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

Abstract

Many organizations have implemented internet monitoring to curb employees’ non-work-related internet activities during work hours, commonly referred to as “cyberloafing.” For managers, two primary considerations emerge: (1) the actual effectiveness of internet monitoring in diminishing cyberloafing and (2) any unintended side effects this monitoring might have on overall employee behavior. From a longitudinal field quasi experiment, we observed that although internet monitoring notably reduced cyberloafing because of amplified employee concerns about potential sanctions and privacy breaches, it unintentionally suppressed their organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Moreover, a follow-up observation four months after introducing internet monitoring revealed that its capability to mitigate cyberloafing had weakened, yet the dampening effect on OCB continued. We conclude this paper by underlining the value of using internet monitoring as a feedback mechanism on employees’ online behavior, rather than solely as a deterrence measure.