Antecedents of perceived productivity in teleworking among employees during movement control order 2020 in Malaysia

The whole world is going through a crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic that was caused by a type of coronavirus originated from China (Santarpia et al., 2020). The virus can spread through droplets generated when the infected person coughs, sneezes or speaks (WebMD, 2020a). The World Health Organization (2020) notes that one can also get infected by touching a contaminated surface and touch their eyes, nose or mouth without washing their hands. Malaysia has imposed a few phases of Movement Control Order (MCO) during this pandemic that does not allow the citizens to go out for work, except for the essential industries (New Straits Times, 2020a). Thus, a lot of companies in Malaysia offered their workers to work from home (WFH) or telework during MCO (New Straits Times, 2020c). Regardless of the benefits of implementing teleworking towards both employers and employees, the actual adoption of it is moving slowly than expected (Vilhelmson & Thulin, 2016). The reason behind this delay is because of the economic crisis lately (Isabel & Tavares, 2016). However, due to the spread of the virus covid-19, telework has suddenly experienced a rebound, as a result of the movement restriction orders or lockdown implemented by most governments (Belzunegui-Eraso & Erro-Garces, 2020). The study also stated that in the beginning of the pandemic, several governments recommended companies to implement teleworking to avoid employees gathering in the same place and increase the probability of getting infected. This research aims to study the factors behind the perceived productivity in teleworking among employees.