Faculty Publications
Do Deterrence Mechanisms Reduce Cyberloafing When It Is An Observed Workplace Norm? A Moderated Mediation Model
Document Type
Article
Keywords
Certainty of sanctions, Cyberloafing, Observability, Perceived norms, Severity of sanctions
Journal/Book/Conference Title
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Volume
18
Issue
13
Abstract
Despite the documented individual, job, and organizational antecedents of cyberloafing at the workplace, few studies have addressed whether, how and when group factors affect employees’ cyberloafing behaviors. Drawing on social learning theory and general deterrence theory, the purpose of this study is to test if observability of coworkers’ cyberloafing behavior affects employees’ perceptions of norms related to cyberloafing and subsequent cyberloafing behaviors and to test if sanctions can play a role in buffering these effects. An investigation of 335 employees working at Chinese enterprises establishes that observing others engaging in cyberloafing influences the employees’ perceived norms and cyberloafing behaviors and that employees’ perceived norms related to cyberloafing play a partial mediating role in the relationship between observability and employees’ cyberloafing. As predicted, we also found that perceived certainty and severity of potential sanctions for cyberloafing moderate the effect of observability on employees’ cyber-loafing as well as the indirect effect of observability on employees’ cyberloafing via perceived norms related to cyberloafing. This study enriched the cyberloafing literature by revealing how observability of cyberloafing influences employees’ cyberloafing and by unveiling two boundary conditions under which the cyberloafing learning effect can be buffered.
Department
Department of Accounting
Original Publication Date
7-1-2021
DOI of published version
10.3390/ijerph18136751
Repository
UNI ScholarWorks, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa
Language
en
Recommended Citation
Song, Mengmeng; Ugrin, Joseph; Li, Man; Wu, Jinnan; Guo, Shanshan; and Zhang, Wenpei, "Do Deterrence Mechanisms Reduce Cyberloafing When It Is An Observed Workplace Norm? A Moderated Mediation Model" (2021). Faculty Publications. 54.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/facpub/54
