Rapid Communication. Relationship between Organizational Justice and Cyberloafing in the Workplace: Has Anomia a Say in the Matter?

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1 CYBERPSYCHOLOGY & BEHAVIOR Volume 10, Number 3, 2007 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. DOI: /cpb Rapid Communication Relationship between Organizational Justice and Cyberloafing in the Workplace: Has Anomia a Say in the Matter? PABLO ZOGHBI MANRIQUE DE LARA, Ph.D. ABSTRACT Anomia describes the individual s lack of integration in social life. This study examines the moderating role of work anomia (WA) in the relationship between employees perceptions of organizational justice (OJ) and workplace Internet misuse (or cyberloafing). The model suggests that WA interacts with that link by tightening their theoretic negative association. Data were collected from 270 (17.46%) of the 1,547 teachers of a Spanish university by Intranet . Multiple hierarchical regression results support that WA acts as a moderator of the OJ-cyberloafing link because the perceptions of three types of OJ (distributive, procedural, and interactional) among employees with low, as compared to high anomia, have a stronger negative relationship with cyberloafing. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the OJ cyberloafing link, and favor the control of cyberloafing through WA. INTRODUCTION THE MASS INTRODUCTION of Internet into organizations over the last decade has also opened the door to a new type of deviant workplace behavior (DWB): employees surfing the Internet instead of working. This new form of DWB has been labeled cyberloafing 20 and could be classified as a deviance targeting the organization, since the cyberloafer acts directly against the company s Internet system. 5,22,32 Lim defines Internet misuse 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 Cyberloafing can be responsible for a 30 40% drop in employee productivity. 40 A survey of 1,000 workers in the United States revealed that 64% of them surf the Internet for personal purposes during working hours, 38 and a representative from an Internet surveillance company recently estimated that recreational web surfing cost U.S. businesses $5.3 billion in Given this alarming scenario, it is not surprising that research on cyberloafing has centered on seeking its antecedents in order to control it. Research on workplace deviance has found empirical evidence that employees are more likely to engage in misconduct when they perceive their employers to have been unjust or in the allocation of outcomes. For instance, Greenberg 18 found that employees reacted to perceived unfair pay cuts by engaging in theft; Skarlicki and Folger 35 found that employees who perceived their employers to be Department of Management, Universidad de las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands. 464

2 ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE AND CYBERLOAFING IN THE WORKPLACE 465 unfair were more likely to retaliate. Perceptions of organizational justice (OJ) include judgments of income fairness or distributive justice (DJ), organizational procedures or procedural justice (PJ), and about the more or less respectable and honest interpersonal treatment or interactional justice IJ. 4,23 However, as Aquino et al. 2 state,... not everyone who is treated unjustly by her supervisor at work responds by engaging in deviance. Consistently, the direct relationship between the equity theory and workplace non-task behavior provides relative deprivation models that only offer partial explanations. Aryee et al. 3 interpose trust in the organization, while Moorman et al. 29 study the mediation of perceived organizational support. Van Yperen et al. 39 use negative affect as the mediator. In referring to cyberloafing, Lim 22 suggests the construct The metaphor of Ledger based on neutralization techniques. The latter refer to a priori rationalizations to which individuals appeal (i.e., injustice) in order to convince themselves that their misbehavior (i.e., cyberloafing) is excusable. 37 Those rationalizations really trigger cyberloafing. 22 Finally, Zoghbi 42 found that interactional injustice affects cyberloafing when it is fully mediated by the intimidation which that injustice provokes. Based on the above, we suggest that an expanded Srole s 36 anomie construct may tighten the justice-cyberloafing link (Fig. 1). Anomie (from the Greek: an- [absence], and -nomos [law]) results from a social lack (or perceived lack) 9 of normative standards. This absence can cause individuals to become disoriented, anxious, isolated, and even misbehave. Anomie influence in deviance has been studied extensively in criminal studies, 31 but its presence in the organizational literature is limited. Exchange theorists suggest that human interactions are characterized by social economics. Social economics deals with how people are concerned about the input they invest in relationships and the Organizational Justice Work Anomia (WA) H labc Cyberloafing FIG. 1. Hypothesized model of work anomia as moderator of the relationship between organizational justice and cyberloafing. received outcomes from them. 6 The need to reciprocate for benefits received in order to continue receiving them serves as a starting mechanism for social integration and group structure. 17 If employees believe that one or a combination of DJ, PJ and IJ has occurred, they may be motivated to reciprocate in kind. Therefore, these ideas lead us to expect that perceived unjust treatment would result in the employee becoming upset and motivate cyberloafing. The first level of anomie analysis has origins in Emile Durkeim (1893, 1897) 13,14 and Robert Merton (1938, 1957), 26,27 and dominates the sociology literature. The other theory is attributable to Leo Srole (1956). 36 He employed the term anomia to differentiate his study at the psychological level from the sociological one. Srole s five-item scale analyzes the eunomia-anomia continuum. Anomia refers to a state of mind and is, according to Srole, 36 more related to: (a) MacIver s 25 definition of anomie as the breakdown of the individual s sense of attachment and (b) Laswell s 21 definition of the lack of identification on the part of the primary ego of the individual with a self that includes others. According to Srole, each one of his five-item scale represents one distinct facet of anomia 36 : (1) the individuals sense that leaders are indifferent to their needs; (2) their perception of the social order as essentially fickle and unpredictable; (3) the view that they, and people like them, are retrogressing; (4) the sense that life is meaningless, and (5) their perception that their immediate personal relationships are no longer predictable or stable. Dodder and Astle 12 state that anomia is assessing a mixture of valuelessness and cynicism, or little faith in human relations. In our study, we expand the one-dimensional Srole s five-item scale with three added items which strengthen the assessment of employees sense of work (or organizational) anomia (WA). If an individual s sense of identity is not fulfilled by membership in the organization or if she senses that the organization does not value her, she will view her work merely as a small part of her identity. 16 Justice literature emphasizes the mediating role of contexts in which an employee believes an organization values her. Lind and Tyler 23 explain non-instrumental effects of justice perceptions by proposing a group value model. In this line, Lind et al. 24 suggested that these non-instrumental effects, which result in employees feeling valued by their organization, are the most important for the creation of the environment in which citizen behavior (OCB) occur. 29 Shore and Shore 34 supported the mediating role of perceived organizational support when they discussed how perceptions of justice create a global

3 466 schema of history support. When injustice prevails within organizations, no single set of values for employees and management is followed or adhered to. Confusion results and it can cause employees to become disoriented and isolated. Just as anomie does in sociology, WA may trigger deviance in the organizational behavior literature. Caruana et al. 8 found a negative relationship between anomia and the degree to which retail store employees perceived the wrongfulness of customers. 33 Hodson 19 found that anomia in managers has negative consequences for worker consent and OCB. Likewise, Farrel et al. 15 found that the informal role structure of a work team is dependent upon its degree of anomia. Under above reasoning, WA may interact with the justice-cyberloafing link because injustice perceptions lead employees to feeling unvalued by their organization, leading to a generalized skepticism and estrangement of their organization. These conditions make them more prone to becoming upset and more emotionally willing to engage in cyberloafing. Hence, our hypotheses are: Hypothesis 1a: The perceptions of Distributive Justice (DJ) will be more strongly negatively associated with cyberloafing for employees with low as compared to high sense of anomia. Hypothesis 1b: The perceptions of Procedural Justice (PJ) will be more strongly negatively associated with cyberloafing for employees with low as compared to high sense of anomia. Hypothesis 1c: The perceptions of Interactional Justice (IJ) will be more strongly negatively associated with cyberloafing for employees with low as compared to high sense of anomia. ZOGHBI MANRIQUE DE LARA METHODS Data were collected from 270 (17.5%) of the 1,547 teachers at a Spanish public university by Intranet . The sample was comprised of 63.6% males and 35.4% females and, while 40% were 40 years old or younger, only 4.2% were older than 60. Most (68%) of the sample held tenured positions. The research project received prior official approval and IP addresses were informed as unidentifiable. The sample descriptive structure was also quite similar to the population data. Effectively, in the universe 932 (60.3%) held tenure, while the remaining 615 were under a different type of contract. By age, 501 (32.5%) were 40 years old or younger and only 89 (5.7%) were 60 or older. By gender, 68% were male and 32% female. All the items were scored on a seven-point scale ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (7) strongly agree (except in cyberloafing: (1) never to (7) constantly). Reliability was established by means of Cronbach s alpha (Table 1). Organizational justice The three justice variables were assessed using scales developed by Moorman (1991). DJ was measured with five items. PJ was assessed with six items regarding organizational procedures. The scale for IJ included six items. Sample items from the DJ, PJ, and IJ scales include How fairly has the university been rewarding you considering the amount of effort you have put in?, How fairly are the university s procedures designed to help you to collect accurate information for decisionmaking? and My supervisor considers my viewpoint, respectively. TABLE 1. MEANS, STANDARD DEVIATIONS, CORRELATIONS, AND RELIABILITIES Variables M SD Gender Age Work anomia (WA) ** 0.01 (0.839) 4. Distributive justice (DJ) *** (0.921) 5. Procedural justice (PJ) * 0.50*** 0.59*** (0.961) 6. Interactional justice (IJ) *** 0.43*** 0.47*** (0.949) 7. Cyberloafing *** 0.14* * (0.862) Alphas are in parentheses on the main diagonal. Levels of significance: *p 0.05; **p 0.01; ***p Gender: 0, male; 1, female. Age: 1, 23 30; 2, 31 40; 3, 41 50; 4, 51 60; 5, 61 70; 6,

4 ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE AND CYBERLOAFING IN THE WORKPLACE 467 Work anomia Srole s original five-item anomia scale 36 was used, e.g. In spite of what some people say, the lot (situation/condition) of the average man is getting worse not better, and These days, a person doesn t really know whom he can count on. Three additional items were included targeting the employee s skepticism and detachment from his/her organization. These items include Sometimes I think I don t know what the university really wants of us, I feel well integrated into the university (reverse scored), and You sometimes can t help wondering what you are doing in an organization like this. An examination of the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) fit indices indicated that all eight items loaded on a unique factor. Alpha was a satisfactory. 30 Cyberloafing We used a five-item scale adapted from the one proposed by Lim, 22 which includes eight items referring to surfing and three to . We selected four of the former, and one of the latter which combine send and read with Lim s third item check, since we believe checking includes reading . One-dimensionality was confirmed in the CFA. Items were chosen according to the current restrictions of the university s Internet usage policy, e.g. I use Internet at work to surf the Net and thereby escape a little, and I use Internet at work to read or send personal (non-work) s. Control variables Drawing on the literature, we considered gender and age which could covary with our variables. 2,41 Data analysis We performed CFA for all variables to ensure five separate constructs. We used structural equation modeling (SEM). Overall fit of the variables was assessed using: (1) goodness of fit (GFI), (2) normed fit (NFI); and (3) comparative fit (CFI) indices, and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). Results of CFA (Cmin ; df 395; p ; Cmin/df 1.616; GFI 0.868; CFI 0.961; NFI 0.905; RMSEA 0.048), suggest in general terms that the five variables are indeed separate constructs. All justice constructs loads are greater than Only two WA loads were less than 0.50, namely, the items You sometimes can t help wondering what you are doing in an organization like this (0.49) and Nowadays, a person has to live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself (0.44). The five cyberloafing item loads were 0.65 and above. RESULTS Table 1 shows the reliabilities and correlations (r) between all the variables. An examination of the results shows how WA is strongly correlated with the three justice variables (r 0.48; p with DJ, r 0.50; p with PJ, and r 0.47; p with IJ). As predicted, those justice variables did not show an important direct effect on cyberloafing. We also note the null influence of WA on cyberloafing (r 0.07; p was non-significant [n.s.]) and, above all, the positive association of DJ with cyberloafing (r 0.17; p 0.05) when it is directly acting. These results seem once again to confirm the need to accommodate alternative variables in order to model the equity context under study. The hypotheses were tested using a multiple hierarchical regression, 10 predicting cyberloafing as the dependent variable (Table 2). Previously, continuum anomia-eunomia was inverted since WA and the justice variables were scored in different di- TABLE 2. RESULTS OF HIERARCHICAL REGRESSION ANALYSES Cyberloafing Step 1 Gender *** Age ** Step 2 Distributive justice (DJ) * Procedural justice (PJ) Interactional justice (IJ) Work anomia (WA) R *** Step 3 WE DJ * WE PJ ** WE IJ * R *** Adjusted R F (9, 227) 5.370*** N 270. Levels of significance: *p 0.05; **p 0.01; ***p t

5 468 rections when showing their effect on cyberloafing. Thus, using now the calculated work eunomia (WE), it is possible to test whether WA and the justice variables, as predicted, interact in the same direction both with cyberloafing and among them. Next, we performed three steps: first, the control variables were entered in Step 1, followed by the three justice constructs and WE in Step 2. Two-way interactions were entered in Step 3. The variables were centered to reduce multicollinearity. 1 Table 2 presents the results, including the standardized Beta coefficients. Table 2 also shows the R 2 at each step of the regression, as well as the significance of the beta weights for the individual predictor variables in the final step. The statistical significance of the change in R 2 when the interaction terms were added was appraised to test the hypothesized moderating effects of WA. Two-way interactions were applied to test the hypotheses (Step 3; Table 2). Step 3 shows that they jointly explained a significant amount of incremental variance ( R ; p 0.001). Additionally, inspection of the individual two-way interactions reveals a significant moderator effect of WA, operationalized as WE, on the relationship between DJ (B 0.281; p 0.05), PJ (B 0.430; p 0.01) and IJ (B 0.217; p 0.05) and cyberloafing. This pattern supports our hypotheses. DISCUSSION Organizational Justice once again seems to reflect strong and deep cultural values, which is consistent with the literature. Nonetheless, OJ also revealed a need for more visible variables which have already been provided in the organizational climate literature (e.g., trust, perceived organizational support) when trying to explain the cyberloafing phenomenon. WA, as supported, may be an alternative variable in materializing the undeniable effects of OJ on workplace internet misuse. Justice performance also seems to be supported as an enactor of healthy cultural values, and even as an organizational value in itself. This claim may be confirmed when considering that, on the one hand, WA as it is conceptualized plays an indicator/assessment role regarding employee s organizational pathological perceptions, and on the other hand the existing significant negative correlation between WA and the justice constructs (r 0.48; p with DJ, r 0.50; p with PJ, and r 0.47; p with IJ). In addition, these associations also seem to point out that the perceptions of an unfair organization favors WA ZOGHBI MANRIQUE DE LARA generation, and vice versa, employee perceptions of an anomic context could create a breeding ground of injustice senses that could explain the moderating effect of WA on the injustice-cyberloafing link. Under that view, it is not surprising that the link was stronger for more anomic employees than for lesser ones. The employee s WA seems be conditioning her when she is branding the organization as unjust. In effect, the more anomic teachers may be interpreting OJ differently from the less anomic ones, resulting in more time engaged in cyberloafing. Similarly, not all of the three justice constructs seem to have been interpreted in the same way, given their unequal performance. Without WA moderation, PJ and IJ did as neutral constructs and DJ did act as a contradictory one, given its positive link with cyberloafing (B 0.160; p 0.05). However, within a WA s scenario, DJ recovers its prior explanatory potential over workplace deviance and cyberloafing, in particular that the OB literature does confer it. Effectively, interacting with WE (reverse scored WA), the positive DJ prior association with cyberloafing (B 0.160; p 0.05) becomes a negative one (B 0.281; p 0.05). It would probably be much stronger than the observed data if we consider that the two-way DJ WE interaction was only included in Step 3; namely, when the other variables previously had already capitalized on the effect on cyberloafing. It is surprising that PJ (when interacting with WE) presented a stronger moderation effect (B 0.430; p 0.01) than DJ (B 0.281; p 0.05), even though it has a prior theoretical disadvantage with DJ. This theoretical disadvantage occurs because the allocation of outcomes ensures that the most basic needs of employees are met, and presumably have a greater influence on cyberloafing. A reason can probably be found in the specificities of cyberloafing as a DWB. Obviously, Internet and such a DWB are closely bound. Internet takes part in the procedural systems of the university surveyed as the most important teacher s tool. Faced with injustice, the social exchange theory 6 suggests that individuals reciprocate targeting the source of injustice. Under that reasoning, cyberloafing consistently targets the unjust procedural system in which Internet plays such a crucial role. The levels of both DJ s (B 0.281; p 0.05) and IJ s (B 0.217; p 0.05) interaction with WE, on cyberloafing, are thus relegated to a minor role as compared with the PJ WE one. This study detects the usefulness of an organizational anomia etiology diagnosis when it comes to explaining and controlling the cyberloafing phe-

6 ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE AND CYBERLOAFING IN THE WORKPLACE 469 nomenon. The abovementioned success of WA as a moderator could lead us to think that a modern system of control of cyberloafing should follow a situationalist view, which refuses to consider lazy, highly committed or irresponsible cyberloafers, but employees conditioned by an unfair/anomic environment. Hence, the usefulness of WA as a tool for human resource management (HRM) in discouraging cyberloafing is evident. As a potential instrument against WA, we should state our personal support for organizational learning as capable of integrating knowledge and achieving those behavioral improvements within the entire organization. In effect, knowledge is something more than mere data or information flow charged with data 11 ; it is a framework of the individual s experiences, values (attitudes), information and know-how that permits both the accumulation of new knowledge and effective action. In that view, organizational learning may weaken WA. As future research, we think there are questions that remain open. Cyber-service in organizations is being studied by scholars and practitioners. Hence, could cyberloafing and cyber-service be negatively associated? Could a distinctive construct be constructed on the opposite pole of cyberloafing, which could be labeled cybercivism? And could WA affect, via those extra-role cyber-behaviors, the quality of service offered through Internet? Finally, we must remark that the teachers from our sample face job conditions typical of workers in the public sector and universities, such as an entrenched bureaucracy. On that basis, a private sector context could present a different picture of the performance of the constructs used, as well as their implications. REFERENCES 1. Aiken, L.S., & West, S.G. (1991). Multiple regression: testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park CA: Sage. 2. Aquino, K., Galperin, B.L., & Bennett, R. (2004). 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