Exploring cyberloafing as a coping mechanism in relation to job-related strain and outcomes: A study using the mediational model of stress

Abstract Cyberloafing refers to the act of using the internet for personal purposes, such as browsing social media or engaging in non-work-related online activities, while pretending to be engaged in work. While it is often seen as a form of procrastination or a way to escape from work-related tasks, it can also serve as a way for individuals to cope with emotions or alleviate stress. Based on the mediational model of stress, this study proposes that cyberloafing may mediate the impact of work stressors (role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload) on job-related strain which in this case is employees’ emotional exhaustion, and then emotional exhaustion will influence work outcomes. Subsequently, the responses to a survey by 299 employees from Malaysian public-listed organisations were gathered, while the structural equation modelling through partial least squares (PLS) was utilised to test the hypotheses of the direct and mediating effect. As a result, it was found that some work stressors might lead to cyberloafing among employees, while emotional exhaustion was found to influence job satisfaction and work efficiency. Additionally, the findings highlighted the underlying factor of the relation between cyberloafing among employees and different forms of cyberloafing. However, no support was found regarding the serial mediation effect of cyberloafing between work stressors and emotional exhaustion.


Introduction
The current ubiquity of Internet results in a major concern on cyberloafing, which is the non-workrelated activities among employees involving the use of the Internet on working hours.This issue has become more complex due to the increasing use of smartphones at work.Subsequently, the combination of business and personal use of smartphones increases the challenges among employers to measure employees' work hours.Cyberloafing has been associated by many researches with negative connotations, such as counterproductive behaviour (CWB), deviance, wastefulness, and critical damages to the organisation.MySammy (2019), a provider of productivity management software, estimates that cyberloafing costs employers $4500 annually per employee because workers frequently spend up to 56% of their time online engaging in nonwork-related activities like social networking, online gambling, and shopping.At the start of 2023, there were 33.03 million internet users in Malaysia with internet penetration stood at 96.8%.Malaysia was home to 26.8 million of social media users and a total of 44.05 million cellular mobile connections were active in Malaysia as of 2023 (Kemp, 2023).This statistical data shows that there is a possibility of cyberloafing to be more prevalence and common among Malaysians in the future.
Cyberloafing was perceived by some studies as tolerable.To be specific, it could be acceptable in the "give and take" work culture based on mutual respect and trust between the employees and employers (Polzer-Debruyne, 2009).It was suggested in previous studies that cyberloafing could be one of the mechanisms to cope with work stressors (Anandarajan & Simmers, 2005;Henle & Blanchard, 2008;Lim & Chen, 2012).The relationship between role stressors and cyberloafing was investigated in other studies (Henle & Blanchard, 2008;Runing Sawitri, 2012) although the effectiveness of cyberloafing as a coping mechanism was not considered.Furthermore, no prior study was conducted on the important relationship between roles stressors and cyberloafing specifically in the cyberloafing area.In order to promote a more balanced and objective exploration of this field, this study advocates for the conduction of impartial research.Drawing from the mediational model of stress, the study posits that cyberloafing could potentially function as a coping strategy centered on managing emotions.It asserts that cyberloafing acts as a mediator between workrelated stressors (specifically, role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload) and the subsequent emotional exhaustion experienced by employees.
Previous studies suggested the investigation on whether certain forms of cyberloafing (e.g., interaction on social media, watching videos, online shopping) were more effective in buffering the stressor-strain relationship compared to other forms of cyberloafing (Andel et al., 2019).As a result, the forms of cyberloafing, which led to a positive reaction, might be more effective in counteracting the stressors.Consequently, the primary focus of this study is to examine whether specific categories of cyberloafing, namely interpersonal communication, entertainment-related online activities, personal interest exploration, and personal shopping, possess a heightened potential to act as effective buffers within the context of stressor-induced strains.
The Internet is used by employees for several purposes.Specifically, entertainment-related internet activities refer to the online activities performed for personal entertainment, such as watching video online and listening to music through certain channels, such as YouTube.Meanwhile, e-commerce consists of items related to purchasing activities, such as online shopping, performing personal business, and travelling or recreational activities.The employees also surf the Internet to seek information according to their interests, such as online news and information on any products or services.Through the Internet, interpersonal communication activities are also performed, which include sending or forwarding e-mail, and participating in social networks, such as Facebook.
Previous studies have examined the relationship between cyberloafing and stress in educational settings, particularly among undergraduate students.For instance, Talan et al. (2023) discovered that cyberloafing was associated with increased feelings of hopelessness.In a study by Skeja and Lorcu (2022), it was observed that as cyberloafing increased, so did stress levels.Gökçearslan et al. (2018) also found that stress had a positive effect on cyberloafing, suggesting that individuals may turn to cyberloafing as a means to alleviate stress.
While research into the effects of cyberloafing, whether in the workplace or educational settings, continues to evolve, there remains a need for more studies focusing on the potential positive aspects of cyberloafing.Consequently, this research seeks to empirically investigate the effectiveness of cyberloafing as a coping mechanism, drawing from the mediational model of stress, an area where the current literature is lacking.Additionally, this study explores various forms of cyberloafing, such as interpersonal communication, entertainment-related Internet activities, personal interests, and personal shopping, in terms of their effectiveness as coping mechanisms.
This study contributes to the current literature in two ways.First, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of the potential relationship between cyberloafing and emotional wellbeing in the context of work-related stressors.Such an investigation could provide insights into the mechanisms through which cyberloafing might impact emotional exhaustion, shedding light on the interplay between technology use, coping mechanisms, and workplace stressors.Second, this study extended the current literature on cyberloafing by investigating how different cyberloafing activities may influence the intricate interplay between stressors and resultant strains, shedding light on potential differentiating factors among these cyberloafing behaviors.Additionally, it was anticipated that the empirical results of this study would help organizations decide whether to outright forbid cyberloafing or to allow it to a certain degree.This section will be followed by the next subsections on the literature review, research methods, results, findings, and conclusion.

Cyberloafing as a coping mechanism
Stress is a dynamic condition, which arises when an individual is confronted with an opportunity, demand, or resource related to the individual's desire.The results of these elements are perceived to be uncertain despite their importance, and they normally lead to fatigue, anxiety, tension, and emotional exhaustion, including long-term consequences, such as burnout, depression, and health problems (Lambert et al., 2005).It could be seen from the previous literature that role stressors, such as role conflicts, role ambiguities, and role overload are the major determinants of job stress.
Employees tend to overcome stress using various coping methods.Latack (1986) defined coping as an individual's response to situations, which are uncertain or involving crucial consequences by changing his or her cognition and behaviour.Furthermore, coping strategies refer to the cognitive and/or behavioural modifications aimed to avoid the stressors or mitigate the negative impact of the stressors (Folkman & Lazarus, 1985;Folkman et al., 1986).According to Boyd et al. (2009), coping reduces or prevents a stress assessment during a stressful situation, acting as a stress buffer.Additionally, it does this function by either lowering or enhancing the stress response while moderating the stress appraisal and the related negative effects.Several empirical studies have showcased that cyberloafing serves as a method for mitigating stress (Andreassen et al., 2014;Henle & Blanchard, 2008;Lim, 2002;Lim & Chen, 2012;Reinecke, 2009), while the meta-analysis by Aghaz and Sheikh (2016) indicated that the increase in job burnout leads to an increase in the frequency of social and informational types of cyberloafing activities.
Several coping theories have been formulated to investigate and describe the changes in an individual's cognition or behaviour.Lazarus and Folkman (1984) proposed one of the most common coping frameworks, namely the problem-focused and emotion-focused coping theories.Problemfocused coping (PFC) is focused on taking action to change the stressors and manage the situation by changing the environment (Folkman & Lazarus, 1985;Folkman et al., 1986), whereas emotionfocused coping (EFC) is focused on regulating and reducing emotional distress through avoidance or fantasies (Latack, 1986).Individuals use this method to reduce the emotional impact of the stressor by changing their thinking.Cyberloafing is considered as an EFC strategy as it is not directly related to the solution to the source of stress.Although this strategy is normally used when an individual feels that there is no solution to the issue, the individual diverts his or her attention a subject, which is more interesting online despite the absence of its relation to work.

Mediational model of stress
As mentioned previously, an employee's stress originates from job stressors (role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload), which will be coped with in several ways.Several scholars developed a mediational model of stress to develop an understanding of the interrelationships between job stressors and job stress (Boyd et al., 2009;Folkman & Lazarus, 1985).Certain coping approaches or strategies were discovered in this mediational framework to mediate the impact of the antecedent organizational work stressors on the employee's perceived degree of job stress.Furthermore, this approach claimed that employees' coping mechanisms for dealing with occupational stresses had the potential to reduce or magnify the negative impacts of these stressors (Boyd et al., 2009).However, no previous research has looked into the significance of cyberloafing as a coping mechanism in the interaction between job stressors and job stress.Following the mediational model of stress and coping mechanisms, this study attempts to reduce the knowledge gap in this matter.Kahn et al. (1964) identified three forms of role stresses that could interfere with employees' successful role execution: role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload."Uncertainty on the part of employees about the key requirements of their jobs, and about how they are expected to behave in those jobs" was termed as role ambiguity (Koustelios et al., 2004, p. 87).Katz and Kahn (1978) defined role conflict as "the simultaneous occurrence of two or more role expectations, such that compliance with one would make compliance with the other more difficult" (p.11).Meanwhile, one of the most common workplace stressors is role overload, which is defined by an abundance of work tasks/responsibilities mixed with a limited quantity of resources, such as time (Gilboa et al., 2008).Notably, the most prevalent stressors in organizations were found to be role ambiguity and role conflict.

Role stressors as determinants of coping style
The relationship between role stressors and cyberloafing was investigated in several studies.For instance, the meta-analysis by Fox et al. (2001) found that work stressors (interpersonal conflict and organisational constraints) were related to counterproductive behaviours, such as cyberloafing.Previous research presented some findings regarding employees' use of cyberloafing to manage role ambiguity and role conflict.For instance, in a survey conducted by Lim (2002), it was discovered that 37% of the participants deemed cyberloafing appropriate when it was a response to conflicting demands at work (higher role conflict).Additionally, a significant majority of the respondents (52%) admitted to feeling guilty about cyberloafing when their job duties were well-defined (low role ambiguity).Meanwhile, a study by Henle and Blanchard (2008) found that employees had a lower possibility for cyberloafing in response to role overload.Accordingly, the following hypotheses were developed in this study:

Coping style and emotional exhaustion
In line with the mediational model of stress, coping styles serve as mediators in the relationship between organizational stressors and job-related strains.Consequently, employees' perceived level of emotional exhaustion is influenced by their approach to coping with job stressors (Boyd et al., 2009).Furthermore, Folkman and Lazarus (1988) described coping as a bidirectional process with emotion, which is generated by an appraisal behaviour such as harm, threat or challenge.Additionally, the coping process is influenced by the appraisal, such as role stressors and emotions.
Emotional exhaustion has been consistently regarded as a central dimension of burnout among individuals in numerous studies (Boles et al., 1997;Gaines & Jermier, 1983).This encompasses emotional fatigue, diminished physical vigor (Aghaz & Sheikh, 2016), as well as the apprehension towards resuming work, heightened absenteeism, and withdrawal from the organization.According to Boyd et al. (2009), coping could function as the buffer to emotional exhaustion and stress appraisal by preventing, reducing, or amplifying stress reactions.Accordingly, the following hypotheses were developed in this study H4: (a) EIA cyberloafing, (b) IPC cyberloafing, (c) PEC cyberloafing, and (d) PIS cyberloafing will mediate the effects of (i) role ambiguity, (ii) role conflict, and (iii) role overload on employees' perceived levels of emotional exhaustion.

Emotional exhaustion and job-related outcomes
Previous researches illustrated the consequences of emotional exhaustion on employees' performance and job satisfaction (Brown & Peterson, 1993;Kelly & Hise, 1980;Wright & Cropanzano, 1998).In their study, two significant job-related outcomes were highlighted: job satisfaction and work efficiency.Specifically, job satisfaction refers to the degree of positive feelings perceived by the individuals regarding their job (Spector, 1994), while work efficiency is related to the quality of work, which might include the creation of output with less waste, fewer resources, and less money (Stevenson, 1993).On the contrary, when an individual is constantly faced with physical fatigue and emotional exhaustion, there is a high possibility of them to spend less time on their job, which would further deteriorate work performance.Moreover, increased anxiety and exhaustion would diminish employees' job satisfaction.Accordingly, the following hypotheses were developed: H5: Emotional exhaustion is negatively related to job satisfaction.

H6: Emotional exhaustion is negatively related to work efficiency.
The proposed research framework in this study is illustrated in Figure 1 below:

Sample respondents
Through an online web-based survey, data were collected from the employees at the executive levels from randomly selected public-listed companies in Malaysia.Subsequently, a total of 321 completed surveys were collected, out of which 299 cases were utilized as the final sample.The remaining 22 cases were excluded due to severe data loss.To mitigate non-response bias and identify outliers, this study conducted independent sample t-tests and assessed common method variance using Harman's single factor.Moreover, a significant portion of the respondents (42%) were aged between 25 and 35 years, and 25% fell within the 36 to 45-year age group.The majority of respondents were female (70%), and 90% held executive positions.Regarding work tenure, nearly half of the respondents (46.3%) had been with their current organizations for less than five years, while the remaining respondents had accumulated more than six years of experience.

Research instrument
Each item was assessed using a 6-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree).The measurement of all four forms of cyberloafing employed items developed by Mahatanankoon et al. (2004).Examples of these items included "viewing entertainment products and services online, such as YouTube, Tonton, and Astro", "Online shopping", as well as "participating in social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.".On the other hand, role ambiguity and role conflict were gauged using items created by Rizzo et al. (1970).The items for role ambiguity were reverse-coded, namely "I know what my responsibilities are", "I have clear planned and goals and objectives in my job" and "I know exactly what is expected of me", while the items for role conflict included "I have to do things that should be done differently", "I receive an assignment without the manpower to complete it" and "I work with two or more groups who operate quite differently".
Role overload was measured using the items from Gonzalez-Roma et al. (1998), which included "I have too much work to do, to do everything well", the reverse-coded item of "The amount of work I am asked to do is fair", and "I never seem to have enough time to get everything done".Job satisfaction was assessed using eight items that were developed and adapted from various sources in the literature (Van Saane et al., 2003;Spector, 1994).The scale measured employees' general perceptions of their working conditions, followed by the measurement of emotional exhaustion adopted by Maslach et al. (1986).The sample items included "I feel emotionally drained from my work" and "I feel fatigued when I get up in the morning and have to face another day".

Results
The psychometric properties of the measurement scales were assessed, and the research hypotheses proposed in this study were tested using variance-based partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling (SEM).For these estimations, the SmartPLS software package version 3.0 was employed.

Descriptive statistics and the measurement model
Two-stage modelling was implemented.The first stage, known as the measurement model, entailed evaluating the validity and reliability of the indicators.The goal of this model was to rigorously examine and minimize measurement errors for optimal results.Furthermore, Table 1 illustrates the convergent validity result of this study, in which the loading indicators of all items were within the acceptable range of 0.40 to 0.70 (Hair et al., 2014).The results indicate that the composite reliability (CR) fell within the acceptable range of 0.60 to 0.70.The average variance extracted (AVE) value exceeded 0.50, affirming convergent validity at the construct level.Additional assessment of discriminant validity using the Heteroit-Monotrait Ratio (HTMT) confirmed that the constructs met the discriminant validity criteria.

Structural model
The results of the structural model estimate are illustrated in Table 2 below, which also presents the impact of role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload on the four types of cyberloafing.
Concerning the first hypothesis, role ambiguity (β = −0.127,t-value = 1.811) was found to be negatively related to entertainment-related (EIA) form of cyberloafing.Furthermore, role overload (β = 0.106, t-value = 1.715) was found to be positively related to interpersonal communication (IPC) type of cyberloafing.Overall, it was indicated from the results that role conflict had a positive influence on all four forms of cyberloafing.Therefore, H1a, H2a, H2b, H2c, H2d, and H3b were accepted.In the case of the relationship between emotional exhaustion and job-related outcomes, it was found that a significant negative relationship was present between emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction (β = −0.264,t-value = 4.659) and work efficiency (β = −0.463,t-value = 8.904), indicating that H5 and H6 were accepted.Following that, Table 3 demonstrates the results of the mediating model.Notably, it was found that none of the mediating relationships was significant, leading to the rejection of all the mediating hypotheses.

Discussion and implications
Drawing on the mediational model of stress proposed by Boyd et al. (2009), this study delves into the role of cyberloafing as an emotion-focused coping mechanism to mitigate the impact of stress on job-related strain and outcomes, encompassing job satisfaction and work efficiency.This study underscores that, functioning as an emotion-focused coping strategy, cyberloafing potentially provides employees a temporary respite from work-related stressors through engaging in online activities.However, this study failed to demonstrate the function of cyberloafing as an emotionfocused coping possibly due to the employees' temporary decision for cyberloafing as a distraction from the problem when dealing with role stressors.Furthermore, cyberloafing might not be adequate to reduce the employees' emotional exhaustion, and this result was in line with the result by Stoddard (2016).Meanwhile, Henle and Blanchard (2008) suggested that although cyberloafing might be effective in managing stress in the short run, it might not be such in the long run.Therefore, not only is cyberloafing ineffective in diminishing stress, but it could also increase stress levels when its focus is diverted from problem-solving.
Although this study highlighted those certain forms of cyberloafing activities (interpersonal communication, entertainment-related Internet activities, personal interest, personal shopping) might be more effective to buffer the effect of stress, the results failed to identify any significant relationship between the forms of cyberloafing activities in a stressor-strain relationship.These results were possibly due to some coping methods, which were more effective in reducing stress compared to other methods."For example, problem-focused coping strategies have been linked to favorable outcomes and emotions (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988), whereas emotion-focused methods have been connected to less satisfactory outcomes and emotions (Zellars et al., 2004).The results of this study also provided insight into the influence of certain role stressors on several forms of cyberloafing.To illustrate, the higher uncertainty experienced by employees regarding their job roles (role ambiguity) reduced their tendency to watch videos or listen to music online.Furthermore, it was also found that employees who were exposed to higher role conflict might resort to any forms of cyberloafing as a way to escape from this stressor.This result was in line with the statement by Boyd et al. (2009), which highlighted that the high level of role conflicts and job-related stress experienced by employees increased their possibility of using emotion-focused coping strategies, such as cyberloafing.Therefore, it was suggested that employers ensure that there was no contradiction in the job expectations of the employees.Finally, in contrast to the results of previous studies, role overload was found to have a significant positive relationship with the interpersonal form of cyberloafing.To illustrate this finding, employees opted to distract themselves from the stressors when confronted with excessive work or responsibilities by interacting with other people through social media, such as Facebook.

Limitations and future research suggestions
While this study offers a comprehensive research model with substantial empirical support, it is essential to acknowledge its limitations, which, in turn, point to avenues for future research.Firstly, this study's respondents were exclusively full-time employees in publicly-listed companies in Malaysia, and their work characteristics may differ from those in medium or small-sized enterprises.To enhance the generalizability of the findings, future research could replicate this model  Furthermore, this study concentrated on emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and work efficiency as outcome variables.The dynamic nature of human interactions suggests the presence of additional variables.Future studies could explore factors like motivation, depression, selfesteem, absenteeism, or physiological markers (e.g., blood pressure, chest pain, heart rate) to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between cyberloafing and wellbeing.

Conclusion
This study provided insights into the negative impact of role ambiguity on entertainment-related Internet activities and the positive impact of role overload on employees' interpersonal online activities, such as participation into Facebook.Additionally, the study underscored the occurrence of cyberloafing among employees as a reaction to role conflict.It suggested that management could mitigate the inconsistency in job demands and assist employees in prioritizing their work responsibilities, thereby alleviating role conflict.As a result, employees would be able to be focused on their efforts when conflicting demands arise.However, the overall results of this study suggested that cyberloafing may not able to function as an emotion-focused coping in a stressorstrain relationship.

Table 2 . Structural estimates
environment or within countries with Western cultural influences.Secondly, given that this study relied on self-reported data, future research may consider alternative methods for capturing cyberloafing behavior, such as through direct observation or device monitoring, to enhance result accuracy.