THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CYBERLOAFING Dr. Shreekumar K. Nair Associate Professor NITIE, Mumbai

In recent times, the internet has emerged as the most powerful tool offering its user a whole gamut of opportunities in the field of networking and information access. As a result, in workplaces around the world internet usage has increased dramatically. Foreseeing the immense potential of the internet, businesses have not wasted any time in making use of the internet as a means for conducting business across the borders and for enhancing their overall performance. Indeed, the internet has played an important role in helping businesses to cut costs, shorten product cycle times, market products and render services to customers more effectively. This rapid growth of the internet has led to much attention being focused on its positive impact on productivity, with almost scant attention being given to its negative effects.

While the coming of the internet is hailed as the best thing to happen in the 21st century, the flipside is that the internet is taking away much of people's precious time. In today's workplaces, the internet provides employees the world's biggest platform for free entertainment. Most internet users may feel that activities such as seeing the cricket score on the net or sending mail to someone take only a couple of seconds, and should not pose a problem to the organization. What is not realized is the fact that these few seconds add up to hours, resulting in a major problem for the whole industry. In fact, studies show that enterprises lose a considerable amount of productive time, money, and bandwidth due to indiscriminate use of the internet by employees. Surveys done in the US reveal that one in five employees view online pornography at work, and that 70 percent of adult websites are hit between 9 am and 5 pm. Among the non-work-related internet activities are those such as visiting sports sites, bidding, trading stocks, and online shopping. It is estimated that, on an average, 30 to 40 percent of employees' internet activity is not business related, resulting in loss of productivity worth over a billion dollars. "Cyber loafs", as it is aptly called, thus refers to "any voluntary act of employees using their companies' internet access during office hours to surf non-job related web sites for personal purposes."

Workplace aberration in the form of loafing is a perennial phenomenon that has existed in organizations since their origin. Some of the usual types of loafers at work: include the telephone chatters, the restroom-minded, the long launchers, and those who linger at the water cooler for small talk. With the advent of the internet, however, deviance at the workplace has evolved to take on a new avatar. Employees can now easily travel through cyberspace for personal purposes, at the same time maintaining the impression of working hard on the job. In other words, cyber loafing has become the IT way of idling at work. The advantage that a cyber loafer has is that he need not be absent from the office. Cyber loafers also need not worry about being noticed by their boss or colleagues while they are on their secret odyssey through the net. They can very well remain at their work stations, yet keep moving, at their will, from one web site to another simply by clicking the mouse with their deft fingers. What could be a cause for concern is that, during their travels through the virtual world, cyber loafers may inadvertently or otherwise, visit certain sites which expose the organization to legal liabilities and also to attacks by computer viruses. On account of these factors, cyber loafers could cause greater damage to organizations vis-à-vis other types of loafers.

To develop effective intervention policies that can limit and deter occurrences of cyber loafing, understanding the behavioral underpinnings of such employee actions is very important. Existing research provide some insights as to why the phenomenon of cyber loafing occurs. Theoretical frameworks offered by social exchange, organizational justice, neutralization, and metaphor of the ledger explain why employees may be tempted to misuse their companies' internet access, and the mechanisms through which this behavior gets manifested.

Social Exchange Theory

According to the proponents of 'social exchange theory', human interactions are largely governed by social economics. People compare the inputs they invest in relationships with the outcomes they receive from these relationships. At the workplace, the most basic form of exchange is that of time and effort from employees in return for compensation from their employers. It is not that money and material goods alone are exchanged in human interactions. Social goods such as information, recognition, respect and status, etc. also may be exchanged. But, as employees become worldly wise, they expect more than just wages in return for fair work. In accordance with the psychological contract between employee and employer, individuals hold certain beliefs about mutual obligations within the relationship. This unwritten contract governs the exchange of employees' services for tangible and intangible rewards.

Organizational Justice

'Organizational justice' comes into play when we are interested to know whether the exchange processes and interactions which occur among organizational members are of a fair nature. Organizational justice refers to how fair an organization is towards its employees. Three different forms of organizational justice have been identified, which are as follows:

1. Distributive justice: This refers to the fairness of the amount and allocation of outcomes;
2. Procedural justice: This refers to the perceived fairness of the processes used to determine the distribution of outcomes;
3. Interactional justice: This refers to the quality of interpersonal treatment (i.e., interpersonal sensitivity) received by employees.

The allocation of outcomes, such as wages and promotions, ensures that the most basic needs of employees are met. Distributive justice is one of the fundamental principles in the determination of fairness of exchanges. Research evidence indicates that distributive justice has a greater influence on employee satisfaction than procedural justice. But, procedural justice has been found to affect employees' organizational commitment and trust in the boss. Interestingly, employees are found to view their bosses and the organization as positive even when they are dissatisfied with pay, promotions and other outcomes. Given the increasing importance attached to relational aspects of employment in today's organizations, besides distributive justice, both procedural and interactional aspects of justice perceptions are considered to be important in determining whether the exchanges that occur in employment relationships are fair. Indeed, previous research on workplace deviance has found empirical evidence which suggests that employees are more likely to engage in misconduct when they perceive their employers to have been unjust in their treatment or in the allocation of outcomes.

Neutralization Techniques

People generally have an innate desire to present themselves favorably both to themselves and to others. Employees who perceive an imbalance in their relationship with the employer are more likely to use 'neutralization techniques.' Neutralization techniques refer to a priori rationalizations which individuals invoke in order to convince themselves and others that their deviant behaviors are justifiable and/or excusable. These are strategies which individuals adopt in order to reconcile the discrepancies between their negative behaviours and the positive self-image they wish to project. In this way, neutralization makes it easier for people to engage in the act of cyber loafing without feeling guilty. For instance, an employee may internally justify his act of cyber loafing by reminding him the fact that he is doing just what his colleagues are doing.

Metaphor of the Ledger

When individuals engage in neutralization through the 'metaphor of the ledger', they rationalize that they are entitled to indulge in deviant behaviors because of their past good behaviors, which have led to the accrual of credits that they can bank on. That is, when employees have spent their time and effort in meeting job requirements, they expect their employers to reciprocate in kind by allocating outcomes to them in a favorable manner or ensuring that the procedures in the allocation of outcomes are just. Thus, it is plausible that employees would view services provided by them as accumulated credits to be encashed in exchange for rewards which have been implicitly or explicitly promised by the organization. The norm of reciprocity applies in the employment relationship as in any kind of social exchange. Employees who feel that they have been sidetracked in a professional relationship would invoke this neutralization technique when they want to enforce the penalty of taking back something in their attempt to restore some semblance of justice in that relationship. This further enhances the feasibility of cyber loafing as one way in which employees may appropriate what they feel is rightfully theirs. However, since people generally wish to project a positive image of themselves, employees would first be motivated to rationalize their act of cyber loafing. Therefore, employees who perceive injustice in the employment relationship will engage in neutralization via the metaphor of the ledger before engaging in cyber loafing. Since employees feel that they have acquired credits from the work that they have successfully completed, and that employers have not given them their dues, employees can conveniently justify cyber loafing as a mode to encash these accrued credits.

To conclude, it is imperative for corporate to realize the fact that deviant behaviors like cyber loafing are linked to larger issues of justice and fairness prevalent in the organization. On the one hand, it is important to trust employees and give them enough freedom to utilize the internet in a productive way. On the other hand, it is essential to create a positive work culture in the organization so that employees desist from indulging in cyber loafing. HR managers should conduct periodical attitude surveys to see whether employees perceive inequities in the employment relationship. Also there is a dire need to have further empirical research in this area to demystify the psychological processes underlying cyber loafing. No doubt, a better understanding of the cyber loafer's psyche can help in creating a situation wherein the internet works for, and not against the organization.

** Dr. Shreekumar K. Nair is Associate Professor (OB & HR) at National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai.