Abstract
Deviance, in a sociological context, is understood as actions or behaviours that violate social norms, including formally-enacted rules, as well as informal violations of social norms. Deviant behaviour related to Internet was studied mainly as a technology enabling misuse and addiction. In this paper deviant behaviour is studied in the context of two phenomena the addiction to the on-line services and the: abuse in the work place. Both phenomena enact the working forms and cause loss of productivity. As organizations and companies try to minimize the productivity losses resulting from their employees’ Internet abuse in work place different approaches are used to solve the problem, some of them like e-surveillance and social control are in conflict with the social norms and the legislation order. The study presented in the paper explores the relationship between a person addicted to the Internet, and the factors that influence the abuse in the workplace. The study results discover whether these two phenomena are the result of the work environment like poor organizational structure in the company or bad human relationships. Another intention of the study was to find out whether the disciplinary measures applied to deter the Internet abuse have effects on the employees behaviour. The study results have shown that the occurrence of Internet abuse in workplace is not strongly related to the work conditions like the bad relationships with co-workers or managers, the missing actions for remuneration or recognition of the good work, and lack of paths for career advancement. The awareness of being e-surveyed by the employer, or being warned with personal messages about the misuse of Internet cause the time spent on the Internet for non-working purposes by the employee to decline. The study was carried out on an exhaustive sample inform an EU member state country where the legislative approach in employee e-surveying differ from other world regions. Managers were involved in this study to light up their everyday practice in deterring the Internet abuse in work place in view of the existing law for employee privacy protection in communication.
Highlights
1.1 Deviance in Use of InternetDeviance, in a sociological context, is understood as actions or behaviours that violate the social norms, including formally-enacted rules, as well as the informal violations of social norms
How employees react to the information that they are monitored in the workplace was another question to be answered by the study, as well as whether the Internet abuse decreases with the introduction of electronic surveillance
Intensive on-line shopping, sex addiction or pornography watching are associated with a number of psychological and social relation problems that appear among Internet abusers too, such as social isolation, depression, anxiety and personal disorders
Summary
1.1 Deviance in Use of InternetDeviance, in a sociological context, is understood as actions or behaviours that violate the social norms, including formally-enacted rules, as well as the informal violations of social norms. The sacking of employees was the result of accessing pornography (42%), online chatting (13%), gaming (12%), sports (8%), investing (7%) and shopping (7%) Led by this finding, this study was designed to examine the situation an EU Member State, consideredas a moderately developed Central European country, ranking 17th in the EU in terms of digitalization of the country’s economy (Internet at Europe, 2014). As the this type of deviance is treated with different disciplinary measure such as employee e-monitoring at the workplace or job termination, the practice of the managers was designed to be studied in view of the European legislation on privacy protection in communications, and the use of tools that jeopardize the privacy. The results were intended to draw the basic rules and approaches for assisting companies and organizations in implementing effective initiatives for improving the employee Internet management practices without violating the data-privacy protection laws as a fundamental right enjoyed by European workers
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