Cyberloafing: Investigating the Importance and Implications of New and Known Predictors

Cyberloafing occurs when employees use technology to loaf instead of work. Despite mounting organizational concern and psychological research on cyberloafing, research provides little actionable guidance to address cyberloafing. Therefore, the present study builds on previous cyberloafing investigations in three primary ways. First, we utilize a person-situation framework to compare personological and situational construct domains. Second, we extend the cyberloafing nomological network by investigating previously unexamined, yet powerful, predictors. Third, we employ a multivariate approach to identify the most important cyberloafing antecedents. From seven cyberloafing constructs, we found that boredom, logical reasoning, and interpersonal conflict were the most important correlates. Our results highlight novel, important predictors of cyberloafing and allow us to provide empirically-based recommendations for developing cyberloafing interventions.