Digital Library database was utilized. Keywords used in the
database included: working from home, telecommuting, mobile working, tools for
communication in Internet and also some others relevant keyword. Only articles published
within the last 15 years were used. The articles referenced were selected based on their
relevance to the topic of the essay.

3.0 Should Information Technology and Internet available make work from home the
norm?
Malaysias Vision 2020 launched by the previous Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir in 1991. It
ruled where the country wanted to go in the future and also highlighted the goal for Malaysia
to become a developed nation in 2020. In order to make the goal of the vision 2020 in
Malaysia, Malaysian should experience more new things to gain their knowledge
The traditional of white collar workers staying in their offices to carry out their tasks and job
scope is no longer valid in this 21st century. Many employees now work and carry
information with them while travelling, in caf shop or even at home. Working from home is
becoming a new trend nowadays.
There is a number of individuals have quoted the following benefits of work from home
which particularly in global contexts. First, working from home are able to reduce the
environmental impact of the home office. Second, its able to make the home as an
information and communication center. Then, enhance the productivity and efficiency by the
home as a space for work. Thus, it also can improve the security and privacy with the home
as a secure place to work with those private data. (Amant, 2008; James, 2004)
Thus, I agreed that information technology and Internet available should make work from
home the norm with these all advantages. In the following of this report, I provided some
finding as supporting points for the topic.
3.1 Internet access in Malaysia
There are only 3,700,000 Internet users in Malaysia during the year of 2000. A decade after,
about 17,723,000 Internet users is found, 60.7% of the population of Malaysia in 2012
(Internet World Stats, 2012).
Internet brings a huge change in many aspects of our society, and it has now become
ubiquitous in the life of Malaysian like in many other countries. Especially with the advent of
Facebook in 2004, Malaysia has seen a significant rise in Internet usage. Compared with
other developing countries, the government of Malaysia is earlier to formulate a national
tactic for telecommunications, which also including the Internet.
Base on the current project of Internet diffusion in Malaysia, the government included one
million 1Malaysia Netbooks for distribution to the secondary and university students and also
other lower-income groups. The purpose of this project is to ensure that everyone have the
opportunity to access the Internet, at the same time to increase the broadband usage
throughout the country (Salman, Choy, Amizah & Latif, 2013).
Besides, in todays world many campuses and communities are having free wireless Internet.
With this kind of free Internet service that provided by the government and the pirate
companies in Malaysia, lower-income groups also have the opportunity to access the Internet
everywhere. In the same time, they are able to apply job that work from home, and it makes
the working opportunity for them.
3.2 Working females
The number of women who have to carry out dual roles by managing their work and family
issues are increasing nowadays. Women having high pressures in both of their work and
home life, and many of their daily problems from job responsibilities are incompatible this
dual roles together in the same time. (Janssen, Peeters, De Jonge, Houkes & Tummers, 2004).
However, participating in multiple roles may also provide more opportunities that can be
utilized in accelerating growth and better operating in other fields of life (Grzywacz & Marks,
2000). It was found by Waldron (1998) that the employed and married mothers experienced
more happiness, it also makes them a better health than those unemployed and married
mothers or even the employed single women that without a children.
Therefore, working from home would be the best solution for those modern mothers who
wish to work. They able to take care their child without quitting their jobs. Besides, working
from home is able to save the transportation expenses and childcare expenses. They are able
to educate their child and spend more time with their family.
3.3 Tooling and connectivity
In the process of working at home, employees need to communicate and discuss regularly to
exchange current project information and needed. These exchange process are essential to
ensure all involved employees are continue to work toward the same goal. Communication
tools fall into two main categories, which are the collaboration tools and software
development and information development tools.
Collaboration tools allow all employees to interact regularly to throughout a project quickly.
They are also consider as the tools that used to ask questions, share recent developments and
also request clarification. The samples of these tools are phone, email, instant messaging,
social media website or apps and so on (Gopalakrishnan, Gopakumar, Pillai, Sreekumar, &
Dhanju, 2009).
Besides, software and information development tools are used to keep track with the
development of a project in time to time. It also facilitates the version control during the
development process, for example like change management and version control systems with
shared database access (Herbsleb & Moitra, 2001).
With all these advanced technology tools, employees no longer need to worry about how to
communicate with their team mate or even their client. These tools make their life become
simpler; they do not need to step out from their house for earning money.

4.0 Conclusion

In this study, I highlighted the new working trend which is telecommuting, the definition
was stated in the introduction part. By reading several articles and journals to understand
more about telecommuting and I used some source to support her point of view. With
increasing number of Internet access in our homes, I observed how working from home is
domesticating itself within existing patterns of working style.
In conclusion, I am strongly agreed the information technology and internet available make
work from home to the norm. The advance of technology in our country nowadays allow the
employees to work from home where they do not need to waste their time to go for their
working location, it is a good option for the female who are having kids. There are also many
platform are provided to use as a tool of communication between the employees. Therefore,
the companies do not need to worry about the employees will get lost of track for their job
progression.

5.0 Referencing
Gopalakrishnan, Gopakumar, Pillai, Sreekumar, & Dhanju 2009, Collaboration in offshore
software projects: practices and challenges, Proceeding of the 2009 International Workshop
on Intercultural Collaboration, vol.21, no.30, pp. 225-228.
Grzywacs, J & Marks, N 2000. Reconceptualizing the work-family interface: An ecological
perspective on the correlates of positive and negative spillover between work and family,
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, vol. 5, pp. 111 126.
Herbsleb, J & Moitra, D 2001, Global software development, IEEE Software ,vol.18, no.2,
pp. 16-20.
Internet World Stats 2012, Malaysia Internet Usage Stats and Marketing Report viewed
June 2012, < http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/my.htm>.
James, S 2003, The social consumption of information and communication technologies
Springer-Verlag, London.
Janssen, P, Peeters, M, De Jonge, J, Houkes, I & Tummers, G 2004, Specific relationships
between job demands, job resources and psychological outcomes and the mediating role of
negative work-home interference, Journal of Vocational Behavior, vol. 65, pp. 411429.
Regus Global Economic Indicator 2013, Half of us work remotely when will the rest catch
up? viewed 11 September 2013, < http://press.regus.com/regus-europe-hub/half-of-us-work-
remotely--when-will-the-rest-catch-up-0/>.
Salman, A, Choy, E, Amizah, M & Roslina L 2013. Tracing the Diffusion of Internet in
Malaysia: Then and Now, Asian Social Science, vol. 9, no. 6, pp.9- 15.
St.Amant, K 2008. Virtual office communication protocols: A system for managing
international virtual teams, Connecting people with technology: Issues in professional
communication, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 219- 228.
Tyler, TR 2002, Is the Internet Changing Social Life? It seems the more things Change, the
more they Stay the same, The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, vol. 58,
no. 1, pp. 195-205.
Wikipedia 2013, Online shopping? viewed 11 May 2013, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Online_shopping>.
Waldron, I, Weiss, C & Hughes, M 1998. Interaction effects of multiple roles on womens
health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, vol. 50, pp. 227248.