Loafing in a Digital World: A Caribbean Perspective Examining Organizational Justice, Work Engagement and Cyberloafing

Abstract

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In today’s digital economy, the competitive advantages enjoyed by many organizations can be credited to internet connectivity. As such, the internet has been lauded to be one of the best tools of the 21st century. Nevertheless, this advancement of the internet has introduced a new type of counterproductive work behavior called cyberloafing which hampers overall productivity. Extant literature suggests that in order to minimize this issue organizations can try to create a fair working environment that may engender engaged and dedicated employees that are willing to invest their time and effort into the organization. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between organizational justice and cyberloafing, and the mediating effect of work engagement on this relationship. A convenience sampling approach was adopted and the study collected 236 valid responses from Caribbean employees in different organizations. The statistical methods used were Pearson’s correlation analysis, independent T-test and one-way ANOVA by means of IBM SPSS 23 and structural equation modeling using MPlus to test four main research hypotheses. The research revealed men engage in cyberloafing behavior more than women and respondents with a high school certificate engaged in cyberloafing behaviors more than respondents with a Sixth form certificate. In addition, there are no significant differences of cyberloafing behaviors amongst age, tenure and position. As it pertains to the main hypotheses, organizational justice and work engagement is positively related. Additionally, work engagement was not a significant mediator of the relationship between organizational justice and cyberloafing.