1 - Luis Hernan Contreras Pinochet Escola Paulista de Política, Economia e Negócios - Universidade Federal de São Paulo - EPPEN/Unifesp - Campus Osasco
2 - Vanessa Itacaramby Pardim UNIVERSIDADE NOVE DE JULHO (UNINOVE) - Santo Amaro
3 - Cesar Alexandre de Souza Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade da Universidade de São Paulo - FEA - Faculdade de Economia, Adinistração e Contabilidade da Universidade de São Paulo - FEA/USP
Reumo
Cyberloafing refers to employees’ accessing the Internet during work for personal and non-work related purposes, such as accessing social networks, checking news, making purchases, reading personal emails, playing any type of game online, reading blogs, visiting chat rooms, listening to music, downloading pirated software, or viewing pornographic videos, etc. (Koay, 2018; Lim, 2002).
The objective of this article is to identify the impact of each antecedent proposed on the behavioral intention of cyberloafing, on employees of companies with controlling or flexible characteristics after the announcement of formal controls. Regardless of the types of controls that could have been implemented earlier, this announcement generally indicates a more serious posture by the company in relation to cyberloafing and, therefore, is expected to affect the characteristics of employee cyberloafing.
To achieve this goal, the authors proposed a cyberloafing behavior model based on Akers’ Social Learning Theory (SLT) adapted from Khansa, Kuem, Siponen, and Kim (2017). This research proposes to use two of the four antecedents - Perceived Risk and Peer Cyberloafing. Two other constructs where also included “Perceived Justice” and “Self-efficacy” that are often mentioned in the specialized literature for being related to the theme. This research seeks to fill a gap in academic understanding in relation to employees’ cyberloafing behavior given the dilemma of their management.
The research is descriptive, with a quantitative approach. It was developed through a survey with 538 employees, using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis with structural equation modeling. Pearson’s bivariate correlation and analysis of variance (ANOVA) measured the independent variables Perceived Risk, Peer Cyberloafing, Perceived Justice, Self-efficacy and Intention of Cyberloafing and variables of control sex, type of management, and frequency of use (cyberloafing), about the consequences on people management strategies regarding the control of cyberloafing in the workplace.
As a result, we observed that “Peer Cyberloafing” results from the influence of co-workers’ technologies usage. This justifies the behavior as acceptable and harmless and brings a collective view of this practice and helps to promote the social capital of organization. In addition, this phenomenon causes employees to develop skills and competences, stimulating creativity and contributing to generate ideas that in some way can benefit the organizational dynamics characterized by “Self-efficacy”.
This study corroborates the results of a recent research by Cezar and Corso (2019), in which it was found that despite interviewees perceiving the negative side regarding the loss of time and concentration when they intend to practice cyberloafing, even after the announcement of a company, they also have the perception that they can make use of technologies for personal purposes in the workplace in times of boredom, such as an “escape valve”, to recover before returning to their tasks.
Askew, K., Buckner, J. E., Taing, M. U., Ilie, A., Bauer, J. A., & Coovert, M. D. (2014). Explaining cyberloafing: The role of the theory of planned behavior. Computers in Human Behavior, 36, 510-519.
Khansa, L., Kuem, J., Siponen, M., & Kim, S. S. (2017). To Cyberloaf or Not to Cyberloaf: The Impact of the Announcement of Formal Organizational Controls. Journal of Management Information Systems, 34(1), 141-176.