Nexus among cyberloafing behavior, job demands and job resources: A mediated-moderated model

Abstract

This study examines the influence of job demands and job resources on cyberloafing behavior through the mediating role of job stress and work engagement and the contingent role of employee motivation at universities. The research model draws on border theory and the JD-R model. The partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique is followed for testing the hypotheses. Data from 534 questionnaires was used for final analysis. The main findings of the study are: 1) job demands significantly increase job stress and cyberloafing behavior; 2) job resources significantly enhance work engagement, while reducing cyberloafing behavior; 3) job stress increases cyberloafing behavior, but work engagement reduces it; 4) job stress and job resources significantly mediate the relationship between job demands and cyberloafing behavior; and 5) employee motivation significantly reduces cyberloafing behavior and significantly moderates the relation between job stress and cyberloafing behavior. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Cyberloafing and cyberslacking in the workplace: systematic literature review of past achievements and future promises

“…high self-enhancement value) are more likely to cyberloaf, despite the awareness of control and monitoring systems. However, few studies have investigated employees' motivation (Elrehail et al, 2021), the factors driving them (Batabyal and Bhal, 2020) and the reasons why they perceive cyberloafing to be ethical or unethical. For instance, Elrehail et al (2021) determined the moderating influence of employee motivations on the relationship between job stress and cyberloafing, while Hensel and Kacprzak (2020) determined a non-significant influence of motivation on cyberloafing.…”

“…5.3.4.4 Job and work-related variables. Scholars have examined employees' engagement with work (Elrehail et al, 2021;Oosthuizen et al, 2018;Soral et al, 2020), along with various aspects of work tasks and job characteristics, for their influence on cyberloafing. According to Vitak et al (2011), there is a differential effect of antecedents like socio-demographic factors, Internet utility and routine Internet use on the jobs that require repetitive actions visa-vis creativity.…”

“…Studies have determined that cyberloafing is predicted by an employee's organizational commitment (Hensel and Kacprzak, 2020), job embeddedness (Karimi Mazidi et al, 2020;Saghih and Nosrati, 2020) and identification with the job characteristics and stressors (Zhou et al, 2021), such as role conflict (Henle and Blanchard, 2008), job (Hensel and Kacprzak, 2020) or role overload (Varghese and Barber, 2017) and underload (Pindek et al, 2018). For instance, Elrehail et al (2021) found job demands, as well as stress, increased cyberloafing, while job resources and work engagement decreased this behavior. The authors also determined that job stress and resources mediate the association between job demands and cyberloafing.…”

Cyberloafing: Minimalizing Work Stress on Millennial Generations Employee

“…From the explanation above, it can be seen that someone who experiences work stress will have a great desire to overcome the stress they experience, one of which is by doing cyberloafing. This means that cyberloafing behavior among millennial generation employees is considered an activity that can refresh brain performance, this behavior is carried out to reduce or create stress experienced such as entertainment when stressed, and refreshing the brain feeling stressed and bored because they have to work continuously, and has an impact on increased productivity of employee performance (Betts et al, 2014;Dursun et al, 2018;Elrehail et al, 2021).…”

“…This causes organizations to worry about surfing the internet for personal gain because it can ignore work responsibilities. Cyberloafing in the workplace has been recognized as a form of counterproductive behavior that harms organizations (Elrehail et al, 2021;Jandaghi et al, 2015). There are several possibilities for cyberloafing behavior that occurs namely, they experience work stress.…”