Julie Abbott and Pak Yoong, School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
The advent of new technologies has forced organisations to think on an international scale and reconsider the way they do business. Not bounded by geography, organisations race to bring together geographically disparate resources, including the workforce. Additional changes such as those of labour force demographics and social systems have seen the workforce demand new ways to structure their work, requesting increased flexibility of work contexts and contents and balance of work and family life. The changes have also seen the emergence of the distributed work environment that encompasses telework and telecentre as a way to maintain organisational flexibility and satisfy employee demands.
This paper describes part of a research programme that explores the development of telecentres and the role of key players in these developments. A single case study was conducted on the development of the Kapiti Telecentre, which is based on the Kapiti Coast, a semi-rural community situated approximately 50 km north of Wellington, New Zealand.
The Kapiti Telecentre is unique among telecentres in that it is a collaborative project between business and community organisations. Several workers from city-based business organisations are using the telecentre as a teleworking hub whilst the community users have initiated a major community IT educational programme to be based at the centre. A Board of Trustees provides governance of the telecentre and the trustees come from the business, community and academic organisations. Initial results from this study suggest that the development of the Kapiti Telecentre follows four distinct stages: Germinating, Seedling, Sapling and Maturing. Details of the development activities during each stage will be described. The paper concludes by suggesting a number of implications for research and practice.