Cyberloafing: Effects On Employee Job Performance and Behavior
Cyberloafing: Effects On Employee Job Performance and Behavior
Cyberloafing: Effects On Employee Job Performance and Behavior
Hence, when employees observe other employees involved in contradictory in nature and have shown positive as well as
cyberloafing during their working hours they may perceive it negative consequences. Some studies have shown that this
as acceptable behavior. phenomenon can act as one of the coping strategies against
Besides, employees using smartphones for both work and adverse experiences at work (Oravec, 2002), (Stanton, 2002),
personal activities make it difficult for employers to measure (Anandarajan & Simmers, 2005). This is vital as employees
the actual work hours of employees. It has been found that have to extend their working hours and may have to go
cyberloafing is a part of their day to day activities and since through the negative impact of burnout and stress (Maslach &
employees are dependent upon smartphones or Leiter, 1997). Hence, it is important to investigate how
internet-connected devices to do their work it is difficult to cyberloafing can have a positive impact on work to see the
potential benefits. As per studies, a certain amount of
tell who is cyberloafing and who is doing the actual work
cyberloafing at work was acceptable.
(Cyberloafing: The hidden epidemic killing Business
Based on gender, men perceive that cyberloafing has a
Productivity by My Sammy, July 10, 2013). In some cases,
positive impact on work than women.
cyberloafing activities lead to an unpleasant environment and Also, internet surfing is positively correlated with
other undesirable outcomes such as when an employee employees’ emotions. On the contrary, sending or receiving
chooses to view offensive material at work. This can also emails has a negative impact. The employees had a feeling
affect other employees who may be distracted, disturbed, or that basic form of cyberloafing during working hours
offended. It is associated with the development of traits such generally is tolerable (Lim, V.K.G., Chen, & D.J.Q., 2009).
as narcissism, self-interest, and manipulativeness (Minimize Researchers, (Maslach & Leiter, 1997); (Oravec, 2002);
Employee Time Theft While Maintaining a Motivated (Anandarajan & Simmers, 2005) indicate possible outcomes
Workforce, a blog by InterGuard released on April 16, 2018). of cyberloafing such as decreasing burnout, less stress, and
Also, employees have a very casual approach towards it and anxiety level. In another research, five core values of job
so do organizations. Although organizations and employees characteristics (task identity, task significance, skill variety,
are unaware of the concept of cyberloafing they are still feedback and job autonomy) and three main types of role
involved in these activities in some or the other way. stressors (role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload) are
Some employees can focus more on work when they take the predictors of cyberloafing, but skill variety, job autonomy,
a break and browse some social networking sites or otherwise. role ambiguity, and role conflict are found to be significant
Few may prefer to play music while doing work. The latter predictors of cyberloafing (Madiha Arshad, December 2016).
may be more focused at work due to music. If the music is With the advent of technology which is freely available in
played online by using the internet resources of the the hands of employees, browsing at work for personal reason
organization and the employee is performing well also; would is a matter of concern for employers. This may deviate
you still call it a negative cyberloafing? Cyberloafing is not employees from productive hours to non-productive hours.
only person-specific, but it is also influenced by the working An employee spending zero hours doing personal work on the
environment and the needs of each employee. internet; will be more productive. However, an increase in
Cyberloafing decreases the overall productivity in the usage of the internet to one hour can increase the productivity
organizations. However, if cyberloafing is handled with of the employees by three times. Today, many organizations
caution and is monitored it may bring positive effects and restrict the usage of social networking sites on devices
higher productivity. A policy concerning clear usage of provided by the employer. This restriction may divert the
internet and monitoring may help the organization and the mind of employee more towards browsing the internet for
employees may involve in low cyberloafing activities as they enhancing knowledge (Saleh, Daqqa, AbdulRahim, &
are monitored. (J-Ho, Ching, Gan, & Ramayah, 2017). Sakallah, 2018). Thus, the engagement of employees in some
sort of recreational activities is a must to increase their
II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND productivity. Indoor recreational activities may not be
possible in every organization due to infrastructure.
When the internet was new to organizations, the Therefore, usage of internet for educational purpose,
employees using internet for personal use would receive a enhancing knowledge or for some sort of leisure activity
memo or could be fired as well. With the advent of internet at within the ethical principles should be permitted by
the workplace, cyberloafing cannot be avoided. organizations.
It offers employees opportunities to take a break from A notable gender difference is also seen in informational,
work and at the same time it proves beneficial to the social and leisure cyberloafing. Female managers working in
organization when employees take cyberloafing as a mean to banks have more informational, less social and less leisure
recover from work (Doorn & (HPM), 2011). A significant cyberloafing as compared to their male counterparts.
amount of attention has been drawn by scholars about Internet Primarily two types of cyberloafing behaviors exist; minor
abuse in companies. Studies on Cyberloafing have often (usage of personal emails and browsing non work-related
implied that it leads to the negative consequences in terms of sites) and major (usage of such sites which would damage the
work deviance and security threats; (LIM*, 2002), (Johnson system of an organization). Also, male employees get
& Indvik, 2003), (Henle & Blanchard, 2008); (Bock, Shin, engaged in such cyberloafing activities much more as
Liu, & Sun, 2010). The possible positive consequences of this compared to females with a probability of factor lack of
behavior are not studied to a significant extent. However, self-control (Ahmad & Omar, 2017).
there are also possible positive consequences of Cyberloafing
applicable to recovery from work and activities related to
work (Oravec, 2002); (Belanger & Slyke, 2002). Thus in
previous studies, the findings on Cyberloafing are
Retrieval Number: E4832018520/2020©BEIESP Published By:
DOI:10.35940/ijrte.E4832.018520 Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
Journal Website: www.ijrte.org
1510 & Sciences Publication
International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE)
ISSN: 2277-3878, Volume-8 Issue-5, January 2020
Males have a higher level of addiction to the internet and III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
towards cyberloafing as compared to females and no
The research is exploratory and analytical in nature.
difference in surfing social networking sites or web browsing
Various factors such as sources of cyberloafing, the behavior
concerning gender (Keser, Kavuk, & Numanoglu, 2016).
of employees due to cyberloafing and its impact were
As per studies of (Galperin & Burke, 2006), highly
explored through available literature and in-depth interviews
committed staff have less deviation at work and do not waste
with respondents and group discussions. The opinions of
time as they have an interest in their job. The study reported
experts in the research were taken into consideration for
that there is an inverse relationship between professional
questionnaire design and validation. Primary data was
commitment and cyberloafing. (Garrett & Danziger, 2008) In
collected through an online survey and the secondary data
the study, he concluded that there is an inverse relation amid
were collected from websites, public reports, research reports,
organizational commitment and personal utilization of the
journal articles, blogs, and news articles. The questionnaire
internet during work. A study also shows that workplace
helps the researchers gather information from the potential
ostracism has a positive relationship with cyberloafing and
respondents and analyze the collected data. A structured
emotional exhaustion is a mediating factor (Koay, 2018).
questionnaire that consists total of a 42 questions was used for
Another study indicates that when organizations are fair
collection of primary data. The components of the
towards employees, it creates organizational trust and leads to
questionnaire were taken from (Stoddart, 2016), (Doorn &
higher employee engagement which consequently reduces
(HPM), 2011) and (LIM & CHEN, 2009) which is divided
cyberloafing behavior among employees (Oosthuizen, Rabie,
into four categories, demographics, sources of cyberloafing,
& Beer, 2018). The researcher reported that employees who
behavior and its impact on job performance and behavior.
like their job would tend to spend less time on irrelevant
Demographics consists of six questions. The components for
activities such as internet abuse (Rezayian, 1995). While
sources of cyberloafing were taken from (Stoddart, 2016),
many studies talk about the impact of cyberloafing on
which consists of sixteen questions; the components of the
employee productivity and job satisfaction, a study by (Lim &
behavior of cyberloafing were taken from (Doorn & (HPM),
Chen, 2009) says that different cyberloafing activities have a
2011), which consists of nine questions. And the components
different impact on employee work attitude. It says that
for the impact of cyberloafing were taken from (LIM &
browsing activities have a positive impact on attitude towards
CHEN, 2009) which consists of eleven questions. The
work as it temporarily helps to relief work stress while
responses were measured with the help of five-point scale
emailing activity has a negative impact on work attitude as it
ranging from “Never” to “Always”. The sample size for the
leads to work depletion; the reason being employees replying
present study is 172 out of which 92 respondents were males
to personal emails thus putting extra energy and time. A study
and 80 respondents were females. The maximum number of
by (Stoddart, 2016) says that cyberloafing is a kind of
respondents belonged to the age of 25-34. 84 respondents
disengagement coping whereas mindfulness is a kind of
belonged to the IT/E-Commerce industry and the rest
engagement coping and mindfulness is partially responsible
belonged to manufacturing, retail, real estate, and education
for the relationship between role overload and work burnout.
industry. Data were collected through convenience and
Usage of internet for personal work at the workplace has
snowball sampling. Regression analysis has been applied to
a significant impact on organizations. The rise in
find the significant impact of cyberloafing on employee job
Counterproductive Work Behaviour (“voluntary behavior
performance and behavior. It helps to examine the influence
that violates significant organizational norms and thus
of one or more independent variables on dependent variables.
threatens the well-being of an organization and its members”)
This journal uses double-blind review process, which
saw an increase of ten percent in Cyberloafing and other
means that both the reviewer (s) and author (s) identities
counterproductive work behaviors from the year 2003 to 2007
(Fine et al., 2010). Further studies reveal a shocking 34 concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the
million employees in the United States are involved in review process. All submitted manuscripts are reviewed by
Cyberloafing resulting in productivity loss amounting to three reviewer one from India and rest two from overseas.
200.6 million hours per week (Lim, V.K.G., Chen, & D.J.Q., There should be proper comments of the reviewers for the
2009). (K.S, 2010) studied and estimated the loss in terms of purpose of acceptance/ rejection. There should be minimum
productivity to 54 billion dollars per year. (Greengard, 2000) 01 to 02 week time window for it.
This study focused on productivity loss and reported that
A. Reason for topic selection:
more than half of the cyberloafing activities within
organizations are unrelated to work. According to estimates, Cyberloafing has become an important issue to address to the
Cyberloafing activities amounts to nearly two to two and a organizations because of the increasing use of the Internet for
half hours every day (Johnson & Indvik, 2003); (Blanchard & completing maximum tasks at the workplace. Organizations
Henle, 2008); (Lim, V.K.G., Chen, & D.J.Q., 2009); provide employees with Internet and email access for the
(Ramayah, 2010). work-related activities, but at the same time, it has led to
These studies report that Cyberloafing activities take distraction from work among employees as they make misuse
away a minimum of 5 hours per week, thereby affecting both of the same for non-work related activities, thus spending
the employee and the organization. The study of involvement unnecessary time on the Internet and delaying the work tasks
of employees in Cyberloafing and its impact on employees which in turn causes loss of productivity. Thus, a study on
and their organization can help managers to take suitable cyberloafing helps organizations and employees cope with the
measures. problems caused due to
Employees who feel down and have a feeling of low cyberloafing.
power at work may involve in cyberloafing activities more
(Kim, Triana, Chung, & Oh, 2016).
Retrieval Number: E4832018520/2020©BEIESP
DOI:10.35940/ijrte.E4832.018520 Published By:
Journal Website: www.ijrte.org Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
1511 & Sciences Publication
Cyberloafing: Effects on Employee Job Performance and Behavior
A. Reliability Statistics:
Reliability analysis is important because it checks
whether the study really fulfills the aim and hypothesis or not
and it also ensures that the outcomes are based on the study
and not on any other material. It was done using SPSS.
Following table represents reliability statistics for: sources of
cyberloafing, behavioral factor and affecting factors
respectively.
The Cronbach’s Alpha is greater than 0.70 for the given
parameters which make the measurement scale reliable Figure 2: Work Experience
(Drost, 2011)
Table 1.1 Reliability Statistics C. Regression Analysis:
Parameters The data were analyzed using regression analysis to find
Cronbach's Alpha N of Items
Cyberloafing 0.937 16 the impact of cyberloafing activities on employee job
activities performance taking into consideration behavioral factors and
Behaviour factors 0.842 9 affecting factors.
Affecting factors 0.76 10
The significance value which is less than 0.05 shows that Unable to meet deadlines 0.072
cyberloafing activities have a significant impact on behavioral
Generating new ideas 0.058
and affecting factors. Detailed analysis is shown in Table 2.1 Making a person more interesting at
and Table 2.2. work 0.026
Factors Significance
Recover from work Positive significance
Negative
Avoid work tasks
significance
Learn new skills Positive significance
Follow developmental sites Positive significance
Behavioral
factors Take a rest Positive significance
Figure 3: Sources of cyberloafing activities Develop myself Positive significance
Negative
Postpone work tasks
significance
Acquire abilities Positive significance
Distraction from work No significance
Unable to meet deadlines No significance
Generating new ideas Positive significance
Making a person more
interesting at work Positive significance
Regaining span of attention Positive significance
Significance
Table 2.2 Observations
Factors Value
Recover from work V. CONCLUSION
4.70E-06
Avoid work tasks 1.43E-07 From the current study, it is found that cyberloafing has a
Learn new skills significant impact on all the behavioral factors. It has a
9.87E-04
positive significant impact on all the behavioral factors except
Follow developmental sites 6.39E-05 on the factors such as avoid work tasks and postpone work
Behavioral Take a rest 2.50E-04 tasks. Whereas, affecting factors such as generating new
factors ideas, making a person more interesting at work, regaining
Develop myself 3.93E-03
span of attention, feeling excited and enthusiastic, and being
Postpone work tasks productive at work, have a positive significant impact on
2.08E-10 employees and no significant
Acquire abilities 4.60E-04 impact is seen in rest of the
Distraction from work 0.262 affecting factors.
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