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When pluralistic ignorance about cyberloafing is increased, individuals engage more in cyberloafing. Cyberloafing has become a great challenge in business organisations, and it is believed that many organisations do not complete their daily activities as a result of employee cyberloafing. Using the social norms theory as the main theoretical framework, the current study aims to assess the effects of prescriptive social norms on employee cyberloafing with the moderating effects of power distance and co-worker interdependency.

The data sample included 237 employees from six large organisations in the service sector. This study used a survey to collect data at different times and analysed the data using hierarchal regression and Hayes Process Macro.

Findings revealed that there exists a positive and significant impact of supervisors' approval of cyberloafing on employees' cyberloafing. Co-workers' approval of cyberloafing does not have any impact on employee cyberloafing. Power distance was found to moderate the relationship between supervisors' approval of cyberloafing and employees' cyberloafing. However, co-workers' interdependency did not moderate the relationship between co-workers' approval of cyberloafing and employees' cyberloafing.

This research examines employees' cyberloafing behaviours and highlights the adverse consequences of prescriptive social norms in a work environment characterised by co-workers' interdependence and power distance.

Scholars are increasingly focusing on the adverse effects of digitization on human lives in personal and professional contexts. Cyberloafing is one such effect and digitization-related workplace behavior that has garnered attention in both academic and mainstream media. However, the existing literature is fragmented and needs to be consolidated to generate a comprehensive and contemporary overview of cyberloafing research and map its current intellectual boundaries. The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on systematic literature review (SLR) in cyberloafing and cyberslacking in the workplace.

A SLR is conducted to assimilate the existing research. A total of 87 studies selected through a robust protocol are analyzed through content analysis.

A total of four thematic research areas and inherent gaps are identified, including conceptualization, operationalization, antecedents and stakeholders and consequences. Results are used to assimilate thematic gaps and potential research questions (RQs) to be addressed by future scholars. To advance cyberloafing research, the authors propose a theoretically grounded comprehensive framework based on the SLR findings.

Our study's novelty rests in its state-of-the-art synthesis of cyberloafing research, which encompasses a broader scope than prior SLRs. Furthermore, developing a theoretically grounded comprehensive framework for advancing future research is a unique contribution of this study.

This study aims to assess the nexus between perceived overqualification (POQ), anger, knowledge hiding, cyberloafing and harmonious passion (HP).

The authors obtained 264 responses from two public traded firms in Pakistan using a supervisor-subordinated nested design and a multi-time data collecting strategy using convenience sampling.

The study results indicate that POQ positively affects knowledge hiding and cyberloafing. The authors also found anger as a potential mediator in the direct association between POQ and cyberloafing. In addition, the findings suggest that the association between POQ, knowledge hiding and cyberloafing will be weak when individuals exhibit HP towards their job roles. The results of this research, when considered as a whole, provided support for all of the hypothesised direct and indirect linkages, which has important ramifications for both theory and practise.

This study has both theoretical and practical implications. Grounded on equity theory and relative deprivation theory, this paper asserts that HP should be used to decrease POQ affect. According to the authors, pro-environment employee actions may help build a pro-environment workplace culture as well as a pro-environment sense of responsibility, both of which can help to achieve significant pro-environment results.

This study builds on and fills in the gaps left by earlier research to better aid organisational researchers, practitioners and stakeholders in understanding how POQ, rage, information concealing, cyberloafing and harmonic passion interact with one another.

Cyberloafing is an organization-directed counterproductive work behavior (CWB). One stream of literature deems cyberloafing to be bad for organizations and their employees, while another suggests cyberloafing is a coping response to stressful work events. Our work contributes to the latter stream of literature. The key objective of our study is to examine whether cyberloafing could be a means to cope with a stressful work event-abusive supervision, and if yes, what mediating and boundary conditions are involved. For this investigation, the authors leveraged the Stressor-Emotion-CWB theory which posits that individuals engage in CWB to cope with the negative affect generated by the stressors and that this relationship is moderated at the first stage by personality traits.

Using a multi-wave survey design, the authors collected data from 357 employees working in an Indian IT firm. Results revealed support for three out of the four hypotheses.

Based on the Stressor-Emotion-CWB theory, the authors found that work-related negative affect fully mediated the positive relationship between abusive supervision and cyberloafing, and work locus of control (WLOC) moderated the positive relationship between abusive supervision and work-related negative affect. The authors did not find any evidence of a direct relationship between abusive supervision and cyberloafing. Also, the positive indirect relationship between abusive supervision and cyberloafing through work-related negative affect was moderated at the first stage by the WLOC such that the indirect effect was stronger (weaker) at high (low) levels of WLOC.

This work demonstrates that cyberloafing could be a way for employees to cope with their abusive supervisors.

Prior research has found empirical evidence that procedural justice is an antecedent of cyberloafing in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to explore why that association is possible. It is argued that perceptions of procedural justice affect cyberloafing because unfair procedure places an employee in conflict with the organizational rules. Accordingly, this paper predicts that it is normative conflict rather than procedural justice that really prompts employees to retaliate against the organization by engaging in cyberloafing.

Data are collected from 147 (19.4 percent) of the 758 non‐teaching staff at a public university where internet usage policy to combat its improper use has been increasingly rigid. Structural equation modeling is used to test the predicted mediation.

The results show that procedural justice is an antecedent of the normative conflict that fully mediates the link between procedural justice and cyberloafing.

The subjects in this study reflect job conditions that are peculiar to the public sector. This may limit the ability to extrapolate the findings to the private sector. The findings provide a new explanation for the mechanics of the link between unfair/fair procedural perceptions and cyberloafing.

The findings contribute to a better understanding of the way procedural justice is able to monitor cyberloafing, and discusses how actions designed to promote procedural justice may be useful to the efficient management of normative conflict, hence, the normative process is able to stifle cyberloafing.

Employee perceptions of normative conflict are shown to mediate the relationship between procedural justice and cyberloafing. This is the first empirical test of this mediation.

This study investigated why employees' cyberloafing behavior is affected by their coworkers' cyberloafing behavior. By integrating social learning theory and deterrence theory, the authors developed a model to explain the role of employees' perceived certainty of formal and informal sanctions in understanding the effect of coworkers' cyberloafing behavior on employees' cyberloafing behavior.

The authors conducted a survey that involved a two-stage data collection process (including 293 respondents) to test our developed model. Mplus 7.0 was used to analyze the data.

The results revealed that employees' cyberloafing was positively affected by their coworkers' cyberloafing both directly and indirectly. The indirect effect of coworkers' cyberloafing on employees' cyberloafing was mediated by the employees' perceived certainty of formal and informal sanctions on cyberloafing. Employees' perceived certainty of formal and informal sanctions were found to mediate the relationship both separately (each type of sanctions mediates the relationship individually) and in combination (the two types of sanctions form a serial mediation effect).

The study reveals an important mechanism – employees’ perceived certainty of formal and informal sanctions – that underlies the relationship between coworkers' cyberloafing and employees' cyberloafing, thus, contributing to the cyberloafing literature. It also demonstrates the importance of negative reinforcement (perceived sanctions) in the social learning process, which contributes to the literature on social learning theory because previous studies have primarily focused on the role of positive reinforcement. Lastly, the study reveals a positive relationship between employees' perceived certainty of formal sanctions and informal sanctions, which has important implications for deterrence theory.

This paper introduces the concept of knowledge sabotage as an extreme form of counterproductive knowledge behavior, presents its typology, and empirically demonstrates its existence in the contemporary organization.

Through the application of the critical incident technique, this study analyzes 177 knowledge sabotage incidents when employees intentionally provided others with wrong knowledge or deliberately concealed critical knowledge while clearly realizing others’ need for this knowledge and others’ ability to apply it to important work-related tasks.

Over 40% of employees engaged in knowledge sabotage, and many did so repeatedly. Knowledge saboteurs usually acted against their fellow co-workers, and one-half of all incidents were caused by interpersonal issues resulting from the target’s hostile behavior, failure to provide assistance to others, and poor performance. Knowledge sabotage was often expressed in the form of revenge against a particular individual, who, as a result, may have been reprimanded, humiliated or terminated. Knowledge saboteurs rarely regretted their behavior, which further confirmed the maliciousness of their intentions.

Even though knowledge saboteurs only rarely acted against their organizations purposely, approximately one-half of all incidents produced negative, unintentional consequences to their organizations, such as time waste, failed or delayed projects, lost clients, unnecessary expenses, hiring costs, products being out-of-stock, understaffing, or poor quality of products or services. Organizations should develop comprehensive knowledge sabotage prevention policies. The best way to reduce knowledge sabotage is to improve inter-personal relationships among employees and to foster a friendly and collaborative environment.

This is the first well-documented attempt to understand the phenomenon of knowledge sabotage.

The study aims to drive conceptual clarity around resistance to information technology projects, integrating multiple facets of the phenomenon from earlier studies.

The study conducts a meta-synthesis of qualitative studies on resistance to technology projects; it analyzes those studies at a case-specific level, compares and contrasts emergent concepts against each other, and “translates” those to the rest of the studies. The study uses the seven-step meta-ethnography method by Noblit and Hare to reciprocally translate emergent concepts to construct the conceptual model.

Through meta-synthesis, the study derives a new conceptual model for resistance to information technology projects, exemplifying how the identified antecedents create user resistance and how the phenomenon progresses within organizations.

This study enriches the observations and conclusions of past individual studies while explicating various facets of the mechanisms that generate and progress technology resistance within organizations. It offers fresh insights into the equivocal nature of the phenomenon and the distinctive ways it progresses from individual to group level.

Many ambitious and costly digital transformation efforts do not succeed due to user resistance. Understanding the mechanisms that create user resistance can help organizations manage technology projects better, thereby reducing the technology assimilation gap and protecting returns on related investments.

There have been extensive studies on technology acceptance (enablers) within organizations, while those relating to technology inhibitors are somewhat limited. However, the symmetry of understanding between enablers and inhibitors is vital for organizations to assimilate promising technologies and transform their business models. This model uses a new lens of sensemaking theory to explain how the antecedents trigger perceived threats and resistance behavior; it highlights the nuances around the development of resistance within individuals and its progression to groups. The resultant model offers better generalizability in organizational contexts.

Supervisory abuse is a form of destructive leadership. Research has continued to document many deleterious consequences associated with such improper behavior at work. This study further extends its consequences by testing a model linking abusive supervision to job apathy through a climate of fear.

This study drew on affective events theory in investigating the role of the climate of fear in instances where casual workers perceive abuse in commercial banks. A three-wave and three-week time lag approach was adopted for data collection from 245 casual workers in southeastern Nigeria.

Results from partial least squares structural equation modeling supported the model by showing that abusive supervision had a direct positive relationship with the climate of fear and job apathy, while the climate of fear related positively to job apathy. Results also revealed that the climate of fear partially mediated the relationship between abusive supervision and job apathy.

Managers can be trained to become more supportive and less abusive to address the problem of abusive supervision. Furthermore, casual workers are encouraged to report any abuse from their manager to higher authorities inside or outside their workplace.

This study sheds new insights and advances the abusive supervision literature by investigating the climate of fear as the underlying mechanism.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of burnout as a mediator in the relationship between workplace incivility (WI) and instigated WI.

A survey of 303 white collar employees from small- to medium-size industries in Australia was conducted. Self-reported measures were used to obtain data on WI, burnout, and instigated WI. Mediation analyses with bootstrap via PROCESS was used ascertain the proposed relationship.

Results indicated that WI was positively linked to instigated WI. Importantly, results indicated that burnout fully mediated the relationship between WI and instigated WI.

The correlational and self-report nature of the study exclude inference about causality between variables and may be more prone to bias. However, despite these limitations, pre- and post-cautionary steps were taken to ensure that these biases were kept at bay as much as is possible.

The study highlights that burnout may be an important underlying mechanism responsible for target’s and perpetrator’s uncivil relationships toward each other. Management should be cognizant of possible burnout among employees who experienced WI and to take appropriate training as preventive measures for WI.

This study responded to the call for more empirical investigation of WI. This study also integrated conservation of resources and the spiral of incivility theories to develop a theoretical model which linked WI to instigated WI.