Personal web usage and work inefficiency

PurposeThis study looks at the usage of the internet for personal use during office hours. The study hopes to establish whether this unauthorized usages leads to work inefficiency.Design/methodology/approachA sample of 126 employees from the Penang Free Trade Zone area was conveniently selected to respond to a structured questionnaire. As this is only a preliminary study, a proper sampling frame was deemed not necessary. The purpose of the study was to get a feel of the current situation before proceeding on a larger scale.FindingsThe results indicate that the problem of personal web use during office hours is prevalent and this leads to work inefficiency. The personal web use was divided into four categories (personal downloading, personal information research, personal communication and personal e‐commerce). The regression results indicate that three of the usage are positively related to work inefficiency. Personal downloading (β=0.315, p< 0.01), personal information research (β=0.259, p<0.01), personal e‐commerce (β=0.280, p<0.05) whereas personal communication (β=0.038, p>0.05) was not significantly related to work inefficiency. This finding empirically confirms the previous notion that personal web usage leads to work inefficiency.Research limitations/implicationsThe research shows gross ignorance on the part of the employees about what is acceptable and what is not in terms of acceptable internet usage in the work place. The main limitation is that the sample was limited to a certain state in Malaysia and future research may want to cover a bigger geographical area.Practical implicationsThe employers have to embark on a campaign to educate the employees on the policy of acceptable use in their respective companies to arrest this phenomenon.Originality/valueNot many papers have been written looking at this issue and especially in the context of a developing country like Malaysia.