On Cyberslacking: Workplace Status and Personal Internet Use at Work

Abstract

Is personal Internet use at work primarily the domain of lower-status employees, or do individuals higher up the organizational hierarchy engage in this activity at equal or even greater levels? We posit that higher workplace status is associated with significant incentives and greater opportunities for personal Internet use. We test this hypothesis using data collected via a recent national telephone survey (n = 1,024). Regression analyses demonstrate that, contrary to conventional wisdom, higher-status employees, as measured by occupation status, job autonomy, income, education, and gender, engage in significantly more frequent personal Internet use at work.

Teachers’ personal web use at work

“…PWU as a coping strategy can therefore be either detrimental or beneficial to the organisation. However, the other primary justification for PWU in this study is beneficial: 43% of respondents suggested that PWU made them more productive by providing short breaks, an assertion proposed by Coker (2011) and Garrett and Danziger (2008). Here, rather than an act to manage specific stressors within the workplace which characterises escape-avoidance coping, engaging in PWU as a means of increasing productivity can perhaps be seen more proactively and therefore as beneficial to the organisation.…”

“…However, while there is general agreement about the type of internet activities that constitute cyberloafing (or cyberslacking), there is divergence about the type of employee who is most likely to engage in PWU. Blau et al (2006) and Ugrin et al (2007) suggest workers who felt powerless were most likely to cyberloaf while Garrett and Danziger (2008) found that higher status workers were those most likely to loaf online. Several studies have found that gender is the most important determinant, with cyberloafing more prevalent among males Chen, 2009, Vitak, et al, 2011;Restubog et al, 2011).…”

Web of deceit: Relationships between the dark triad, perceived ability to deceive and cyberloafing

“…Garrett & Danziger, 2008;Page, 2015: Sheikh et al, 2015. Consequently, on an applied level, the importance of the present research lies in its potential to inform policy that might reduce cyberloafing behaviour, such that the productivity of workplaces may be maximised, and the costs associated with cyberloafing reduced.…”

Can Emotional Stability Buffer the Effect of Job Stress on Deviant Behavior?

“…Another study of North American, Asian and Indian employees revealed that employees experiencing job stress tend to find a way to forget stress by engaging in non-work related computing which is a form of deviant behavior (Ugrin et al, 2008). The stress-deviance relationship has been demonstrated by Garrett and James's (2008) study among employees in the United States whereby stress led to engagement in the deviant behavior of cyberslacking. Building on these findings, we develop our first hypothesis:…”