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When Too Little or Too Much Hurts: Evidence for a Curvilinear Relationship Between Cyberloafing and Task Performance in Public Organizations

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Abstract

Cyberloafing, a new type of deviant workplace behavior, has become widespread across organizations. Although there has been an increasing amount of research on cyberloafing, it is unclear whether its influence on employee task performance is linearly positive or negative. To reconcile such an inconsistency, we developed and tested a model, grounded in the effort-recovery model, considering a potential curvilinear relationship between cyberloafing and task performance while also examining the mediating role of relaxation. We further reasoned that this indirect curvilinear effect is contingent on employees’ time management skill. To test our theoretical model, we conducted two studies. In Study 1, multi-time data collected from 243 Master of Public Administration (MPA) students showed that cyberloafing had an inverted U-shaped (curvilinear) relationship with task performance, and relaxation mediated this relationship. In Study 2, using a sample of 392 public sector employees, we replicated the results of Study 1 and found that time management skill moderated the curvilinear effect of relaxation on task performance, as well as the indirect curvilinear effect of cyberloafing on task performance via relaxation. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are further discussed.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, Project ID: 72002108), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Project ID: 2020M680798), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Project ID: 63212126).

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  1. School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China

    Zhuolin She

  2. Business School, Nankai University, #94 Weijin Road, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Quan Li

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  1. Zhuolin She
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She, Z., Li, Q. When Too Little or Too Much Hurts: Evidence for a Curvilinear Relationship Between Cyberloafing and Task Performance in Public Organizations. J Bus Ethics 183, 1141–1158 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05038-9

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