Effects of Organizational Controls on Employees' Cyber-loafing

Abstract

Cyber-loafing is a workplace deviant behavior that may impose perennial losses and security threats to organizations. Due to the destructive impact, organizations take controls to manage employees' cyber-loafing behavior. While previous research concerning these cyber-loafing controls has yielded inconsistent results, this research further advances this line of research through two primarily adopted organizational controls: computer monitoring and Internet usage policy. We contend that the inconsistent results of the effects of computer monitoring and Internet usage policy on cyber-loafing behavior are due to ignoring the influence of individual differences. Motivated thus, we draw on pertaining literature of trait mindfulness to propose that trait mindfulness moderates the effect of perceived computer monitoring and perceived Internet usage policy on behavioral automaticity towards cyber-loafing, which leads to employees' cyber-loafing behavior. In essence, this paper sheds new light on the relationships amid organizational controls, cyber-loafing behavior, and the moderating effects of trait mindfulness. 450 responses were collected to test these hypotheses. Our results show that trait mindfulness enhances the negative effect of perceived Internet usage policy on behavioral automaticity towards cyber-loafing. In addition, we find out that trait mindfulness has an indirect effect on employees' cyber-loafing behavior by reducing behavioral automaticity.