Glossário e Definições

Definições

Telework

There are many definitions of telework. This causes difficulties when trying to compare the results of different telework surveys and research. The common element across all aspects of telework is:

“The use of computers and telecommunications to change the accepted geography of work”

It origins can be traced to the introduction of the term “telecommuting” by Jack Nilles in the USA in his publication “The telecommunications transportation trade-off (John Wiley & Sons, 1976), to denote this type of working arrangement. It was popularised by futurist Francis Kinsman in his book “The Telecommuters”(John Wiley & Sons, 1976). The term telework has been popularised in Europe through its use the European Commission, which from the late 1980s and early 1990s has sponsored considerable in this field, particularly into the use of telework as a means to developed economic activity and create in rural areas or places with economic problems. The most commonly encountered terms are explained below.

Telecommuter

Generally interpreted to mean someone with an arrangement to avoid by working at home, or closer to home.

Flexible Working

An employer-centred concept that encompasses a wide spectrum of new working practices, including flexible working hours as well as flexibility of work location, flexible contracts of employment. It can also mean flexible use of office space, such as “hot-desking”, where a group of people don’t have personal desks but share a smaller number of desks, and use whichever one is free.

Telecentres

These are shared office facilities that provide a range of office services, often for employees of several companies, or different departments of the same company. It means employees can use the office that’s most convenient to him or her, rather than specific office space owned by their company or department.

Telecottages

A special class of telecentre, named because of its origins in rural villages. The telecottage movement started in Scandinavia and has spread to many other parts of Europe; such there are now estimated to be over 500 Telecottages across the Europe. Telecottages perform multiple roles including offering training in teleworking technology and relevant skills, attracting work that uses skills and hence being a stimulus to local economic development. They also provide local organisations and businesses access to more expensive office and hi-tech equipment.

Home –based Telework, Home Teleworking

In this mode of telework, the home in the locus of work and the main work location or base of a teleworking employee or self-employed teleworkers. Part of the home is an “office” workplace, with typical office facilities, such as filing cabinet, business phone, fax and a computer, plus of course, a modem or ISDN link into computer networks.

Nomadic (peripatetic) Telework

These teleworkers have no obvious single location where more work takes place than any other. Armed with mobile telephone and/or portable computer, their office is where the nearest phone plug is (or anywhere if they are on battery power and radio communications). Their work is location independent (see LIW below).

Remote Office Telework

A location physically distant from the main office, where one or more workers work. Such work may be individual work e.g. a member of a team who has not relocated to be physically close to the rest of their team, or a whole “back-office” team. Such workers typically have “remote access” to computer systems at the main office.

Offshore telework

A term coined by Management Technology Associates during 1992-1993 Telework Study for the UK Department of Trade & Industry. A variant of the remote office idea where work is split across several countries. Jobs are shifted from one region, town or country to another. Pan-European call handling centres are example of this.

Televillage

This concept is an extension of the telecottage and is very much about lifestyles and preferences. A Televillage is a whole community highly geared to the future work and lifestyles. The whole village is “wired” and each home is fully equipped with an internal network connected to the village network and through broad band communications to the “global village”. As portable and mobile technology become more pervasive, the wide range of working modes considered as one form of telework or another, star to blur, as does comparison with “conventional” work.

Teletrade

Teletrade literally means “doing business over networks”. It uses advanced information and communication technologies (such as the internet) to marked and sell goods and services, enhance customer relationships and reach distant markets without the overhead of a local “physical presence”. Although similar in concept to electronic commerce, the latter most often refers only to the actual trading transaction e.g. the placing of an order. EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is an example of a technique that exemplifies the narrow view of electronic commerce. Teletrade covers all aspects of the selling cycle and the buyer-seller relationship. It includes making potential customers aware of products and services, such as through the Internet; providing means of ordering and in some case making payment over electronic networks; providing online support and generally enhancing customer relationships via focused two-way communications (e.g. via email or electronic communities) between buyer and seller.

Telecooperation

Telecooperation is the application of information and communications technologies by the individuals and organisations to enhance communications and access to information. People working collaboratively over a part of a virtual team an example of Telecooperation. So is alliance building to crate a network of dispersed individuals who come together to cooperate for a shared purpose. When more formal. This network may be considered a virtual organisation (see glossary). Telecooperation entails new skills and changes to organisations. In particular the information and communications flows of traditional organisational hierarchies are undermined, and the barriers of communication across organisation boundaries are dissolved.