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Slacking, resisting, withdrawing? A comparative study of personal internet use at work
No full textThe 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.L'utilisation des technologies numériques à des fins personnelles sur le lieu de travail est devenue un sujet controversé dans plusieurs milieux de travail à travers le monde. Les employeurs•e•s tendent à traiter cet usage d'Internet comme du relâchement, du « temps volé », et du sabotage. Pour les employé•e•s, l'usage d'Internet à des fins personnelles peut permettre de s'occuper d'affaires familiales ; de prendre une pause au milieu d'une journée de travail intense et de passer d'une tâche de travail à une autre. Plusieurs chercheuses et chercheurs se sont penché•e•s sur la question du lien entre cette utilisation d'Internet à des fins personnelles au travail et ses conséquences sur la productivité, mais peu se sont interrogé•e•s sur les facteurs encourageant ses différents types d'utilisation. Le but de cette thèse est d'interroger les indicateurs qui permettent d'expliquer comment les différents groupes d'employé•e•s utilisent au travail les technologies numériques à des fins personnelles et comment le justifient-il•elle•s. Afin de répondre à cette question, j'utilise la démarche de recherche à méthodes mixtes dans laquelle j'ajoute 30 entrevues approfondies semi-structurées à un sondage auprès de 654 employé•e•s au Canada, en Suède, en Grande-Bretagne et aux États-Unis. Les résultats démontrent que les caractéristiques sociodémographiques, ainsi que les caractéristiques professionnelles importent lorsqu'il s'agit de quantifier et de définir l'usage d'Internet à des fins personnelles au travail. Les jeunes employé•e•s, ainsi que les travailleur•euse•s contractuel•le•s, c'est-à-dire celles et ceux qui sont en situation de précarité d'emploi, ont davantage tendance à s'adonner de manière importante à utiliser l'Internet au travail à des fins personnelles. L'utilisation augmentée d'Internet à des fins personnelles au travail par les femmes est motivée par leurs perspectives d'emploi incertaines, tandis que ce qui explique la même activité chez les hommes c'est la très grande flexibilité d'emploi. Rien ne semble indiquer que les employé•e•s utilisent Internet à des fins personnelles au travail comme moyen de sabotage. Plutôt c'est la distribution inégale des tâches au travail — qui caractérise les emplois à court terme axés sur des projets où des périodes de travail calmes peuvent être suivies de périodes de travail très intenses — ce qui encourage ce type de comportement.Cette dissertation contribue de diverses manières à la littérature scientifique sur l'utilisation d'Internet à des fins personnelles au travail. Premièrement, tandis que la plupart des études antérieures sur le sujet se sont intéressées principalement à savoir comment les conditions structurelles facilitaient ou empêchaient l'utilisation d'Internet à des fins personnelles au travail, la présente recherche cherche à comprendre comment les caractéristiques et les motivations au niveau individuel et au niveau du groupe interagissent avec le cadre structurel. Deuxièmement, les études portant sur le sujet se sont intéressées à des cas particuliers (pays et entreprises), tandis que la présente recherche offre une perspective comparative en étudiant les dynamiques d'utilisation d'Internet à des fins personnelles dans quatre économies fortement développées, c'est-à-dire le Canada, la Suède, la Grande-Bretagne et les États-Unis. Finalement, puisque le travail ne structure pas uniquement notre temps et nos activités quotidiennes, mais qu'il définit aussi nos identités et nos aspirations, cette dissertation apporte des connaissances sur les conséquences de processus tels que la numérisation du travail et l'essor des emplois non linéaires axés sur des projets sur la compréhension et l'opinion des travailleurs et des travailleuses contemporain•e•s sur la conciliation travail-vie personnelle
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Symbiosis and Exploitation in Sports-Media Interrelations: The Israeli Case of Maccabi Tel-Aviv Basketball Club and the Public Channel
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Conflict, Terrorism, and the Socialization of Human Rights Norms: The Spiral Model Revisited
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“As Long as It’s Not on the Face”: Pornography Viewers Discuss Male Ejaculation Perceptions and Preferences
No full textFeminist scholars have suggested that male ejaculations in pornographic videos, particularly ejaculations on a sexual partner’s face or in their mouth, are often used to symbolically debase and humiliate women. However, no previous study has asked pornography viewers about their perceptions and preferences regarding male ejaculation. In this article, I investigate these perceptions and preferences using a large sample of more than 300 pornography viewers representing diverse demographics and cultural backgrounds. I find that most viewers either did not care about the male ejaculation or its placement or preferred for it to be in the female partner’s vagina. In contrast to common assumptions found in the literature, very few viewers expressed a preference for ejaculation on a woman’s face or in her mouth and many of them found such practices disturbing
Counterterrorist Legislation Effects on Human Rights and Civil Liberties: A Global Perspective
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