When Do Employees Cyberloaf? An Interactionist Perspective Examining Personality, Justice, and Empowerment

• Date: 01 November 2016
• Published date: 01 November 2016
• Author: Nahyun Oh,Kwanghyun Kim,Kwiyoung Chung,María del Carmen Triana
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21699

Human Resource Management, November–December 2016, Vol. 55, No. 6. Pp. 1041–1058

© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI:10.1002/hrm.21699

Correspondence to: Kwanghyun Kim, Korea University Business School, 145 Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, Korea

136-701, Phone: 82-2-3290-2625, E-mail: kimk@korea.ac.kr

WHEN DO EMPLOYEES CYBERLOAF?

AN INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE

EXAMINING PERSONALITY,

JUSTICE, AND EMPOWERMENT

KWANGHYUN KIM, MARÍA DEL CARMEN TRIANA,

KWIYOUNG CHUNG, AND NAHYUN OH

Cyberloafi ng—using the Internet for non-work-related activities—is a preva-

lent counterproductive work behavior in the workplace, but researchers have

not yet paid suffi cient attention to this issue, especially related to the role of

personality in cyberloafi ng. Recognizing such a research gap, and using a trait

activation theory framework, this study examines whether conscientiousness

and emotional stability negatively relate to cyberloafi ng. We further investigate

how organizational justice perceptions and psychological empowerment moder-

ate the negative relationship between these personality traits and cyberloafi ng.

Based on a sample of 247 employees, we fi nd that those high in conscientious-

ness cyberloaf less when they perceive greater levels of organizational justice.

In addition, highly conscientious individuals cyberloaf less when they have low,

rather than high, levels of psychological empowerment. Implications for research

and practice as well as future research directions are discussed. ©2015Wiley

Periodicals, Inc.

Keywords: cyberloafi ng, personality, empowerment, justice

The Internet has made business more

effective by increasing employee pro-

ductivity, overcoming the constraints of

time and space in doing business, and

enabling better interactions with cus-

tomers. However, the use of the Internet has its

dark side. Surfing the web during work hours,

exchanging instant messages, and spending time

doing non-business-related activities at work

are prevalent in the contemporary workplace

(Malachowski, 2005). These counterproductive

work behaviors called cyberloafing are defined

as “any voluntary act of employees’ using their

companies’ Internet access during office hours to

surf non-job-related Web sites for personal pur-

poses and to check personal e-mail” (Lim, 2002,

p. 677). Through cyberloafing, employees waste

time and are less engaged in their work, which, in

turn, decreases their productivity (Malachowski,

2005; Stewart, 2000). For example, it is reported

that 59 percent of Internet use at work is not rel-

evant to work (Griffiths, 2003). Cyberloafing also

causes problems in information systems and data

security, such as network bandwidth overload,

system performance degradation, spyware infec-

tion, and virus malware introduction through

1042 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2016

Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm

Drawing on trait

activation theory,

we focus on two

important boundary

conditions,

organizational justice

and psychological

empowerment, by

recognizing the

critical influence of

one’s perceptions

about fair treatment

and task environment

on the association of

personality traits and

cyberloafing.

chosen because they are the strongest predictors

of job performance and are highly related to task

achievement (Barrick, Stewart, & Piotrowski,

2002; Mount, Barrick, Scullen, & Rounds, 2005).

Along the same lines, these traits should be highly

related to cyberloafing because conscientious-

ness and emotional stability are associated with

tendencies to strive for achievement. People with

strong striving for achievement are more likely

to harness their behaviors to correctly complete

their jobs at work. This may play a critical role in

controlling their time and focusing their attention

on work; they may not spend their resources (i.e.,

time) and energy on being distracted from work

(i.e., cyberloafing). Thus, we examine whether

these personality traits reduce cyberloafing. Our

theory is based on the self-regulatory motivation

process framework (Kanfer & Heggestad, 1997)

and, in particular, trait activation theory (Tett &

Burnett, 2003). We are also interested in examining

whether the association between personality traits

and cyberloafing varies according to situational

factors. Trait activation theory, which focuses on

the moderating role of situational cues where per-

sonality traits are expressed in trait-relevant work

behavior (Tett & Guterman, 2000), predicts that

correlations between traits and behavioral inten-

tions are stronger in situations that would be

appropriate for bringing out the trait. Drawing on

trait activation theory, we focus on two important

boundary conditions, organizational justice and

psychological empowerment, by recognizing the

critical influence of one’s perceptions about fair

treatment and task environment on the associa-

tion of personality traits and cyberloafing. First, we

suggest that perceived organizational justice (the

perceived fairness in an organization; Colquitt,

Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001), along with

personality traits, may have synergic effects to

reduce cyberloafing. Previous studies have inves-

tigated the direct effect of organizational justice

on cyberloafing (Lim, 2002), but they have not

explored its interaction with personality. Second,

we propose that when psychological empower-

ment (the degree to which an employee is able to

perform the job successfully and in the manner of

his or her choosing; Spreitzer, 1995) is high, the

negative association between the personality traits

and cyberloafing will be stronger. To our knowl-

edge, this study is the first to look at empower-

ment as an important boundary condition in the

personality traits–cyberloafing relationship. We

examine the interaction of personality and situ-

ational characteristics to explain cyberloafing.

Taken together, our research is intended to con-

tribute to a better understanding of dispositional

antecedents of cyberloafing in organizations by

illicit software downloading and surfing unsecure

sites, all of which can make the company vulnera-

ble (Levoie & Pychyl, 2001; Sipior & Ward, 2002).

Acknowledging the serious consequences

of cyberloafing, research has been conducted to

identify what leads to cyberloafing behaviors

(Blanchard & Henle, 2008; Liberman, Seidman,

McKenna, & Buffardi, 2011, Lim, 2002). Stressors,

injustice perceptions toward the organization,

external locus of control, sleep deprivation, and

workplace norms supporting cyberloafing have

been found to augment loafing on the web

(Blanchard & Henle, 2008; Henle & Blanchard,

2008; Krishnan & Lim, 2010; Lim, 2002). Blau,

Yang, and Ward-Cook (2006) also found that

employees who feel powerless in their work envi-

ronment are more likely to engage in interactive

forms of cyberloafing, including

playing games. In contrast, job sat-

isfaction and involvement and orga-

nizational justice perceptions are

identified as restraining cyberloafing

(Liberman et al., 2011; Lim, 2002).

However, we still lack an understand-

ing of the antecedents of cyberloaf-

ing. In particular, the lack of research

attention to the role of personality

is astonishing in that individuals’

dispositions significantly predict

job attitudes over a time span (Staw,

Bell, & Clausen, 1986; Staw & Ross,

1985). For example, Krishnan and

Lim (2010) showed that individuals

high in extroversion are more likely

to cyberloaf from sleep deprivation

compared to those low in extrover-

sion. Blanchard and Henle (2008)

also found that people with a higher

belief in chance (i.e., one subset

of external locus of control) were

more likely to engage in cyberloaf-

ing because they believe that good

or bad things happen for unknown,

external reasons. Very few studies

we identified in an extensive lit-

erature search studied personality

and cyberloafing in a work setting

(Krishnan & Lim, 2010, is an exception based on

university student samples). Another example is

the work of Restubog etal. (2011), who uncovered

a stronger negative effect between justice percep-

tions and cyberloafing for employees high in self-

control as opposed to low in self-control.

Given the scarcity of studies on the role of

personality traits in the extant cyberloafing lit-

erature, this research focuses on conscientious-

ness and emotional stability. These two traits were