Is the internet a double-edged sword for organizations? An empirical study on cyberloafing

Cyberloafing is common in today's organizational environment, where employees utilize the organization's internet during working hours for personal use. Based on the need to investigate what makes employees engage in such deviant behavior, this study investigates the influence of technology self-efficacy on cyberloafing with consideration for the mediating role of internet addiction and moderating role of three neutralization techniques. Hence, four hypotheses were proposed and statistically tested. Data were collected at three different periods from 334 employees of telecommunication companies in Pakistan. The study's findings revealed that internet addiction mediates the relationship between technology self-efficacy and cyberloafing by utilizing the PROCESS approach for mediation and moderation. Furthermore, denial of responsibility and defense of necessity is positively related to cyberloafing. Lastly, neutralization techniques moderate the relationship between internet addiction and cyberloafing.