Personal Web Usage In The Workplace PDF Download

"The use of digital technologies for personal purposes in the workplace has become a contentious issue in many workplaces around the world. Employers tend to treat personal Internet use at work (PIUW) as slacking, "time theft", and sabotage. For the employees, PIUW can be a way to take care of important family matters, to take a break in the middle of an intensive workday, and to switch from one job task to another. While the relationship between PIUW and productivity has been extensively studied, the factors that motivate different types of personal Internet use at work remain an uncharted territory. The central question of this thesis is which predictors explain how different groups of employees engage in and justify the use of digital technologies for personal purposes in the workplace. In order to answer this question, I use a mixed methods approach combining a survey of 654 employees with 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews in Canada, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S.A. The results show that both socio-demographic and occupational characteristics matter when it comes to the quantity and the quality of personal Internet use at work. Younger employees, as well as those who work on projects and experience job precarity, are more likely to engage in high levels of PIUW. Women's PIUW is motivated by uncertain job prospects, whereas men's use of digital technologies for personal purposes can be explained by high levels of job flexibility. Furthermore, restrictive policies on PIUW have a significant effect on the personal online activities associated with networking and communication but not on entertainment-oriented PIUW. Finally, there is little evidence that employees use PIUW as a means of intentional sabotage. Rather, the uneven distribution of work tasks that characterizes project-based employment, where periods of little or no work are suddenly followed by intensive labor, is partly motivating this behavior. This dissertation makes several contributions. First, while most previous studies in this area focused on how structural conditions facilitated and/or curtailed PIUW, this work focuses on how individual-level and group-level characteristics and motivations interact with structural arrangements. More specifically, I explore how interactions between gender, age, and occupational status within organizations affect the extent of PIUW, and whether different groups of workers tend to engage in different kinds of "non-productive" online activities. Second, while previous research has focused on individual cases (specific countries and companies), this work offers a comparative perspective by investigating the dynamics of PIUW in four highly developed economies (Canada, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S.A.). This comparison explains the effects of different labor contexts and more general cultural contexts over workers' engagement in "non-productive" workplace activities. Finally, since labor not only structures our time and everyday activities but also defines our identities and aspirations, this dissertation also provides insights into the effects of processes such as the digitization of work and the rise in non-linear, project-based employment on contemporary workers' understanding of and views about their work-life balance." --