A Conflict between Professional vs. Domestic Life? Understanding the Use of ICT in Teleworking for Balance in Work and Family Units

Abstract

The advancement of information and communication technologies such as personal computers, the Internet and mobile phones has enabled people to work any time and anywhere. Teleworking, the practice of setting up home offices for employees with appropriate resources for computing and communication, is one example of this new flexibility. Teleworking brings new challenges as well as benefits, and a variety of studies have examined the impact of teleworking in terms of costs and benefits. A major attraction for teleworkers is the control it allows them over the way they structure their work and lives. However, the intrusion of work into the home blurs the boundaries between work and home life and may result in conflict between work and family. This work-family conflict is a direct result of the mutual incompatibility between the demands of work and family roles (Akdere, 2006). The aim of this research is to study the work-family balance of Malaysian teleworkers by exploring the nature of interactions between work and family activities, in order to get a better understanding of the experience of teleworkers in balancing their work and family life. This study will use the work-family border theory (Clark, 2000) to describe the phenomenon, and to explain how individuals manage and negotiate the work and family spheres and the borders between them in order to attain balance.