Bring your own device philosophy from the user's perspective: an empirical investigation

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a new trend topic, the IT management has to deal with. It enables the employees to use their own smart phones, tablets or other IT devices for business purposes (i.e. to access corporate applications or manage corporate data). Today, there is a considerable increase in organizations adopting the BYOD philosophy and consequently the debate about the costs, gains and risks is in full swing. The purpose of this study is to provide insights into the use of the BYOD philosophy, in terms of its perceived benefits and threats. To attain our goal, an empirical investigation was conducted of 156 BYOD’s users. The results of this study indicate that BYOD is considered as a fairly innovative philosophy that brings some substantial benefits, such as an increase on both the mobility and flexibility at work. On the other hand, upon the use of BYOD, employees seem to be highly concerned about the privacy of their data. They are also afraid that they will be forced to work beyond their normal working hours. Since BYOD's use was typically perceived as non-complex, most employees stated that they were attracted by organizations that adopt the BYOD philosophy. This indicates that, as far as the employees are concerned, the BYOD's benefits outperform the threats.