Explaining production deviant use of the Internet technology in the workplace: An integrated model

The Internet plays many important roles in supporting and sustaining organizational business practices. Organizations today essentially have invested into countless Internet related applications to support and enhance their employees' internal and external communications. Regardless of the efforts, some employees are spending their time on the Internet doing non-work-related activities during work hours, which can be unproductive. The issues of "Internet abuse" have led to legal liabilities and unnecessary losses for organizations.; Although the study of information technology usage and behavior has long been an interest of researchers, this study introduces a new perspective of Internet deviant usage in the workplace. Adopting three important theories and perspectives from other disciplines; (1) the Workplace Deviance Model, (2) Social Network Perspective, and (3) the Theory of Planned Behavior, this study introduces a new model that explains the production deviant use of Internet technology in the workplace (DUIT). The model has four determinants (job satisfaction, attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) that influence the production deviant usage of the Internet. The purpose of this dissertation is to confirm the integrated model and to investigate the determinants that lead to the production deviant use of the Internet along with the consequence of work inefficiency.; The result of this study shows that employees' attitudes and subjective norms play important roles in predicting production deviant use of the Internet technology. Job satisfaction and perceived behavioral control influence the deviant Internet usage behaviors of some employees. It is recommended that we should look into different sources of provocations and organizational controls that could deter employees from performing such deviant behaviors. The research also finds that production deviant use of Internet technology does not lead to work inefficiency for some employees. The finding suggests that not only should managers clearly communicate organizations' Internet usage policy to their employees but also they should encourage productive Internet usage in the workplace through employees' attitude changes and peer influences as well. This study will provide researchers and managers with the ability to understand and foster better productive use of the Internet in the workplace.