The antecedents of job embeddedness and their effects on cyberloafing among employees of public universities in eastern Iran

Abstract

Purpose To perceive the reasons for misusing the internet at work, an activity known as cyberloafing, efforts were made to find a new approach to reduce this negative behavior among employees. Thus, this study aims to identify the antecedents of job embeddedness (JE) and their effects on cyberloafing among the employees of public universities in eastern Iran. Design/methodology/approach To this end, the antecedents of JE were first extracted by reviewing the literature in this regard. In the next step, the opinions of the expert team were taken into account to select five variables. Subsequently, the conceptual model and hypotheses were presented and tested through structural equation modeling. A 57-item questionnaire was then distributed among the employees of eastern Iranian universities, who were selected through random stratified sampling. Finally, the data collected from of 510 questionnaires were analyzed. Findings According to the findings, it can be argued that JE with its five antecedents of family support, work support, job flexibility, work practices and task significance is able to significantly reduce cyberloafing. Moreover, the full mediating role of JE was confirmed. Originality/value Cyberloafing is a term describing the actions of employees who use their internet access at work for personal purposes pretending to do legitimate work. It has been turned into a serious challenge in developing countries such as Iran. It is, therefore vital to identify its factors and antecedents to diminish the counterproductive behavior in the workplace.

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