Bringing cyber loafers back on the right track
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635571011069095 |
| Date | 24 August 2010 |
| Published date | 24 August 2010 |
| Pages | 1038-1053 |
| Author | Pablo Zoghbi‐Manrique‐de‐Lara,Arístides Olivares‐Mesa |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Bringing cyber loafers back
on the right track
Pablo Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara and Arı
´stides Olivares-Mesa
Department of Economics and Management,
University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Abstract
Purpose – Despite the use in companies of policy and control mechanisms to tackle cyberloafing,
these practices are still popular among employees. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that control
systems alone are unable to deter cyberloafing because they are eventually perceived as a sort of
“ineffectual dog that may bark a lot, but ultimately does not bite.” Instead, control systems are only
expected to deter cyberloafing if employees view them as leading to punitive consequences.
Design/methodology/approach – First, given the easy visibility of cyberloafing activities, the
paper proposes a design for control systems that not only includes perceptions of organizational
control (monitoring), but also perceptions of the supervisor’s physical proximity (proximity). Data are
collected from university administration and services personnel, whose main working tool is the
computer. They all have internet access and individual e-mail, a stable physical location at work, and a
supervisor. Multiple hierarchical regressions are used to test whether in reality proximity and
monitoring are unable to decrease cyberloafing unless they interact together with employees’ fear of
formal punishment (punishment).
Findings – Only by interacting together and with punishment are proximity and monitoring able to
deter cyber loafers from engaging in cyberloafing.
Research limitations/implications – The study could suffer from mono-method/source bias, and
the university that supplied the sample has certain job conditions similar to those of the public sector,
thus raising concerns about the generalizability of the results.
Practical implications – The results suggest that organizational managers should not only ensure
that control systems are able to discover incidents and identify the perpetrators, but they should also
follow them up with punitive consequences. Only if control systems are implemented together with
punishment are they effective in eliciting perceived certainty among cyber loafers of being caught and
sanctioned, and hence in “bringing them back on the right track.”
Originality/value – Despite the extensive use of control systems to deter cyberloafing, there are no
previous empirical studies that have examined and supported the negative interacting effects of
proximity, monitoring, and punishment on cyberloafing.
Keywords Employee behaviour,Human resource management, Internet,Organizational culture,
System monitoring,Punishment
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The ubiquity of information and communication technologies in the workplace is
increasingly apparent. One cyber activity that has recently received a lot of attention
among organizational scholars is cyberloafing (also called cyberslacking). Lim (2002,
p. 677) defines cyberloafing as:
[...] any voluntary act of employees’ using their companies’ internet access during office
hours to surf non job-related Web sites for personal purposes and to check (including
receiving and sending) personal e-mail.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
IMDS
110,7
1038
Received 27 January 2010
Revised 29 March 2010,
4 April 2010
Accepted 18 April 2010
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 110 No. 7, 2010
pp. 1038-1053
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/02635571011069095
Cyberloafing is a prevalent and costly problem for organizations. Malachowski (2005)
refers to this inappropriate use of the internet as the most common way for employees to
waste time at work. Current estimates range from a little over three hours per week
(Greenfield and Davis, 2002) to 2.5 hours per day (Mills et al., 2001). In addition,
cyberloafing can cause problems in the information system’s security and general
proper functioning, such as bandwidth clogging, spyware infection, and task
postponement (Levoie and Pychyl, 2001; Sipior and Ward, 2002). Illegal or unethical
behaviors derived from the abuse of these technologies can also harm employees and
their employers (Gaskin, 1998).
One common method for managing cyberloafing activities is the implementation of
electronic use policies and control systems (Mirchandani, 2003, 2004; Straub and
Welke, 1998). Once the internet use policies have established what actions are
appropriate and acceptable to an organization, control systems are designed to deter
abuse of company-provided e-mail and internet systems by discovering incidents and
identifying the perpetrators. In a recent survey, Flynn (2005) found that over 80 percent
of employers have implemented electronic use policies.
Unfortunately, despite the frequent use of control systems to combat cyberloafing,
the literature only offers anecdotal advice for constructing these systems, the advice is
not based on theory, and its effectiveness has not been empirically tested (Henle et al.,
2009). Furthermore, some prior work suggests that control systems by themselves may
not have an inherent ability to either ethically demotivate (Cialdini, 1998) or rationally
deter (Tenbrunsel and Messick, 1999) inappropriate behavior in organizations. Instead,
some authors have suggested that control systems are influenced by determining factors
(Alder et al., 2008) and within broader mech anisms that ultimately decrease
inappropriate behavior. In this regard, Blanchard and Henle (2008, p. 1080) noted that
for efficient cyberloafing management to take place, “monitoring activities need to be
followed up with disciplinary actions.” Although at one time investigated ad nauseam,
disciplinary actions are currently a subject of limited study (Young and Case, 2004;
Mahatanankoon, 2006). Furthermore, recent studies suggest that it is not clear whether
the management literature in traditional contexts is directly applicable to the specific
settings (Maruping and Agarwal, 2004) in which cyberloafing takes place
(e.g. more perceived anonymity, fewer social sanctions, and less recognition). Thus,
it is imperative for scholars and practitioners to examine how and when control systems
can deter cyberloafing, so that companies and organizations can harness their potential
benefits.
The present study intends to shed light on this gap. From a strict deterrence
approach, this paper suggests that control systems are ineffective in deterring
cyberloafing unless cyber loafers view them as followed up by punitive consequences.
In other words, standing alone, control systems are likely to be perceived as a sort of
“ineffectual dog that may bark a lot, but ultimately does not bite.” Given the easy
visibility of cyberloafing activities, this paper first proposes control systems that include
general perceptions of organizational control (hereafter, monitoring) as well as
those related to supervisor physical proximity. The paper will then examine whe ther
these control systems alone (supervisor physical proximity and monitoring) deter
employees from engaging in cyberloafing. We expect that only under fear of formal
punishment (hereafter, punishment), or “perceived certainty that the dog that really
Cyber loafers
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