The experience of BYOD among Dutch self-employed professionals

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The experience of BYOD among Dutch

self-employed professionals

Master Thesis

U.V.E. Pinedoe

University of Amsterdam

Faculty of Science

Information Studies: Business Information Systems

Final version:

October 20, 2016

Supervisor:

Drs. A. Vreeken

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The experience of BYOD among Dutch

self-employed professionals

Master Thesis

University of Amsterdam

Faculty of Science

Information Studies: Business Information Systems

PREFACE

Where once self-employed professionals were all using company owned devices several years ago, most of them are using their personal devices such as laptops and smartphones within corporate environments nowadays. The shift from using corporate-owned devices to personal devices to access the corporate network is becoming unstoppable and even more popular. This trend is referred to as Bring Your Own Device. The expectations are that the percentage of workers using their personal devices will keep rising. And since the amount of Dutch self-employed professionals is also rising it is interesting to combine these two aspects in this research.

As a result of the expected rise of Bring Your Own Device and the amount of self-employers, could lead this to more use of personal devices for work purposes. However, there is a lack of insights within this research field. Therefore before trying to confirm this assumption we should take a step back and investigate “How Dutch self-employed professionals experience the Bring Your Own Device concept”. This be will the research aim for this study.

I hope you will enjoy reading my thesis. U. Pinedoe

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Table of acronyms

BYOD Bring Your Own Device CBS Central Bureau for Statistics

ICT Information and Communication Technology PEOU Perceived Ease of Use

PU Perceived Usefulness

TAM Technology Acceptance Model UWYT Use What You Are Told

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The experience of BYOD among Dutch

self-employed professionals

Master Thesis

U.V.E. Pinedoe

University of Amsterdam

Faculty of Science

Information Studies: Business Information Systems

ABSTRACT: The number of Dutch self-employed professionals is growing explosively. Most of these

professionals use their personal devices for work purposes at clients who adopted the Bring Your Own Device concept. The aim of this study is to give insights how Dutch self-employed professionals experience Bring Your Own Device. This research reveals that self-employed professionals have a positive experience towards Bring Your Own Device. These professionals have several motives and benefits for using their personal devices for work related activities. The disadvantages do not keep the self-employed professionals from using their personal devices on corporate networks. Productivity has an impact on job satisfaction. Furthermore, the findings illustrate that most of the organizations do not have a Bring Your Own Device policy. However, self-employed professionals believe that organizations can make the BYOD concept more successful by setting up guidelines for accessing the network and developing a policy.

Keywords: Bring Your Own Device, BYOD, self-employed professionals, independent freelancer, personal use, job satisfaction, policies, BYOD improvements

1. INTRODUCTION

In the past decades the computer has rapidly evolved in different stages from a standalone desktop device to a single small device like laptops, tablets or smartphone. The rapid proliferation of wireless communication and portable devices has created a potential for mobile work support (Yuan, Archer, Connelly, & Zheng, 2010). The result of this is an increasingly difficult separation of work from home activity with the growing penetration of information and communications technologies (ICTs) into everyday life, particularly with the development of mobile communications technologies (MCTs) (Gold & Mustafa, 2013). The impact of these technologies on work-home balance is therefore becoming increasingly significant (Gold & Mustafa, 2013).

The growing of privately owned mobile devices has led to a trend of consumers rather than enterprises increasing diffusing technology into work environment (Dernbecher, Beck, & Weber,

2013), which has changed the working environment in many companies.

Today, owners of ubiquitous technologies (e.g., smartphones, social networks) not only use them privately but also apply them on business purposes, which is known as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or more generally coined as consumerization (Dernbecher et al., 2013). Consumerization has brought an inversion of roles, where now users are driving technology adoption and change (Castro-Leon, 2014) .

Furthermore, BYOD is the new concept replacing the older one i.e. Use What You Are Told (UWYT) (Singh, 2012) and provides a flexible work environment, along with a number of other benefits (Waterfill, 2014). With the UWYT organization can determine which devices are allowed within the company while BYOD is the opposite compared to UWYT where employees have control over the use of apps or content on their own devices within an organization. So there is a shift from business-owned standard processes

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5 and technology to a more consumer-driven one

(Niehaves, 2012).

Even when corporate applications and data are involved, employees entering the workforce, especially temporary employees, place less value on corporate-issued tools and would rather use their own devices—particularly if they are temporary employees(PriceWaterhouseCoopers, as cited in Castro-Leon, 2014). Flexible work practices, work reforms, and new work practices generally transformed how employees experience their work (Godard, 2001).

However, little research has been done on how employees experience BYOD. Most available literature focuses on current practices— operational aspects or the disruptive effects of BYOD policies (Castro-Leon, 2014). Moreover, no research has been done on the BYOD trend in relation to self- employed, independent professionals. This is an occupational group of great interest based on the research done by Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS). CBS indicate that at the beginning of 2016 there were over one million freelancers without personnel in The Netherlands. This is an increase of almost 10 percent compared to last year. Furthermore, it is a an occupational group that is still increasing when comparing it to the permanent employees (CBS, 2014). Therefore the aim of this research is to understand how self-employed independent professionals experience the BYOD phenomena. Throughout this research the focus is on independent professionals without personnel who provide their service to different clients using their privately owned device in different contexts.

2. RELATED WORK

Lately several studies have examined the BYOD phenomenon. However, many literatures focus on the organizational and technical part of the implementation of BYOD. The aim of this chapter is to acquire better understanding of the topics BYOD, self-employed professional, job satisfaction and experience.

2.1. Bring Your Own Device

BYOD is a general term used to indicate a phenomena which has led to policies implemented by companies allowing employees to engage work-related activities from their personal devices-smartphones, laptops, and tablets to access internal corporate resources-also called “the consumerization of IT” (Waterfill, 2014). So,

privately-owned IT resources are co-used for business purposes. Innovativeness with respect to technology can be seen as a very important factor for choosing to use private devices for work (Ortbach, 2015).

BYOD is beneficial for employees and companies but it also creates risks according to prior literature. As for the employees, they work better and it increases productivity while feeling more content with the freedom to use their own devices (Wood, 2012), since they are more familiar with their own devices. Employees who use their own devices at work have reported that they are more satisfied, more innovative, more efficient, and happier (Harris, Ives, & Junglas, 2012). Giddens and Tripp (2014) propose that BYOD impacts individual work outcomes due to its effect on the use of the technology for work tasks in innovative ways.

On the other hand, to Bello Garba, Armarego, and Murray (2015) adopting BYOD means that organizations cope with higher security risks. These risks concern managing security, data leakage and controlling the use of personal devices within the companies’ network.

According to Hensema (2013), there is an overall acceptance of BYOD among employees of small to medium-sized organizations. Productivity and facilitating conditions are the most important factors that influence the use (Hensema, 2013) of personal devices.

In order to examine the acceptance of BYOD among self-employed professionals it is important to find out more about this target group. Therefore the next paragraph will give more insight into self-employed professionals.

2.2. Self-employed professional

Self-employed independent professionals, freelancers or an entrepreneur without employees are used in literature to describe someone who sells his or her services to employers without a long-term contract (Oxford English Dictionary). An example of another definition is, individuals who carry out work on their own account and at their own risk in their own business or practice or work in an independent professional setting without personnel (Kamp van der, 2011).

Study shows that the rise of the self-employed professional fits into the pattern of increasing individualization of Dutch society (Kamp van der, 2011). The Dutch organization for Applied Scientific research (TNO) and the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) have done several

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6 studies on Dutch independent professionals. These

studies indicate that mostly highly educated people, experienced people and women with children are the ones who go for the profession of freelancer. The choice to become a self-employed professional is to be more independent in work activities and more flexible. Furthermore, it is normal for independent professionals to simultaneously work for different clients temporarily.

According to Giddens and Tripp (2014) employees have been found to be motivated to use their own devices because they believe that they could do their job better. In the context of self-employment and job satisfaction, a large number of studies support the notion that the self-employed professionals enjoy higher levels of job satisfaction, compared with salaried, organizationally dependent employees (Lange, 2012). Within this study the terms Self-employed independent professionals, freelancers or an entrepreneur without employees will also be used to define this target group.

The following paragraph covers the topic of job satisfaction.

2.3. Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction is an affective response that is associated with one’s experiences at work (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). It is defined as the extent of positive emotional response to the job resulting from an employee’s appraisal of the job as fulfilling or congruent with the individual’s values (Morris & Venkatesh, 2010). Another definition, job satisfaction broadly refers to the degree to which people like their work, and it is usually determined by self-reported information (Millán, Hessels, Thurik, & Aguado, 2013). Defined as an attitude , job satisfaction is “a positive(or negative) evaluative judgement one makes about one’s job or job situation (Weiss, 2002).

People experience job satisfaction differently and have different opinions, thus it is a subjective indicator. Therefore, it is difficult to assess what is actually measured when asking individuals to evaluate overall satisfaction with their jobs, which has in turn led to a lack of understanding of what job satisfaction refers to and how, ultimately, it can be influenced by employers and policy-makers (Millán et al., 2013).

It is difficult to measure job satisfaction because of its subjectivity. However there are some factors involved that have an impact on job satisfaction. These factors are related to individual-

and job characteristics such as relationships with co-workers, the work itself, salary and work conditions. On the other hand, Roelen, Koopmans, and Groothoff (2008) stated there is no ‘gold standard’ that indicates which aspects should be taken into account when job satisfaction is measured.

Research findings are far from conclusive regarding workers at different levels that have been reported to have different job satisfaction because of various computer-impact factors, such as deskilling and upgrading of job, shifting of responsibilities, and span of control (Ang & Soh, 1997). However this is not applicable for self-employed professional because they are their own bosses and do not have to deal with these factors.

Yet, users who have more knowledge about systems especially in a computer-mediated environment, tend to be in greater control of their job situation, which could be translated into greater satisfaction with the working environment in which the computer is perceived as a valuable tool (Ang & Soh, 1997).

Osterman Research (2012) reports that employees have higher job satisfaction due to the personal freedom they have when are permitted to use their mobile devices. Thus in the context of BYOD it could be stated that workers who use their personal devices mostly have more knowledge of their systems which will contribute to their job satisfaction.

2.4. Experience

As mentioned before, experience plays an effective response of job satisfaction therefore this section sets out to develop an understanding of experience. Experience is fundamental to human existence (Jain, 2001). It can be categorized into previous, the present, and the future experience in chronological order (Park, Han, Kim, Cho, & Park, 2013). The user’s previous experiences and expectations affect the present experience, which leads to more experiences and modified expectations (Park et al., 2013).

However, there is a difference between experience and user experience according to Roto (2007). Experience does not require a product/system and interaction but user experience does.

ISO 9241-210 (ISO9241-210, 2010) defines user experience (UX) as "a person's perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service". So,

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7 user experience is subjective and focuses on the

use (Zhi & Shangshang, 2011).

In the case of interacting with mobile devices and applications, users seek utility as they try to satisfy certain needs, but at the same time they have certain feelings and emotions when, for example, they feel attached to their personal phone and/or trust its brand (Raptis, Papachristos, Kjeldskov, Skov, & Avouris, 2014).

Prior studies of user acceptance revealed that experience played an important role in an individual’s decision to use the system and the overall experience was positively related to the individual’s perception that it was easy to use (Hackbarth, Grover, & Mun, 2003)

3. RESEARCH APPROACH

3.1 Research question

Although the BYOD phenomenon is accepted among employees working in small to medium-sized organizations (Hensema, 2013), does not necessarily mean that self-employed professionals have a positive experience towards the use of BYOD.

Knowing the fact that temporary employees would rather use their privately owned devices for business purposes (Castro-Leon, 2014), it can be assumed that this is also applicable for employed professionals. Because most self-employed professionals use their own personal devices in organizations that have adopted BYOD has led them to get involved with this phenomena. However there is not much known about their experience with BYOD, this leads to the main research question:

How do Dutch self-employed professionals experience Bring Your Own Device?

Because self-employed professionals without personnel hop from one organization to another and use the same device simultaneously in different contexts, it is interesting to find out why they would want to use their personal devices for personal as well as in working environment. This leads to the first sub question:

What drives a self-employed professional to use their personal devices for business purposes?

According to literature, self-employment leads to higher level of job satisfaction, but it is

interesting to investigate the influence of BYOD on job satisfaction. Therefore the second sub question is:

In what way does Bring Your Own Device, influence job satisfaction of self-employed professionals?

However, it is necessary for independent professionals who use their mobile device to have access to certain facilities at their clients in order to get connected with the network. This means that the clients should provide certain amenities to facilitate BYOD and implement policies. This leads to the third sub question:

What are the obstacles surrounding Bring Your Own Device that self-employed professionals encounter at their clients?

Once the obstacles are identified, it is interesting to find out how this concept can be improved. By addressing improvements, challenges companies to facilitate BYOD better. So, self-employed professionals get the opportunity to specifically state from their point of view what they would like to see improved in order to facilitate BYOD better. Therefor the following sub question is formulated: What are the improvements that can be implemented by the clients to facilitate BYOD better?

3.2 Research design

For this research a qualitative approach has been chosen to answer the main research and sub questions.

Maxwell (2012) has presented a useful design model that consists of five components: (1) goals, (2) conceptual framework, (3) research questions, (4) methods and (5) validity that can be used for conceptually mapping the design of an actual study as part of the design process or in analyzing the design of a completed study. All these components are linked to each other and form an integrated and interacting whole that influence the design of the research. So, the design model itself is interactive; each of the components has implications for all of the other components rather than the components being linear, one-directional relationship with one another (Maxwell, 2012).

In figure 1 the design map for this research is presented. The design map can be also found in the Appendix.

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8 For this research there are three steps

formulated. It starts with a literature study to build a foundation for so far it is possible regarding the

experience of BYOD, followed by getting insight in the research questions by conducting interviews with self-employed professionals with no personnel.

The first sub question will be investigated by asking some questions about the motives why these professionals use their personal devices for business purposes as well as for personal matters, instead using the UWYT concept. Also the benefits and disadvantages will be discussed. As for the second sub question, it will examine if BYOD has a positive or negative influence on job satisfaction among self- employed professionals. According to prior literature this has a positive influence on employees therefore, it is expected that the responses will be positive. For the third sub question the focus will be on questions to identify if there are any obstacles that freelancers encounter at their clients concerning the use of BYOD. First questions will be asked whether these professionals notice that their clients have BYOD policies, and how they make sure that all the clients’ data is secured when it is saved on their device. As for the last sub question, insights can be provided on how self-employed professionals think their clients can facilitate BYOD better. After analyzing all interviews and answering the questions, conclusions can be drawn along with the limitations and future research.

3.3 Interview approach

As stated earlier, there is a lack of insights on how self-employed professionals experience the Bring Your Own Device phenomena. In this qualitative study interviews will be performed to collect data in order to answer the research question. And since interviews play an important role in this research, a lot of focus has been set during developing the interview questions. Thus the following paragraphs will cover the topic of each sub question related to BYOD.

3.3.1 Interview questions related to the use of personal devices

According to Ortbach (2015), the reason why innovative people are more likely to use their private devices for work remain largely undiscovered. Therefore, he studied why innovative individuals are more likely to use their privately-owned devices for work purposes instead of company provided ones. For this study, Ortbach (2015) used the concepts perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) of the technology acceptance model (TAM) to investigate this topic.

TAM is used to explain users’ behavior when it comes to use of technology, it describes the link between perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, the attitude towards use and behavioral intention. Ajzen (1991) defines intention as an indication “of how hard people are willing to try, or how much of an effort they are planning to exert, in order to perform the behavior“. Within this research, behavior means the actual usage of privately owned mobile devices.

Figure 2 illustrates that the actual system use is being influenced by the intention which is affected by the attitude towards the use. This attitude is determined by the extent to which a user is assumed that use of system will improve its productivity (perceived usefulness) and the degree to which a user assumes that using the system is free of effort (perceived ease of use). The external factors determine these views. Many studies found TAM a reliable and valid model for predicting and explaining models on BYOD intention (Ortbach, 2015).

Figure 2 Technology Acceptance Model Figure 1 Design map

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9 Ortbach (2015) used the mediators perceived

usefulness and perceived ease of use of TAM in his research to discover technology acceptance with respect to both enterprise-provided as well as privately-owned devices. His research revealed that the perceived usefulness has the highest influence of all factors for using a privately-owned device for work purposes while perceived ease of use has also a positive effect. Meaning that if the personal device is seen as useful for work tasks (PU) and easy to use (PEOU) the intention to use BYOD increases (Ortbach, 2015). As for the PU of company-owned devices, the results show that individuals do not consider usefulness of the enterprise tools as an important factor for their decision to use their personal devices. And PEOU has a negative effect on company-owned devices, thus individuals that perceive company-owned devices as complex are more likely to use their own devices for work (Ortbach, 2015).

Lebek, Degirmenci, and Breitner (2013) also used TAM in combination with the theory of reasoned action (TRA) to investigate the influence of security, privacy and legal concerns of employees' intention to use BYOD mobile devices.

TRA is a model that theorizes that behavior is directly connected to intention. TRA measures the behavioral intentions in order to explain future behavior (Herr, 1995). TRA theory is not applicable for this research because the focus is more on future behavior and not the actual use, while TAM does. The reason why TAM is chosen for analyzing the first sub question is because the concept of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. These concepts are useful for answering the first sub question because it determines someone decision about how and when they will use their privately owned device.

The research of Ortbach (2015) provided a starting point to develop the interview questions for the first sub question “What drives a self-employed professionals to use their personal devices for business purposes?”. Since the results of Ortbach (2015) showed that PEOU and PU are important mediators, during the interview questions will be asked on these mediators including actual system use.

Furthermore the benefits such as comfortability, efficiency and productivity (Hensema, 2013; Köffer, Ortbach, & Niehaves, 2014; Niehaves, 2012) are seen as drivers why people prefer working with their own devices. These drivers could also be applicable for self-employed professionals. However, it might be

possible that self-employed professionals offer their service including the use of their own devices, since their clients do not provide them with one. The consequence of this is that these professionals have no other choice then to use their own device for work purposes.

So, the questions during the interviews will be focusing on finding out what the drivers are for independent professionals and the benefits. These questions are listed as followed:

o to what extend self-employed professionals are attached to their personal devices

o motives for using personal devices focusing on ease of use, better technology than clients technology, accustomed with own device, knowledge of device

o the advantages and disadvantages that play a role when using personal devices.

3.3.2 Interview questions related to BYOD and job satisfaction

Job satisfaction can be related to intrinsic of extrinsic work values. Intrinsic satisfaction is how workers feel about the aspects of their job, while extrinsic satisfaction is related to external factors that are connected to the job itself. Job satisfaction is an important outcome associated with information and communication technologies (ICTs) utilization due to its influence on employee performance (Wang & Zhang, 2015).

The self-employed are more satisfied with their jobs because their work provides more autonomy, flexibility, and skill utilization and greater job security(Hundley, 2001)

The expectation confirmation theory states, once a user experience the use of a mobile device and his or her expectations are confirmed, he or she will continue using the device (Cho & Ngai, 2014). In other words, users form initial expectations of a specific service or technology prior to adoption, after which they compare their perceptions of its performance with their prior expectations and determine the extent to which their expectations were confirmed (Cho & Ngai, 2014). And when satisfied, users continue using the service or technology. Satisfaction may thus be a determining factor in the user’s intention to continue using a technology, due to the positive reinforcement of his or her attitude toward the technology (Cho & Ngai, 2014). This satisfaction has to be linked to BYOD in order to investigate if this has any effect on job satisfaction.

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10 In the research field there is not a lot of

research done in this area. Ang and Soh (1997) confirmed the significant effect of employee users’ satisfaction with the technology on job satisfaction. Moreover Wang and Zhang (2015) found out that employee users are satisfied with their jobs after their adoption and use of ICTs. In the case of self-employed professionals can also be argued that the use of their personal devices form a part of the service that they offer causing them to be inseparable from their devices. And since it could have become a habit it might be possible that this does not even influence their job satisfaction. Therefore it is interesting to find out in what way self-employment professionals are satisfied with their job when using their own device instead of their clients’ device. Thus the interview questions are related to the following:

o whether the use of personal devices has impact on job satisfaction

o whether there is a difference on the impact of job satisfaction when using a personal device or devices provided by their clients.

3.3.3 Interview questions related to BYOD and policy

For IT organizations, BYOD means supporting a variety of devices and their operating systems, and maintaining an expected level of service (Astani, Ready, & Tessema, 2013). The effect of granting enterprise access to personal devices has direct implications on security, information ownership, device/network control, and even helpdesk resources (Astani et al., 2013). Thus, it is necessary to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of organizational information resources and assets (Bello Garba et al., 2015). However, Trend Micro (2012) reported that 93% of BYOD tablet computers and 84% of BYOD smartphones accessing corporate data do not have any form of security installed on them.

BYOD policies are developed to protect the sensitive data in the devices (Vignesh & Asha, 2015), this means that employees should accept these policies in order to use their private device. On the one hand, BYOD policies must let the users customize their devices to their specific needs and preferences by downloading and installing applications from application stores (Armando, Costa, & Merlo, 2013). On the contrary, they must also counter the threat posed by malicious applications inadvertently installed by the users since they could jeopardize the confidentiality and/or the integrity of corporate data (Armando et

al., 2013). A user policy violation is one of the easiest way to expose a BYOD device to vulnerabilities (Bello Garba et al., 2015).

Vignesh and Asha (2015) developed a three level security policy model for implementing BYOD without having any negative effects on productivity. Their research showed that by adopting this model the level of security has increased and organization data are much safer when using BYOD.

An organizational level policy consists of a checklist that can be used before implementing BYOD. The checklist includes all arrangements and agreements relating to the use of the users personal device, an explanation whenever the policy is violated and the establishment of users authorizations based of their job description to access the companies network. Vignesh and Asha (2015) suggested the following profiles to classify employees: Standard user, advanced user, professional user and a guest user. For this research, the self-employed professional fits the most in the guest user profile because it matches a guest who is new to the network. The device cannot have access to the network until it is verified and registered by the company. Once registered the self-employed professional can be added to the standard user profile in order to have access to the company network. In the meantime the company may limit the access outside the organization.

The application level is another way of providing security by installing application to monitor and assist the user in securing the devices. Some application examples are mobile device management which support full device control, mobile application management which control certain applications on the device, or virtual private networking is used to make secure connection from a mobile device to enterprise.

As for the device level security policies, most of the organizations see it as the responsibility of the owner and the manufacturer. These policies concern that the devices have for

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11 example a trusted certificate authority credentials

or data encryption.

Next to BYOD policies, users might cope with different obstacles when using their privately-owned devices at a company. Some of the concerns that employees cope with are privacy and technical aspects (Lebek et al., 2013). In terms of privacy, the self-employed professional could be afraid that the data on his device could be traced. Self-employed professionals who are working for different clients at the same time have data of all their clients saved on their device along with their own private data. In case their mobile device is being breached, all data could be accessed and a privacy invasion occurs.

Good facilitating conditions are considered to be the most important when using personal devices (Hensema, 2013). Without these conditions it is not possible for independent professionals to get access to the network. Therefore, it is interesting to get insights on how these professionals feel about how technical support is regulated within their clients’ organizations.

During the interviews some questions will be asked about this section which is related to the following topics

o the extent to which clients have a BYOD policy o how personal device are secured

o technical support by clients.

3.3.4 Interview questions related to BYOD and improvements

In the literature there is a lack of information about the opinion of how users feel that organizations can improve the use of privately owned device instead of being assigned to a company device. For this research it is interesting to get a better view on the opinion of self-employed professionals how their clients could facilitate BYOD better which can result in an enhancement of the use of BYOD. Therefore the following questions will be asked during the interviews:

o

the experience of BYOD among self-employed professional and their opinion on how their clients can improve BYOD.

4 METHODS

This section gives a detailed description of the methods used to obtain the empirical data for this research. Given the lack of scientific relevance on how self-employed professional experience the BYOD concept a qualitative research has been

chosen. Most of the studies done about BYOD focus on organization and its impact (Disterer & Kleiner, 2013; Waterfill, 2014; Zielinski, 2012) rather than on individuals. According to Creswell (2013) researchers use qualitative research in order to explore a relatively unknown topic and gain a complex and detailed understanding of the issue at hand.

In-depth interviews have been used as the method of data collection because interviews are an adequate approach of linking different categories and literature (Maxwell, 2012). This chapter discusses how the interviews were developed, conducted and analyzed.

4.1 Development of interview

All interviews starts by given an explanation about BYOD and some general questions to gather information about the participants age, profession, operating sectors and whether they all are self-employed professionals who use their privately owned device for work purposes.

Section 3.3 covers the literature used for the substantive interview questions related to this research theme. The goal of the formulated question is to capture the facts, behavior and experience of the participants towards BYOD. The interview question can be found under appendix A. Before starting the interviews, one participant was used as a pilot to test the interview questions. The main goal of the pilot was to check if all interview questions were clear and if the participant understood the questions. Based on the pilot some interview questions have been refined.

4.2 Participant selection

For qualitative interview studies, no similar standards for assessment of sample size exist (Malterud, Siersma, & Guassora, 2015). However, by using data saturation it is possible to find out when there is enough information to replicate the study when the ability to obtain additional new information has been attained, and when further coding is no longer feasible (Fusch & Ness, 2015).

Eight self-employed professionals (n=8) have been interviewed, to ensure the trustworthiness of this study. These participants all have different profession and were randomly selected within an organization. Table 2 provides an overview of the characteristics of the sample. For privacy reason the participants and the organization where they work at the time of this research is not mentioned.

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Participant Gender Age Years of

freelance experience

Job title

P1 Male 32 4 Online Marketing Intelligence Engineer P2 Male 42 4 Digital/Creative

Producer P3 Female 40 9 Senior Digital

Marketer P4 Male 52 11 Costumer

Intelligence Analyst P5 Female 37 9 Online Project

Manager P6 Male 43 1,5 Process Manager P7 Female 44 9 Information

Analyst P8 Male 34 2 Web Analyst

Table 1 Sample characteristics

4.3 Data collection

Most of the interviews were held at the office of the participants and two interviews were done by telephone. The language used during the interviews was Dutch and all interviews have been audio recorded. Afterwards, all interviews were transcribed in a summary. The summaries were written in Dutch since all interviews were held in Dutch language. Each summary was manually structured and all answers were linked to the sub questions. Each participant reviewed the summary to make sure that the researcher interpreted the information right. All summaries can be found in appendix B.

4.4 Data analysis

For the data analysis the MAXQDA software was used. All summaries of all interviews have been imported in MAXQDA in order to code the data.

In each summary the answers to the various interview questions were codified and categorized to find patterns and or new insights. These codes were related to the sub questions; drivers to use BYOD, BYOD and job satisfaction, BYOD and policy and BYOD and improvements. Within the codes ‘drives for using BYOD’ the sub codes advantages, disadvantages, drivers and motives were defined. And for the sub question BYOD and job satisfaction the code job satisfaction and productivity. Furthermore the codes security, policy and IT support were outlined for the sub question concerning ‘BYOD and policy’. As for the category ‘BYOD and improvements’ only the code improvement was defined since the participants had the freedom to mention whatever they thought to be important for their clients in order to make

the BYOD concept a success. And a code remainder was also defined for all responses that could not be linked to any of the codes mentioned above.

Finally, all the answers given per section have been analyzed to find out if there were similarities or differences.

5 RESULTS

This chapter represents the outcome of the interviews. First of all, the findings regarding the use of personal devices will be presented followed by the impact BYOD has on job satisfaction, policy and its improvements. All results can be found in table 5.

In the following sections there are quotes included from the participants. The indicator Px indicates which participant gave the input.

5.1 The use of personal devices 5.2 The use

The interview results show that five out of eight participants state that they are not attached to their personal device. These self-employed professional feel that they need to be flexible and therefore cannot exclusively attach themselves to their personal device. Also these participants do not have problem using a device provided by their clients. Some quotes from the interviews:

P2: “I do not see it as a problem if the client does not allow the use of personal device. Since I am not attached to my device”

P4: “I am not attached to my personal device, I can easily use a device provided by my clients.”

The remaining three participants who state to being attached to their personal device provide insights to this aspect. The degree of dependency and being attached to their personal device increases, when using it frequently. These professionals are very satisfied with their devices because they developed a certain way of working and are more familiarized with it. Therefore they find it difficult to switch to a clients’ device.

P7: “Whenever you use your device at a client you get more dependent on that device.

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13 5.2.1 The motives

As described in paragraph 3.3.1, three motives for using a personal device will be investigated. These three motives are ease of use, better technology than clients and accustomed with own device. However, some additional motives were pointed out during the interviews. These motives are found in paragraph 5.5.

5.2.1.1 Ease of use

Five out of eight self-employed professionals acknowledge that ease of use has a positive effect on the use of personal device. These self-employed professionals are more acquainted with the device because of it is personalized. By doing so, they believe that the device is easier to use which leads them to prefer using their own device. Furthermore, the professionals share the opinion that it is more pleasant to work with a personal device instead of a device provided by a client.

Yet, three self-employed professionals state that they experience no difference towards ease of use, because the functions of the devices are the same, causing them to easily get used to a clients’ device. Thus they do not see ease of use as a motive to use their privately-owned device for work purposes.

P5: “Ease of use does not depend on which device you are working. With your own device you are more familiar and with a device of the client it takes some time to get familiarize with but at the end the functions on both devices are same.”

P7: “You can rapidly get used to a clients’ device that is why I do not see a difference when it comes to ease of use.”

5.2.1.2 Better technology

Three out of eight participants find that their personal device is more advanced than the clients’ device. These participants are technically more oriented, when looking at their profession. As specialist they focus on the developments within their field and make sure to go along with this tendency. Resulting into having better software or devices than their clients.

Three participants mentioned that the technology is equal to each other and the remaining two participants believe that it depends on the type of organization. As for the three participants who only work with standard

programs such as Microsoft Office, Visio an Outlook do not notice any difference.

On the other hand, the remaining two participants believe that the size and type of organizations is an indicator to determine whether the organizations have better technology than self-employed professionals. It is noteworthy that large organizations have better systems and technology when comparing them with smaller organizations. Smaller organizations are often less organized and use standard tools, this is why self-employed professionals use their own device. Also due the fact that they do not have a device available for these professionals.

However, in general the participants state that their personal devices have much better performance, are light weighted and small while devices provided by clients are most of the time outdated and slow.

5.2.1.3 Accustomed with own device

Five out of eight participants find the aspect ‘accustomed with own device’ as a motive to use their own device, This aspect is related to the fact that the self-employed professional has more feeling with their devices, is familiarize with his personal device and knows how it functions.

The other three participants find this motive neutral. This does not mean that they are not accustomed with their device, but they do not see it completely as a motive.

5.2.2 Advantages

Seven participants identify some advantages of Bring Your Own Device. Table 3 shows the advantages and the number of participants that have referred to the advantage.

Advantages of BYOD Number of times listed

Flexibility 4

Ready to go 3

More feeling with personal device 2

More efficient 2

More productive 2

Manageability 1

Power supply 1

Access to personal tools

and software 1

Table 2 Advantages

Flexibility is the most frequently named advantage by the majority of the participants. A personal

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14 device enables the self-employed professional to

work from different locations and at any time they want.

Also the advantage “ready to go” was mentioned. This refers to the short period of time it takes a freelancer to be operational due to the use of a personal device. Since the device is personalized as desired, no time is wasted on for example installing software.

P1: “I have adjusted my laptop the way that I like so that I am ready to go. “

P2:“By using my personal laptop I am ready to go.“ Furthermore, by using a personal device the professional can access their personal tools on their laptop. These tools are useful when their clients do not have certain tools which they need to perform their work. The use of personal devices is time saving and prevent the participants to spend time devising workarounds in order to get the job done. Some of these workarounds are, e-mailing templates which they need to themselves or use their own laptop next to the clients’ device to compare information stored on their personal device. The reason why a self-employed professional has more feeling with their device is because of the technical developments. This caused these devices to become more embedded in the daily routine. Most of the participants use daily their device to file records related to their business or surf the internet in their free time which leads them to have good knowledge of their device. And therefore they experience having more feeling with their device.

P3: “Due to technological developments we have the ability to use our own laptop, so that is a reason why I am using my laptop.”

The advantages efficient and productive were linked to performance of the device. The participants state that the performance of their device has a positive effect on productivity and efficiency. Due to the speed of the device the participant is able to multitask and accomplish several tests simultaneously.

Moreover, as mentioned earlier the devices of the self-employed professionals are modern, smaller, and light weighted when comparing it with devices provided by their clients. This makes it easy to take everywhere. Further the durability of the batteries of personal devices is much better.

The batteries of a laptop provided by clients often run quickly off.

5.2.3 Disadvantages

Next to the advantages, only four participants state that there are disadvantages concerning BYOD concept. Table 3 covers the disadvantages and the number of participants that have referred to it.

It was clear during the interviews that four participants have difficulty connecting with the clients’ network. Most of the time it takes a couple of days with the help of the IT department before this is fixed.

The participants state that the use of personal device has a negative effect when it takes too long to connect with the clients’ network. Moreover, MacBook users’ experience that IT support on BYOD is limited while users who have a Windows operating system do not experience this. MacBook users believe that IT departments are often only specialized in Windows products. MacBook users find this an obstacle because they believe that they do not get the full support from the IT department.

Another disadvantage is the risk that self-employed professionals face whenever their laptop is damaged or broken, because the participant is not able to service his clients. In this case it is the responsibility of the professional to ensure that the personal device is repaired as soon as possible in order to proceed with their work-related activities. P7: “Whenever you use your device at a client you get more dependent on that device. So when the device gets broken or damaged I am not functional. And it is my responsibility to make sure that it is repaired.“ One participant state that there is no technical policy available which includes the conditions of

Disadvantages of BYOD Number of times

listed

Difficulties connecting to clients' network 4 Poor IT support for Apple users 1 The risks you run when the device is

broken or damaged 1

No technical policy 1

Less productive 1

Cannot use clients' tool 1 Table 3 Disadvantages

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15 what is allowed on the network. For example there

is no prior notice that the IT department does not have knowledge of Apple products and that it is recommend for these users to use a device facilitated by the client.

Yet, the remark was made that it is easy to get distracted by all personal tools or documents saved on the device. Also it is easy to monitor all incoming private e-mails. Therefore, the professional cannot be fully focused on the job causing her to be less productive.

By choosing to use a personal device it is not easy to access tools or software that clients use. Clients are not keen on installing their software on the professional’s device, so in some cases the professional has to gather this information though an employee.

5.3 BYOD and job satisfaction

Six out of eight participants argued that the use of personal device has an impact on job satisfaction. Some of these participants feel happier when working with their own device because they can easily re-use templates and run tasks simultaneously.

P1: “I feel happier when I use my laptop since it is adjusted to my personal needs. I can run tests simultaneously without having to wait long for getting some results back. “

Others find that the performance of their devices have a positive impact on productivity which leads to more job satisfaction while devices provided by their clients are often outdated and slow. This is being experienced as an irritating factor and has a negative effect on job satisfaction.

Furthermore, one comment was made in particular on how a participant felt more independent when using a personal device. The following remark was made:

P8: “I feel independent when using my own laptop, it says something about myself. It is something I have purchased for certain reasons."

In other words it says something about who you are. The participant used the example of how most people in general treat their own car differently than a lease car. When someone has their own car they clean and wash the car more often than when someone has a lease car.

The remaining participants state that the impact is neutral since they do not see the difference when using a clients’ device or their personal device. They find the use of technology as means to help them carry out their work. Although they believe it has indirect effect on job satisfaction. However with the use of the devices they can produce the same output, bearing in mind that it may take a little longer.

5.4 BYOD policy, security and support

5.4.1 Policy

Seven out of eight participants state that their clients do not have a BYOD policy when it comes to the use of privately owned devices. Here are some quotes from the interviews :

P5:“In general, BYOD policies are poorly coordinated in nine out of ten organizations.”

P3: “It is very critical that companies do not have a policy in this area.”

However, some companies have agreements to cover how these workers should deal with sensitive business data. Most agreements between the client and self-employed professional state that they should keep the data and information confidential. But there are no rules how freelancers should deal with the clients’ data and what they should take into account when using their personal device. Sometimes verbal agreements are made on how the data should be used and saved. And in other cases, the freelancers believe that companies obviously assume that they take precautionary measures to secure their data. Only two participants state that they propose an agreement if there is not a policy available so that both parties can sign. This way the conditions are transparent for both parties.

From all the interviews it came clear that only one client has embedded the BOYD concept for the whole workforce. These workers connect to the corporate network with their devices through an internet connection in order to access applications in the cloud. This organization has a comprehensive BYOD strategy containing what is allowed and what is prohibit. Within this company the self-employed professional has a personal account with limited authorization to the applications needed.

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16 5.4.2 Security

In response to previous paragraph which disclosed that the agreements do not contain information on how freelancers should secure their clients’ data, all interviewees state that they protect their device by applying basic security measures, thus with a password.

As for data storage each participant takes different measures. Some save the clients’ data on the server facilitated by the client. Others save all the data on their personal device if the client has not facilitated a server. Furthermore, the participants who save the data on their personal device also make a backup of all the files. These backups are stored on OneDrive or a personal server. The fact that OneDrive is located in the United States does not retain one user from saving data on this location. Only if a client objects, another solution would be proposed

However, only two out of eight participants apply additional security measures. These participants encrypt all data saved on their device. As for the remaining participants, no one has thought about taking additional measures for securing the clients‘ data. As long as it is not requested they will not invest money in encrypted software.

5.4.3 IT support

As for the technical support aspect, all eight participants mentioned that their clients provide technical support when they use their personal device on the corporate network. The support covers issues regarding problems with accessing the network, directories and printing. Problems related to the device are excluded and is the responsibility of the owner. As mentioned in paragraph 5.2.3 MacBook users experience that IT support on BYOD is limited.

It is also stated that general businesses are not focused on the use of external devices in their organization. They support the BYOD concept too little. The access to network and directories is very poor. Most of the freelancers who start at clients should submit service request so they can get help to make connections with the network.

Two participants expect that soon there will be changes in BYOD because the use of personal devices is increasing.

All participants state that they do not expect companies to facilitate docking stations, monitor or other amenities when using a personal device.

5.5 BYOD and improvements

Even though some participants promote their fellow self-employed professional colleagues to use their personal devices for work related purposes, six out of eight participants believe that BYOD can be much more successful when organizations implement the following improvements.

First, organizations need to set up guidelines for temporary workers how they can set up a connection also the operating systems of the freelancers’ device should be taken into consideration. Second, a clause should be included with the best practices on how to save data.

Organizations should also provide manuals that contain procedures for freelancers when they use their device and the type of support clients offer.

Moreover, companies should also focus on developing policies. This makes it more transparent for the organization and it may help giving direction to the workforce.

Another improvement was mentioned by two participants, that companies can improve the BYOD by setting up for example virtual machine or working in the Cloud.

Also companies should invest into training their IT employees to ensure that the IT department has enough knowledge and skills.

One participant made the remark that clients should always buy necessary tools so they can do their job.

As for other freelancers a participant mentioned that they should analyzed the pro and cons carefully when buying a laptop. Most freelancers buy an Apple device because it looks hip and trendy but do not realize that most organizations are Windows oriented.

5.6 Other findings

Here the additional motives mentioned in the interviews are listed. In appendix D these motives are illustrated.

o Depends on operating system of client o Personal device is more user-friendly

o Personal device is adjusted to personal needs o Due to technological developments

o Constant switching with clients’ devices o Has better feeling with own device o The ability to service clients 24/7

All participants share the opinion that they do not have any problem using a device that has

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17 been facilitated by their clients. Also one made a

comment by using a device provided by her clients that it easier to separate private and work related matters. Yet, some remarks were made that a device provided by a client has the advantage that it is already connected to the network. Therefore they do not have to go through all the problems they experience when connecting their personal device to the clients’ network.

The interviews also reveal that almost all professionals prefer working with their own device whenever they have the opportunity. Except for three freelancers, among these freelancers two responded that they have to evaluate the job activities and needed tools prior to deciding which device to use. Furthermore, a remark was also made that the amount of clients that has to be service simultaneously determines whether to use a personal device.

During the interviews it came clear that it is not allowed for self-employed professionals to bring their own device within banks. This is due to all the safety restrictions and privacy concerns.

An interesting finding was identified during an interview. One participant mention there is a new regulation “model agreement” (Model overeenkomst in Dutch) that has been introduced in May of this year. This agreement can be used to prove that there is not an employment relationship between a client and a self-employed professional. When a client can prove this then no taxes and contribution for these professionals need to be paid. It is not mandatory to use the model agreement, however both parties can choose to work according to this agreement. The participant state that by asking the freelancer to use a personal device both parties can prove that there is not any form of employment involved.

In response to this new regulation, the freelancer made the assumption that in the future clients might be asking freelancers to bring their own device more often. Leading to an increase in the use of privately owned devices. Due to the increase, companies might be forced to think about introducing or developing a BYOD policy.

Two participants expect that soon there will be changes in BYOD because the use of personal devices is increasing.

P6: “What you see is that the number of self-employed

professionals is increasing and there are also more and more flexible workers in organization but somehow IT policy of organization is still running behind."

P7:“The use of personal device at clients is increasing so I

expect that the use will become easier but at the moment it is sometimes figuring out how."

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5.7 Summary

This table provides a summary of the results gathered linked to section 3.3.

Personal devices

Is the participant attached to his/her personal device? No No Yes No No Yes Yes No Does the following motives influence the use of personal device?

○ Ease of use Yes Yes Yes No difference No difference Yes No difference Yes ○ Better technology than clients Yes Yes Neutral Depends Neutral Neutral Depends Yes ○ Accustomed with own device Neutral Yes Yes Neutral Yes Yes Neutral Yes What are the benefits that play a role when using a personal

device? Ready to go More productive

More feeling with personal device

Ready to go None Flexibility Flexibility More efficient More productive Power supply of personal device is much better Manageability

Flexibility More feeling with personal device Ready to go Flexibility Access to personal tools and software More efficient More productive What are the disadvantages that play a role when using a personal

device? None None Difficult making a network connection Clients do not support Apple products None Difficult to separate personal and work matters Difficult making a network connection No technical policy Run risks when device is broken or damaged Less productive Difficult making a network connection Difficult making a network connection Cannot easily use clients tools

The impact of BYOD on job satisfaction

Does the use of personal device have impact on job satisfaction? Yes Yes Neutral Neutral Yes Yes Neutral Yes is a difference on the impact of job satisfaction when using a

personal devices or devices provided by their clients? Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Neutral Yes BYOD policy

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How does the participant secures her/his personal device and the

data saved on the device? Device protected with a password Device protected with a password Device protected with a password Device protected with a password and saves data encrypted Device protected with a password Device protected with a password Device protected with a password and saves data encrypted Device protected with a password and data is synchronized with private server Do organizations provide technical support to self-employed

professionals when they use their personal device? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes BYOD and improvements

Overall experience with BYOD Positive Positive Positive Neutral Positive Positive Positive Positive Improvements Set up a virtual

machine to make access better Define guidelines for accessing the network for every operating system Accessibility should be improved Clients should always buy necessary tools so they can do their job In the contract a clause should be included on how freelancers should handle the data Give better support Define a BYOD policy consisting type of devices, tools/software allowed, how to manage business information Ensuring IT department has this knowledge Do a research before buying a personal device Instead of using old software start using the Cloud

The experience of BYOD among Dutch self-employed professionals

The experience of BYOD among Dutch

self-employed professionals

Master Thesis

U.V.E. Pinedoe

University of Amsterdam

Faculty of Science

Information Studies: Business Information Systems

Final version:

October 20, 2016

Supervisor:

Drs. A. Vreeken

The experience of BYOD among Dutch

self-employed professionals

Master Thesis

University of Amsterdam

Faculty of Science

Information Studies: Business Information Systems

Table of contents

Table of acronyms

The experience of BYOD among Dutch

self-employed professionals

Master Thesis

U.V.E. Pinedoe

University of Amsterdam

Faculty of Science

Information Studies: Business Information Systems

1.

INTRODUCTION

2.

RELATED WORK

3.

RESEARCH APPROACH

o

4

METHODS

5

RESULTS