SummaryThe study examined the impact of work and family role characteristics on work±family con¯ict, and indicators of psychological well being among self-employed and organizationally employed women and men. Results show that employment type and gender have independent main effects on several of the study variables. Self-employed persons enjoy greater autonomy and schedule¯exibility at work, and report higher levels of job involvement and job satisfaction than those employed in organizations. However, they also experience higher levels of work±family con¯ict, and lower family satisfaction than organizational employees. The ®ndings suggest that there are trade-offs between the costs and bene®ts of selfemployment, and that business ownership is not a panacea for balancing work and family role responsibilties. Directions for future research are discussed.

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Personal web usage can be defined as any voluntary act of employees using their company's web access during office hours to surf non-work related websites for non-work purposes. Previous research suggested that personal web usage is a negative force with productivity losses, congested computer resources, security costs, and the potential risk of legal liability. However, using qualitative research we investigated the attitudes of a diverse set of individuals to personal web usage. Our findings suggest that personal web usage in the workplace can be potentially constructive, although we acknowledge the potential for negative uses as well. We suggest an extension of social contract theory to explain these findings.

An important aspect to managing Personal Web Usage (PWU) at the workplace lies in understanding and reshaping the perceptions of the users. The study contends that the outward manifestation of PWU behaviors at the workplace is but one consequence of the actors' attitudes which in turn are determinants of their ingrained beliefs. This study explores user perceptions about PWU using a web-based Q-methodology. Q-methodology used in this study is suitable for exploratory research, to obtain a deeper and first-hand understanding about the underlying phenomena about an under-explored concept. Twenty-five participants were asked to sort 38 statements according to their relative importance. The results uncover three distinct factors PWU: (1) cyber-bureaucrat, (2) cyber-humanist, and (3) cyber-adventurer. This indicates that PWU maybe a multidimensional construct instead of a uni-dimensional one as previously thought. The findings of this study can help managers understand, and shape the perceptions of the users rather than the outwardly manifested behaviors.

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