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This paper aims to provide a brief review of cyberloafing in a holistic and comprehensive manner. Specifically, this paper discusses the nature of cyberloafing, factors that influence cyberloafing, positive and negative impacts of cyberloafing, and suggestions for prevention and control.

This paper has four sections: what is cyberloafing, what motivates people to cyberloaf, negative and positive impacts of cyberloafing and suggestions for its prevention and control.

There are various reasons that motivate employees to cyberloaf, and cyberloafing has both positive and negative impacts. The decision to allow or disallow employees to cyberloaf at workplace very much depends on the company’s work culture and how top management thinks about cyberloafing. This paper provides several suggestions on how to control and prevent cyberloafing.

A holistic overview of cyberloafing is discussed in this paper.

This chapter seeks to investigate the role of student emotional intelligence (EI) in countering in-class cyberloafing behaviour by students, by exploring the mediating role of boredom proneness through a quantitative approach. A sample of 163 postgraduate university students in India was selected. The authors assessed the mediation model using PROCESS macro. The authors found that students who are more aware of their emotions are better equipped to handle internal and external distractions and work towards a desired goal or outcome and therefore are less likely to experience boredom. Results from this study revealed a significant direct and indirect negative relationship between students’ EI and cyberloafing behaviour. This chapter contributes to the body of literature by highlighting the positive effects of EI as an important antidote to student cyberloafing behaviour. On the practical front, the findings of this study can be used by academicians who are charged with the responsibility of understanding and enhancing student learning by diminishing cyberloafing behaviour among them. The proposed framework could provide a foundation for countering cyberloafing behaviour in educational settings.

The purpose of the study is to explore the relationship between leader bottom-line mentality (BLM) and employee social cyberloafing behavior. Based on social exchange theory, the authors propose that leader BLM will promote employee social cyberloafing behavior via psychological contract breach, especially when employee needs for relatedness is high.

To test the hypotheses, the authors conducted a multi-wave, multi-source field study with 185 paired employee–leader dyads at three time points. The hypotheses were tested by Mplus with a bootstrap approach to obtain confidence intervals.

The results show that leader BLM has a positive impact on employee social cyberloafing behavior, which is mediated by psychological contract breach. In addition, employee needs for relatedness moderates this process. Specifically, when employees pertain high needs for relatedness, the influence of leader BLM will be stronger.

This research paper highlights the detrimental influence of leader BLM and provide directions for preventing employee cyberloafing behavior.

Previous studies have drawn inconsistent conclusions on the effectiveness of leader BLM, such as enhancing task performance and eliciting social undermining. This study further explores the underlying mechanism linking leader BLM to employee social cyberloafing behavior and the boundary conditions. This has subsequently provided practitioners with new perspectives regarding why employees engage in counter-productive social cyberloafing.

One of the most important challenges confronting enterprise managers is that of controlling employees' social cyberloafing. The use of enterprise social media entails opportunities for cyberloafing. However, previous research on how enterprise social media use affects cyberloafing is rather limited. Using the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, this paper proposes a research model to investigate the relationship between enterprise social media usage and employees' social cyberloafing behavior.

Structural equation modeling was performed to test the research model and hypotheses. Surveys were conducted in an online platform in China, generating 510 employees' data for analysis.

First, both public social media and private social media used for work-related and social-related purposes have a positive effect on employees' job engagement. Further, job engagement has a negative effect on employees' social cyberloafing. Second, the use of public social media for work-related and social-related purposes has no effect on employees' emotional exhaustion. However, work-related private social media usage has a negative effect on employees' emotional exhaustion, and social-related private social media usage has a positive effect on employees' emotional exhaustion. Further, employees' emotional exhaustion has a positive effect on employees' social cyberloafing. Third, there are significant differences in the effects of enterprise social media on employees' social cyberloafing between male and female employees.

First, this paper contributes to the social cyberloafing literature by establishing a relationship between enterprise social media usage and social cyberloafing in relation to the dual influence mechanism. Second, it contributes to the JD-R model by clarifying how the use of enterprise social media with different motivations affects social cyberloafing through a mediation mechanism, namely, an enabling mechanism and a burden mechanism. Third, this paper also contributes to the social cyberloafing literature by revealing the boundary condition, namely gender, between enterprise social media use and employees' social cyberloafing.

The substantial cost of employee cyberloafing to organizations calls for research into exploring the factors that influence such behavior. Drawing upon social cognitive theory, the authors develop a theoretical model that unpacks when and why leader forgiveness induces employee cyberloafing. Specifically, the authors identify moral disengagement as a linking mechanism and employee empathic concern as a key boundary condition in the association between leader forgiveness and employee cyberloafing behaviors.

The authors conducted multilevel analyses to examine the authors' hypotheses by utilizing a sample of 71 supervisors and 306 direct reports.

Results showed that leader forgiveness encouraged employee cyberloafing via moral disengagement among employees with low empathic concern, whereas the indirect effect was not present among those with high empathic concern.

The authors contribute to the literature on cyberloafing and leader forgiveness. First, this study extends the cyberloafing research by considering leader forgiveness as an enabler, challenging the dominant notion that positive leader behaviors (e.g. leader mindfulness) constrain employee cyberloafing while negative leader behaviors (e.g. abusive supervision) elicit it. Second, although past studies have predominantly concentrated on the positive outcomes of forgiveness, the current research contributes to the balanced and comprehensive understanding of leader forgiveness by linking leader forgiveness with employee cyberloafing.

Despite previous research highlighting the consequences of facades of conformity (FOC) on attitudes, emotions and feelings, little is known about their negative effects on behaviors. This study draws on the job stress process model to examine the association between FOC and cyberloafing and explores how anxiety functions as an underlying mechanism affecting cyberloafing.

A total of 185 employees from Chinese organizations participated in a two-wave questionnaire survey.

The study found a positive relationship between FOC and cyberloafing and noted that anxiety mediates this relationship. The research also identified that performance–avoidance goal orientation moderates the relationship between FOC and anxiety, as well as the indirect effects of the FOC–cyberloafing relationship via anxiety.

The research findings demonstrate that FOC is positively associated with anxiety and cyberloafing. The disruptive nature of FOC in the workplace has been revealed. Furthermore, this study provides valuable suggestions for managers on how to reduce employee FOC and cyberloafing.

Using the job stress process model, this study investigates whether (main effect), how (a mediating mechanism) and when (boundary condition) FOC drives cyberloafing, deepening the understanding of the relationship between FOC and cyberloafing.

This study aims to investigate whether social media use (SMU) at work has a curvilinear effect on job performance and whether Cyberloafing (non-work-related use) and job complexity moderate this effect.

Online surveys were conducted in China among WeChat users from multiple organizations working in the office environment, generating 350 valid responses.

The results revealed that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between SMU at work and job performance through mediations of communication, information sharing and entertainment; such that the relationship is initially positive but becomes weaker as SMU increases and exceeds the optimal level. Notably, it is found that Cyberloafing negatively moderates the relationship between SMU and job performance, and there is a significant joint moderating effect of job complexity and Cyberloafing.

This study improves the research of information system use. It also provides implications for organizations concerned about formulating policies related to individuals' SMU and suggests that SM users and managers should find strategies to arrive at without surpassing the optimal level to maximize productivity.

This paper enriches the job demands-resources model to extend the literature on the advantages and disadvantages of SMU at work, which indirectly affect performance through two job conditions (job resources and demands). The study finds that employees benefit from a moderate amount of SMU at work, once it surpasses the optimal level, job demands surpass job resources and counterproductivity will appear. In addition, Cyberloafing and job complexity moderate the optimal level of SMU at work, which have not yet been investigated.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the attractiveness or unattractiveness of cyberloafing in the workplace using Q methodology and the Kano model.

The perception of employees towards cyberloafing was investigated based on Q methodology, and then they were prioritized using Kano model. Ten IT companies were selected for the case study. In this study, a mixed method was used. First, 30 participants were interviewed. Next, after extracting the comments, Q-matrix was presented to 30 participants and they completed the matrix cells. Finally, Kano questionnaire was designed using the items obtained from Q methodology and distributed among 30 participants.

Q methodology led to nine perceptions, and the priorities of Kano model were proponents of increasing employees' dependence on the internet, economic thinkers, the indifferent, dissatisfied, proponents of receiving information, self-control proponents, the profit-minded, mind destroyer and satisfaction-oriented. Cyberloafing is considered unattractiveness with adverse effects. The combination of Q methodology and Kano model can improve the analysis of the results.

This study is one of the few studies in which Q methodology is improved by Kano model. In the past, Q methodology alone examined people’s perception, but by combining these two methods, it is determined which perception is more satisfying and which one is more important, and then a general result can be reached.

The purpose of this study is to better understand the effect of workplace ostracism on cyberloafing by examining the mediating effect of moral disengagement. The role of organisational commitment as a moderator of the association between workplace ostracism and cyberloafing is also examined.

The proposed hypotheses are tested with survey data collected from 243 employees among public listed companies in Malaysia. Data are analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The results show that workplace ostracism has a significant positive influence on cyberloafing. Furthermore, it is observed that workplace ostracism serves as a mediating factor in the link between workplace ostracism and cyberloafing. Finally, organisational commitment is revealed to have no significant moderating effect on the relationship between workplace ostracism and cyberloafing.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to build and test a model based on social cognitive theory that examines the fundamental mechanisms through which workplace ostracism influences cyberloafing.

This study aims to examine the relationship between telecommuting and cyberloafing among Ghanaian workers. In addition, the study investigated the moderating role of emotional exhaustion on telecommuting and cyberloafing.

The study collected quantitative data from 945 employees in banks, telecommunication and insurance sectors of the Ghanaian economy. Data was entered using SPSS v.23 and analysed with Process Macro v3.5.

The results indicate that there is a significant positive relationship between telecommuting and cyberloafing. It also found out that emotional exhaustion has a significant negative relationship with cyberloafing. Furthermore, emotional exhaustion moderated the relationship between telecommuting and cyberloafing. Organisations are not necessarily required to be in a particular location to achieve their goals. Through practices such as telecommuting, organisations are able to unleash the creative and innovative abilities of employees and also improve their psychological well-being for greater gains.

The practice of telecommuting psychologically empowers the individual giving some decision-making latitudes to one and making one responsible and accountable for their actions and inactions. Also, individuals who are giving the chance to telecommute will only engage in cyberloafing behaviours when they are emotionally exhausted. Thus, it is important to create conditions that establishes equilibrium and creates harmony between the individual and the work, hence eliminating any feeling of emotional exhaustion and reaping the full benefits of telecommuting.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the role of emotional exhaustion in the relationship between telecommuting workers and their engagement in cyberloafing.