This paper discusses choices of communication media by individuals in working groups at the time of each communication. We analyze the result of a questionnaire survey about e-mail usage, compare a group of users who use e-mail negatively to those who use it positively, and discuss the usage practices and perception of e-mail between them. We find negative users are rather young and frequent users of e-mail, and they tend to send messages quickly or easily. The results suggest that negative users seek more appropriate communication media but reluctantly use e-mail as everyone else uses it.

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It is said that how to communicate effectively is important for the success of a software project. However, the study of communication needs and media selection for software development projects has been largely neglected so far. In this study, a survey was conducted to find the effect of various software project elements, such as software development methods, user-vender distance, etc., on communication needs and media. As a result, we found that communication needs vary with user-vender distance, and the choice of communication media vary with software development methods.

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The medium and small-sized business suffered big damage from East Japan great earthquake. This disaster had a big influence on the world economy as well as Japanese. The necessity of development and the review of the business continuity plan is increasing for not only large companies but also medium and small-sized enterprises. One of the solutions includes dispersion placement of employee, and it can be realized by telework. It became clear that the strategic enforcement of resources with telework was very important from the point of view of their business continuity.

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Telework based framework for business activities is proposed with job-satisfaction for worker and fascination for executive. First, success factors of Japanese companies in the era of high-speed economic growth are described and on the contrary their current issues are clarified. Next, the relationship between business activity and individual are explained by BCG-model or BC-model. Especially, workers are focused on the role of white-collar and new classifications of workers are proposed, namely, skilled worker (SW), project manager (PM) and concept manager (CM). New clarification is discussed with effect of adopting telework and is important to consider business activities, that is to say, telework based framework.

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The Job by Teleworking is efficient because employee enjoy their life, and take care of their health without change efficiency of their work. By questionnaire people, employee and managers, think so good to take teleworking style. But still Face to face management is needed on the job, and study managers how to assessment the employee.

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We proposed the meta-realistic telework communication systems that can realize the environment in which you feel like you are working in the real office. In this paper, we introduce the prototype systems, bring up challenges for showing awareness in remote offices, and address future prospects for the systems.

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After the powerful earthquake hit the east-side of Japan, telework has been attracting lots of attention as a means for risk dispersion for organizations. Although full-time telework is considered effective for risk dispersion, most implemented telework in Japan are part-time telework. Therefore, the way to implement full-time telework needs to be studied, and one of key factors for sustainable implementation of full-time telework is considered to be the maintenance of the corporate social capital. In this study, the key factor is examined, and then a functional requirement to support the key factor is determined using one implementation case of telework.

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The effect of ICT for developing workers' social capital (SC) is examined through a field study. For developing workers' SC, face-to-face (F2F) informal communication is considered as the key factor. Since the opportunity for F2F communication decreases significantly in telework, it has been long considered that workers' SC will also decrease. In this study, an ICT tool that allows a user to checkup the sate of communication party at a remote site is used to examine the effect for developing workers' SC. The results of the study indicates that worker's SC can be either maintained or increased with the use of the ICT tool.

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Toward establishing telework theory, a cost-based approach is proposed. Benefits of telework have been recognized and partially verified through various implementations. In addition, some major obstacles of telework, such as information security, sense of isolation, initial cost, etc., have been resolved with the advancement of ICT. In order to help the decision making of telework introduction by organizations, a decision support model based on the transaction costs theory is proposed..

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Because of the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, the software development of many companies have received severe damage, and have fallen into the state that cannot function at all. After the earthquake, the nuclear disaster and the electricity shortage have made the situation even worse for many industries. So the offshore development of software will become important more than ever. The 90% or more of Japan's offshore development have aimed at cost reduction by using the low labor cost. But according to the evaluation of the real offshore development, it is said that it generally doesn't reach at the expected level of the cost reduction. This paper first analyzes all costs of the offshore software development. including transactions cost, and determines the cause that the cost reduction is less than expected. Finally, this paper will propose six transaction costs of the offshore software development for the future research.

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It's important that people can communicate seamlessly with remote office members in telework. We developed a communication system that gets the advanced presence of the other user automatically and utilizes the presence information. This system helps us know the other user status and communicate in a timely manner. In this system, the advanced presence information can be presented in user-friendly by using charts and icons, and the inhibition of the work to recipient can reduce by call control based on the presence information. This paper is to report a summary of the system

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Recently, the working styles have been largely dependent on the communication media. It is becoming more important to select an appropriate communication media; however, the selection of media is often based on the manager's preference. Through interviews with the four employees, this paper examines the effectiveness of "Media Fitness Framework (MFF)" that is the overall methodology about the communication media selection in a group and clarifies the problems and limitations. The degrees of fitness in MFF are measured by matching up the task's communication needs and features of communication media. Although the effectiveness of MFF is confirmed, its use is rather complicated and needs to be improved for the practical use.

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It effectively promotes the attractive cultural heritages that are scattered in Nara prefecture and improve Nara's branding strength by reinforcing the information transmission capability. To be more precise, we will implement the following four strategies. (1) e-Learning (2) contents archive (3) Image strategy (4) Brand strategy

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An energy consumption model for telework is developed in this paper. The model shows that the saving effect of teleworking on the energy for commuting is obvious. In cities, the effect of saving electricity is large because a lot of people use the train for commuting. On the contrary, the amount of saving energy for business is not clear. The effect can be significant if teleworking is enforced by story unit of buildings. Energy conservation is not effective when the teleworking is implemented but the office floor is riot closed and some people are still working in the office. The amount of energy might even increase in the case.

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Enterprises in Japan have rapidly executed the Work Style Innovation to achieve power saving and peak power reduction since the Great East Japan Earthquake. NTT DATA Institute of Management Consulting, Inc. surveyed full-fledged mployees working for 1,015 enterprises in June, 2011. In this paper, We analyze the current Telework situation, Telework needs of employees, enterprises' implementations in response to power saving, BCP (Business Continuity Plan) based on this results of research, and furthermore we consider the significance of Flexible Work Style.

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New type of portable devices, such as smart phone or tablet computer, is getting popular. One of the features of sophisticated ICT tools is greater alleviation of time and location restraints in communications. Though this may help to raise business efficiency, much of the literature on the ICTs stresses the negative effects of permeation of work in family domain keeping connection to the work concerns. This study examines the influence on the work-family borders of recent ICT tools based on the relationship between the types of ICT tools and telework frequency. The data came from a sample of 300 male and female workers having family responsibilities in three major metropolitan areas, through web questionnaire survey.

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Machidukuri Mitaka Corporation (third secter) and MItaka Network University (NPO) launched a new project in MItaka City which called "Mitaka minotake kigyoujyuku" commissioned by the Cabinet Office from July 1, 2010. The purpose is to foster entrepreneurs to contribute to the community. This project is ongoing, completed the third stage with more than 100 graduates already. All courses will complete in July of this year, a final break with the business plan contest in August. Already, the first business plan contest was held on January 12, 2011. There 109 entries from all over Japan. As a result, total of 18 winners got grants about 30 million yen. This report describes project overview, student survey results, describes the subsequent reality of the early entrepreneurs. Also reports on the possibility of entrepreneurship and community revitalization

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This paper reports a case of the, status and management of a small company that have established on October 30. 2009. The company consists of old-aged retired workers who have professional knowledge and skills in sales, SE, planning, accounting, manufacturing, quality control, service, or development in big enterprise as well as ICT Iiteracy. Moreover, the company utilizes telework to overcome the dispersed workplace. The case study suggests the possibility of "telework-enabled business utilizing retirees' experiences".

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This paper reports the results of research on telework as an electricity-saving measure, and implementation trends of telecommuting. Due to the East Japan great earthquake disaster, an electricity shortage was expected during the summer in the TEPCO and Tohoku EPCO areas. Companies in those areas had to reduce their maximum power usage during peak time last year by 15%. This paper investigates Nikkei225 companies' methods of electricity saving and found that the share of corporations using telework for electricity saving was 5%. The survey shows that telework can not only be expected to act as an electricity-saving measure, but to have four other secondary effects: workstyle revision, BCP, reduced office floor usage, and supplementing other electricity-saving measures.

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This paper reports the results of "a survey about telework at East Japan great earthquake disaster and the rolling blackouts of March and BCP (business continuation plan) for the well-informed people about telework" carried out by the study group about "BCP and Telework" of Japan Telework Society. The people and association with the connection for telework as well as members of this Society were asked for the investigation cooperation. The survey was carried out via the internet from April to June, 2011. The count object is 44 people, and the people who did telework at the earthquake disaster and rolling blackouts was 14 people, among which 11 people were able to perform more than 70% of normal duties by telework. The secret to telework well was reported "being always used to a telework" by 10 people.

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Japan Telework Association has been providing consultation service under the cooperation of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. This service provides various advices to the companies which are going to start telework. We recognized the changes of purposes or situation of clients who have visited the telework consultation center after the Tohoku Region Pacific Coast Earthquake.

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