Executive Summary
Who is Surfing the Net at Work?
A Study to Identify the Similarities and Differences among Employees Related to
Their Non-work-related Internet Usage
Introduction
Businesses today face a double-edged sword when it comes to the Internet. In the mid-1990s, the Net was hailed as a productivity tool and research tools. But today, the productivity growth brought by Internet application has been offset by the lost of work hours that resulted from employee¡¯s non-work-related Internet usage. Many recent researches and surveys found up to 40% of all Internet access at work was spent on non-work related browsing and employees spend up to 2 hours per day for non-work-related emails and Web surfing. Obviously, a better understanding of how and why employees misuse company¡¯s Internet resource can help companies design more specific and effective policies about employee¡¯s Internet usage.
The hypothesis of this research states that there is significant relationship between the dependent variable (Internet misuse) and each of the independent variables (age, gender, number of personal email accounts, and home Internet access speed).
Methodology
The instrument used to compile statistical data was a questionnaire that consisted of a mix of fixed alternative and simple dichotomy. A population of full-time office employees was identified and a sampling unit of twenty-five was determined through non-probability sampling.
In order to interpret the data a number of statistical operations were utilized. First, to get a feel for the data a frequency distribution was employed. Secondly, a cross-tabulation was used to test the goodness of the data, thirdly, a t-test was used to test the research hypothesis and at last, simple corr ...