Cyber deviancy in the workplace (Blog Group 2)

Workplace digital tech has become a commonplace part of business enterprise, but so have the negative and ethically challenged behaviors that grow out of corporate use

Digital technology is a key component of the material infrastructure of our cultural, moral, and political lives (Sacasas, 2018) and its expansive use outside of the personal realm and into corporate ones has sparked growing concerns. The increased expectation that employee's are willing to engage with work tech across a 24/7 spectrum has opened up opportunities for individual and business user boundaries to begin to blend, giving rise to new forms of tech addition and counterproductive behavior.

The New Digital Work Frontier

Digital technology has made business work more collaborative, streamlined, and easily extended the global reach of most corporations which have enterprises all over the world. The easy access to multiple platforms, the satisfaction which comes from being able to freely explore and create, the almost magical sense of 'connectedness', are all inherent benefits derived from using digital technology and mobile apps, but are also the foundations driving the spur of malicious employee usage.

Modern technology tends to encourage users to assume that limits do not exist - we have convinced ourselves that true self satisfaction lies in the direction of limitlessness (Sacasas, 2018).

Minor forms of misuse such as using organizational information and communications technology to participate in online banking, shopping, or chat rooms (Weatherbee, 2010) are all behaviors that waste business resources and time but are generally recognized as not being initiated by employees with harmful intentions.

But the rise in more deviant and aggressive behaviors such as purposely destroying company digital capital, perusing and distributing online pornography, or using company email to distribute inflammatory, shamming or hate filled content illustrate workplace trends that should be fully restricted by institutionalized digital bylaws, with individual ramifications clearly conveyed to and signed off on by all employees.

Figure 1. How to set up an internet usage policy.

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsJlwOwyzlU

Access to https://www.youtube.com/ required for video play.

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References

GFI Software (2012, January 17). How to set up an internet usage policy [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsJlwOwyzlU

Sacasas, L. M. (2018). The Tech Backlash We Really Need. The New Atlantis, (55), 35-42.

Weatherbee, T. G. (2010). Counterproductive use of technology at work: Information & communications technologies and cyberdeviancy. Human Resource Management Review, 20(1), 35-44.