The Impacts of Internet Monitoring on Employees’ Cyberloafing and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Longitudinal Field Quasi-Experiment

Hemin Jiang (), Mikko Siponen (), Zhenhui (Jack) Jiang () and Aggeliki Tsohou ()
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Hemin Jiang: International Institute of Finance, School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230052, China
Mikko Siponen: Information Systems, Statistics, and Management Science, Culverhouse College of Business, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487
Zhenhui (Jack) Jiang: HKU Business School, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Aggeliki Tsohou: Department of Informatics, Ionian University, Corfu 491 00, Greece

Information Systems Research, 2024, vol. 35, issue 3, 1175-1194

Abstract: Many organizations have adopted internet monitoring to regulate employees’ cyberloafing behavior. Although one might intuitively assume that internet monitoring can be effective in reducing cyberloafing, there is a lack of research examining why the effect can occur and whether it can be sustained. Furthermore, little research has investigated whether internet monitoring can concurrently induce any side effects in employee behavior. In this paper, we conducted a longitudinal field quasi-experiment to examine the impacts of internet monitoring on employees’ cyberloafing and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Our results show that internet monitoring did reduce employees’ cyberloafing by augmenting employees’ perceived sanction concerns and information privacy concerns related to cyberloafing. The results also show that internet monitoring could produce the side effect of reducing employees’ OCB. Interestingly, when examining the longitudinal effects of internet monitoring four months after its implementation, we found that the effect of internet monitoring on cyberloafing was not sustained, but the effect on OCB toward organizations still persisted. Our study advances the literature on deterrence theory by empirically investigating both the intended and side effects of deterrence and how the effects change over time. It also has important broader implications for practitioners who design and implement information systems to regulate employee noncompliance behavior.

Keywords: internet monitoring; cyberloafing; organizational citizenship behavior; deterrence theory; field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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