813091

research-article2018
JLOXXX10.1177/1548051818813091Journal of Leadership & Organizational StudiesAskew et al.

Article
Journal of Leadership &

Disentangling How Coworkers

Organizational Studies
1­–19
© The Authors 2018
and Supervisors Influence Employee Article reuse guidelines:
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Cyberloafing: What Normative DOI: 10.1177/1548051818813091

https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051818813091
journals.sagepub.com/home/jlo

Information Are Employees Attending To?

Kevin L. Askew1, Alexandra Ilie2, Jeremy A. Bauer3,

Daniel V. Simonet1, John E. Buckner4, and Thomas A. Robertson1

Abstract
Cyberloafing—the use of an electronic device at work for an activity that an immediate supervisor would not consider
work-related—is now the most common way that employees waste time at work. It is well established that social norms
play a role in cyberloafing, but it is unknown what specific normative information employees attend to when deciding
whether or not to cyberloaf. In Study 1, we tested which of four types of normative information could underlie the
observed correlation between social norms and cyberloafing. We found that both perceptions of supervisor cyberloafing
and perceptions of coworker cyberloafing accounted for unique variance in cyberloafing, and also discovered some evidence
that the approval of these referents also had the same effect. In Study 2, we cross-validated these results from Study 1
using a sample that was reasonably representative of the general working population—supporting the generalizability of
our findings from Study 1. Furthermore, we conducted supplemental analyses (relative weights analysis and polynomial
regression) to untangle nuances in how normative data relates to cyberloafing. In Study 1, we also examined the role of
actual norms—as opposed to perceived norms—and found evidence that actual supervisor cyberloafing does influence
cyberloafing through employee perceptions of supervisor cyberloafing. Overall, this investigation serves to clarify how
social influence plays a role in the cyberloafing phenomenon.

Keywords
coworkers, cyberloafing, non–work-related computing, NWRC, social norms, supervisors

Cyberloafing is the use of an electronic device at work for evidence cyberloafing can boost job satisfaction (Canaan
activities an immediate supervisor would consider nonjob Messarra, Karkoulian, & McCarthy, 2011), it can also
related (Askew, Coovert, Vandello, Taing, & Bauer, 2011). have costs to organizations through increased use of com-
Examples of cyberloafing include off-task behaviors, such as pany bandwidth, cyber-security risks, and exposure to
checking e-mail, watching videos on YouTube, and posting legal liabilities (Andreassen, Torsheim, & Pallesen, 2014;
on Facebook (Lim & Teo, 2005). Less common computer- Sipior & Ward, 2002). Given the prevalence of cyberloaf-
mediated behaviors, such as playing video games at work, ing and its potential to either benefit or harm, it is impor-
also fall within the domain of cyberloafing (Lim & Teo, tant that researchers continue to refine their understanding
2005). Cyberloafing is pervasive in most organizations (Lim of the phenomenon.
& Chen, 2012). Estimates of its prevalence vary, but studies Many constructs have been implicated in cyberloafing,
that have examined its prevalence have found that employ- including self-regulation (Wagner, Barnes, Lim, & Kim,
ees typically cyberloaf for about 10% of their working hours
or around 50 minutes per day (Lim & Chen, 2012). 1
Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA
The effect of cyberloafing on task performance is still 2
Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA
unclear, as some argue cyberloafing harms productivity 3
Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA, USA
through lost time (Hartijasti, 2016) while others maintain 4
Livonia, MI, USA
it increases productivity by providing employees a respite
Corresponding Author:
(Lim & Chen, 2012). Others argue the weak association is Kevin L. Askew, Department of Psychology, Montclair State University, 1
evidence cyberloafing has little impact on performance for Normal Avenue, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA.
most employees (Askew, 2012). Although there is some Email: [email protected]
2 Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 00(0)

Figure 1.  Visualization of how social norms have been operationalized in the literature.
Note. Classification is based on item content when available and in-text description when item content was not available. Studies in the “combined”
category used items from two different referents and/or items measuring both prescriptive and descriptive norms, or referenced norms generically
(e.g., “People important to me in my office would approve of me browsing the web for personal reasons”). Bivariate correlations are shown to provide
a thin slice of each study’s findings. Bivariate correlations without a subscript are the correlations between that social norm and the criterion self-
reported cyberloafing. Bivariate correlations with a subscript are the correlation between that social norm and a criterion denoted by the subscript
(rINT = intentions to cyberloaf, rE.INT = e-mail intentions, rWB.INT = web browsing intentions, rEM = cyberloafing measured using electronic monitoring).
Pee, Woon, and Kankanhalli (2008) did not report the bivariate correlation; however, the path coefficient in their SEM was significant.
e
Study was conducted in an educational context as opposed to a business context.

2012), organizational justice (Lim, 2002), the absence of cyberloafing is consistently medium to strong in magnitude
formal sanctions and electronic monitoring (Ugrin & (e.g., Blanchard & Henle, 2008; Taneja, Fiore, & Fischer,
Pearson, 2013; Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara & Olivares- 2015; see Figure 1 for a summary). Finally, social norm
Mesa, 2010), cyberloafing attitudes (Chun & Bock, 2006; variables account for unique variance in cyberloafing
Liberman, Seidman, McKenna, & Buffardi, 2011), consci- beyond other established predictors (Liberman et al., 2011;
entiousness (Buckner, Castille, & Sheets, 2012), and nor- Sheikh et al., 2015), indicating their effects cannot be easily
mative variables (Weatherbee, 2010). Moreover, these explained by third variables.
constructs may interact in complex ways (J-Ho, Gan, & Although social norms may guide the act of cyberloaf-
Ramayah, 2017). While the cause of cyberloafing is com- ing, we still do not understand what specific normative cues
plex, there is evidence other people in the work environ- employees attend to. The problem centers on the treatment
ment play a role in whether another individual will cyberloaf of social norms in the cyberloafing literature as a unitary
(Betts, Setterstrom, Pearson, & Totty, 2014; Bock, Park, & construct (with exceptions; e.g., Taneja, 2006), when, in
Zhang, 2010; Freimark, 2012; Galluch & Thatcher, 2007; fact, social norm is an umbrella term referring to a collec-
Liberman et al., 2011; Polzer-Debruyne, Stratton, & Stark, tion of normative information (Lapinski & Rimal, 2005).
2014; Sheikh, Atashgah, & Adibzadegan, 2015; Taneja, According to the focus theory of normative conduct, social
2006). Evidence supporting this conclusion comes from norms can be divided into descriptive—what members of
multiple studies. First, social norms are one of the most the group commonly do—and prescriptive—what behaviors
studied and robust predictors of cyberloafing (Weatherbee, members of the group commonly approve of, and the theory
2010), with significant effects in at least 15 different studies further states norms will influence behavior when they are
(e.g., Betts et al., 2014; Freimark, 2012; Hussain, Saleem, salient (Cialdini, Kallgren, & Reno, 1991). The two broad
& Malik, 2016; Polzer-Debruyne et al., 2014; Sheikh et al., types of norms can be further subdivided when different
2015). Second, the relationship between social norms and sources of information (i.e., referents) are present (Ehrhart
Askew et al. 3

& Naumann, 2004). In organizational settings, coworkers violate this prescription by engaging in copious amounts of
and supervisors serve as particularly important referents cyberloafing. The second distinction is the source or refer-
(Ehrhart & Naumann, 2004), resulting in the existence of ent of normative information (Lapinski & Rimal, 2005).
four distinct social norms with regard to cyberloafing: Social norms can be conceptualized as the combined opin-
supervisor cyberloafing (descriptive supervisor norm), ions or behaviors of many actors but they can also be con-
supervisor approval of cyberloafing (prescriptive supervi- ceptualized with more precision regarding specific
sor norm), coworker cyberloafing (descriptive coworker referents (Lapinski & Rimal, 2005). At work, research sug-
norm), and coworker approval of cyberloafing (prescriptive gests coworkers and supervisors are often the most critical
coworker norm; Ehrhart & Naumann, 2004). referents (Ehrhart & Naumann, 2004). Supervisors are
Our current understanding of how normative informa- important because they have the power to deliver both for-
tion influences cyberloafing is crude because we do not mal and informal punishment to employees whereas
understand which social norm—or combination thereof— coworkers provide evidence of what behavior is adaptive
underpins the norm-cyberloafing effect as no study com- and can also deliver informal social punishments (Ehrhart
pares all four types of social norms. This is problematic for & Naumann, 2004). Thus, to explain organizational behav-
two reasons. First, theories of cyberloafing including social ior, it is important to make a distinction between norms as
norms as an antecedent could be overly broad and thus lack- they relate to coworkers versus supervisors.
ing in theoretical clarity. It is possible a single norm (e.g., The aforementioned dimensions can be crossed to create
supervisor approval of cyberloafing) is driving personal a basic taxonomy of social norms. These types of social
computer use at work. The second reason is practical: many norms correspond to what supervisors approve of and how
managers are interested in curtailing cyberloafing, and there supervisors behave regarding cyberloafing, and what
has been great interest in developing cyberloafing counter- coworkers approve of and how coworkers behave regarding
measures (Glassman, Prosch, & Shao, 2015). Social norms cyberloafing. The prescriptive supervisor norm refers to
could be a potential intervention point in this regard. supervisors’ approval or disapproval of subordinate cyber-
However, we cannot confidently develop social norms- loafing. The prescriptive coworker norm refers to cowork-
based interventions without understanding what the inter- ers’ approval or disapproval of another coworker’s
vention point should be (Schultz, Nolan, Cialdini, Goldstein, cyberloafing. The descriptive supervisor norm is the extent
& Griskevicius, 2007). to which supervisors cyberloaf, whereas the descriptive
Given the above gaps in the literature, the purpose of the coworker norm is the extent to which coworkers cyberloaf.
current investigation was to disentangle the relationship Each social norm is a potentially unique source of informa-
between normative information and cyberloafing. In short, tion that could possibly drive cyberloafing.
we hope to address the following question: How do other A final distinction is the difference between objective or
people in the work environment influence an individual’s actual social norms and subjective or perceived social
cyberloafing? Our first goal is to examine the unique contri- norms (Lapinski & Rimal, 2005). Objective social norms
bution of different social norms to determine what norma- reflect what is true about the average behavior of the group
tive information employees attend to when deciding to or the group’s average expectations for behavior. For exam-
cyberloaf (Studies 1 and 2). Our second goal is to examine ple, an objective descriptive supervisor norm is how many
the role of actual norms—not simply perceived norms—in minutes per day a supervisor cyberloafs. An objective pre-
the cyberloafing process (Study 1). scriptive supervisor norm is the supervisor’s actual opinion
on the appropriateness of his or her subordinates’ cyberloaf-
ing. Subjective social norms are group members’ percep-
Types of Social Norms
tions of the actual social norms, which will vary, at least
Understanding how other people influence cyberloafing is slightly, across group members (Rimal & Lapinski, 2015).
facilitated when diverse norms are conceptualized as sepa- According to the focus theory of normative conduct, actual
rate constructs (Lapinski & Rimal, 2005). Two distinctions norms exert their influence on behavior through perceptions
are important in this respect. First, we must distinguish of these norms when the referent is relevant and the norms
prescriptive norms from descriptive norms, given that the are made salient (Kallgren et al., 2000).
focus theory of normative conduct states that these con-
structs represent different sources of human motivation
Social Norms and Cyberloafing
(Cialdini et al., 1991). Descriptive norms motivate behav-
ior by providing evidence about what is effective or adap- A diagram summarizing the social norm variables that are
tive, whereas prescriptive norms motivate behavior by related to cyberloafing is shown in Figure 1. While some
promising social rewards or punishment (Kallgren, Reno, studies make distinctions between social norm variables
& Cialdini, 2000). For example, other employees might (e.g., Taneja, 2006), most generically label diverse nor-
disapprove of people cyberloafing while, at the same time, mative variables in terms of social norms, social factors,
4 Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 00(0)

and so on (e.g., Blanchard & Henle, 2008). The place- determine the sources of this information because social
ment of each study in the diagram was based on item con- norms are associated with each other, creating a third vari-
tent or text descriptions when items were not available. able problem, and there are no existing studies that have
The combined categories indicate the study operational- concurrently examined all four subjective social norms. A
ized social norms using items measuring at least two of study simultaneously including all four types of social norm
the basic types of social norms (e.g., a single social norm variables would be able to examine the extent to which a
construct was operationalized using both supervisor and social norm provides nonredundant information regarding
coworker prescriptive items). cyberloafing. While providing nonredundant information
Extant findings suggest some form of normative infor- does not prove a particular social norm is a unique cause of
mation is driving cyberloafing. First, social norms are a cyberloafing, it is a necessary condition and is consistent
consistent predictor of cyberloafing and have shown with the notion that a particular social norm is a unique
strong relationships with cyberloafing across diverse work source of information for the potential cyberloafer (Cohen,
environments (Betts et al., 2014; Bock et al., 2010; Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2013).
Freimark, 2012; Galluch & Thatcher, 2007; Liberman A second major gap in the literature is whether actual
et al., 2011; Polzer-Debruyne et al., 2014; Sheikh et al., social norms are a distal cause of cyberloafing as often
2015; Taneja, 2006). Moreover, most of these observed theorized (e.g., Blanchard & Henle, 2008). We were
associations have been medium to large in magnitude unable to find a single study measuring actual supervisor
(Cohen, 1988). Second, social norm variables have shown or coworker norms of either kind. It is thus unclear the
incremental validity over other established predictors of extent to which employees’ perceptions of social norms
cyberloafing, such as attitudes toward cyberloafing are driven by actual norms versus individual differences
(Liberman et al., 2011), electronic monitoring (Taneja, in perception. We would expect actual cyberloafing norms
2006), self-efficacy to hide cyberloafing (Sheikh et al., to affect cyberloafing to the extent to which those norms
2015), and organizational justice (Betts et al., 2014). Thus, are relevant (i.e., the extent to which a potential referent
it is likely the observed association between social norms is important), known, and salient (Cialdini et al., 1991;
and cyberloafing cannot be explained by other established Lapinski & Rimal, 2005).
predictors. Third, social norms are an established cause of
other withdrawal behaviors, such as lateness (Blau, 1995)
and absenteeism (Harrison & Price, 2003), which increases
The Current Investigation
the probability social norms may have an association with Given the above gaps, the current investigation sought to
cyberloafing as well. better understand how other people in the work environ-
Additionally, there is reason to suspect employees might ment influence personal computer use at work. The first
attend to multiple types of normative information when goal is to empirically test what social norms provide
deciding to cyberloaf. The strongest evidence comes from unique information about cyberloafing, which would hint
research by Taneja and colleagues, which found coworker at what specific normative information might be driving
prescriptive and descriptive norms each account for unique cyberloafing behavior. The second goal is to test whether
variance in intentions to cyberloaf (Taneja, 2006; Taneja actual norms—specifically actual supervisor norms—are
et al., 2015). Other empirical evidence indicates supervi- associated with cyberloafing through perceptions of these
sor-related variables, such as supervisor proximity, play a norms, as assumed by many researchers in the field (e.g.,
role in cyberloafing (Rahimnia & Mazidi, 2015), and mul- Blanchard & Henle, 2008; Liberman et al., 2011). For
tiple types of social norms have shown to incrementally logistic reasons, we were not able to also examine the role
predict other digital behaviors, such as adoption of new of actual coworker norms.
technology (Karahanna, Straub, & Chervany, 1999) and The focus theory of normative conduct, in conjunction
use of social networking sites outside of work (Cheung, with a consideration of the physical and social context in
Chiu, & Lee, 2011). Finally, from a decision-making per- which cyberloafing takes place, provides some guidance
spective, it makes sense employees would use as many rel- as to what social norms may play an active role in cyber-
evant sources of information as possible when deciding to loafing (Cialdini et al., 1991). However, the predictions
engage in a risky behavior. that follow from this theory are somewhat ambiguous
Although evidence suggests normative information con- when applied to cyberloafing, as they depend on the
tributes to cyberloafing, there is a major gap in the literature assumptions that one makes about the salience of the
as to what normative information employees attend (or do norms, the relevancy of the different social norms, and the
not attend) to. Social norms are important (Weatherbee, context in which cyberloafing occurs. As stated earlier, the
2010), and we have reason to believe that employees often focus theory of normative conduct maintains that (1)
attend to at least two distinct sources of information (Taneja, descriptive norms motivate behavior by providing infor-
2006; Taneja et al., 2015). However, it is not possible to mation about what behaviors are adaptive and (2)
Askew et al. 5

Figure 2.  A visual representation of Hypotheses 1 to 4.

prescriptive norms motivate behavior by informing what exclusive hypotheses. These hypotheses are also presented
behaviors will be socially rewarded or sanctioned visually in Figure 2:
(Kallgren et al., 2000). The theory also states norms are
more likely to influence behavior when salient (Cialdini Hypothesis 1: Perceptions of supervisor approval of
et al., 1991). Given supervisors have the power to deliver cyberloafing will incrementally predict cyberloafing
formal punishment and coworkers are the most similar ref- above and beyond the other three norms.
erents to the potential cyberloafer (Ehrhart & Naumann, Hypothesis 2: Perceptions of coworker approval of
2004), prescriptive supervisor and descriptive coworker cyberloafing will incrementally predict cyberloafing
norms may have the highest probability of accounting for above and beyond the other three norms.
significant incremental variance in cyberloafing. However, Hypothesis 3: Perceptions of supervisor cyberloafing
there are reasons to believe that the other two types of will incrementally predict cyberloafing above and
norms might incrementally predict cyberloafing as well. beyond the other three norms.
Namely, the prescriptive coworker norm might account Hypothesis 4: Perceptions of coworker cyberloafing
for unique variance because coworkers can deliver infor- will incrementally predict cyberloafing above and
mal social punishments to loafers (Ehrhart & Naumann, beyond the other three norms.
2004). Similarly, the descriptive supervisor norm might
account for unique variance in cyberloafing because it The second goal of this investigation is to test the role
could provide salient information about what supervisors of actual norms in the process of cyberloafing. The focus
actually find acceptable regarding cyberloafing. It is also theory of normative conduct states that actual norms
possible that both types of descriptive norms will drive influence cyberloafing through perceptions of these
cyberloafing because these norms are most salient, seeing norms when those norms are made salient (Cialdini et al.,
as behaviors—as opposed to beliefs—are observable. 1991; Kallgren et al., 2000). Given that the role of actual
In short, there are reasons to believe that any one of the norms as a cause of behavior is well established in the
four norms might contribute to cyberloafing but for each social psychology literature (Kallgren et al., 2000; Rimal
norm either its relevancy and/or its saliency is in question. & Lapinski, 2015), we expect the data to show a pattern
Appropriately, we take an inductive approach with regard to consistent with mediation for at least one of the two types
our first goal as advocated by Edwin Locke and others of supervisor norms. We expect that if descriptive norms
(Locke, 2007; Spector, Rogelberg, Ryan, Schmitt, & are seen as providing nonredundant information about the
Zedeck, 2014) and propose the following non–mutually adaptability of cyberloafing, there will be an indirect
6 Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 00(0)

effect of the actual descriptive supervisor norm on cyber- age of 23.75 years. No demographic data were gathered
loafing mediated through employee perceptions. And we from supervisors in order to keep the supervisor survey as
expect that if prescriptive supervisor norms are suffi- short as possible.
ciently salient there be an indirect effect of the actual pre- Although a subset of the subordinate data was reported
scriptive supervisor norm on cyberloafing. Thus, we in a previous study (Askew et al., 2014), the focus of that
propose the following hypotheses: study was to test different models of cyberloafing, which
contained overall social norms as one of the antecedents.
Hypothesis 5: Perceptions of supervisor cyberloafing The focus of the current investigation is to disentangle the
will mediate the relationship between actual supervisor influence of other people in the work environment on cyber-
cyberloafing and employee cyberloafing. loafing, which is a unique contribution to the literature, and
Hypothesis 6: Perceptions of supervisor approval of these results have not been presented elsewhere. A data
cyberloafing will mediate the relationship between transparency table is provided in the appendix.
actual supervisor approval of cyberloafing and employee
cyberloafing. Materials
We tested our hypotheses across two studies using two Cyberloafing.  Cyberloafing was measured using an extended
different methods of data collection. In Study 1, we col- version of Lim’s (2002) cyberloafing scale (Blanchard &
lected data from working adults attending a university. Henle, 2008). The extended scale contains 18 items mea-
We also had these working adults collect actual normative suring a variety of cyberloafing behaviors, such as shopping
data from their supervisors. This procedure allowed us to online, watching videos on sites like YouTube, and looking
test our first four hypotheses regarding the incremental for employment. Participants rated the frequency that they
validity of perceived norms, as well as our hypotheses engage in each of the 18 behaviors at work on a 6-point
regarding the role of actual norms. In Study 2, we exam- scale (1 = never, 4 = once a day, and 6 = constantly). A
ined the generalizability of our findings with regard to the sample item is “Play online games.” The scale demon-
first four hypotheses from Study 1 by collecting data from strated excellent internal consistency in Study 1 (α = .92).
a more representative sample of the general working
population. Perceived Descriptive Norms.  Employees’ perception of the
amount of cyberloafing in which their supervisor and
coworkers engaged was measured using two shortened ver-
Study 1 sions of Lim’s (2002) cyberloafing scale with the instruc-
tions changed to ask the participant to report the frequency
Method of their coworkers’ or supervisor’s behaviors at work
Participants and Procedure.  The data for Study 1 were col- instead of their own. Each scale contained three items mea-
lected as part of a larger investigation on cyberloafing. We suring the following behaviors: general web-browsing,
recruited working adults from university classrooms or checking e-mail, and checking social networking sites like
asked nonworking students in these courses to recruit some- Facebook. These scales demonstrated good reliability
one in exchange for extra credit. We also asked the partici- (αsupervisor = .85 and αcoworkers = .86).
pants to solicit their supervisor to participate in the study.
To prevent subordinates from completing the supervisor Perceived Prescriptive Norms. Employees’ perception of
section, it was made explicit to the subordinates that receiv- approval or disapproval of cyberloafing from coworkers
ing extra credit was contingent upon completion of the sub- and supervisors was measured using Blanchard and Henle’s
ordinate portion only. Therefore, there was no incentive for (2008) social norms scales. Each scale contained three
subordinates to fake a supervisor’s data. items measuring general web-browsing, checking email,
To encourage honest responding from supervisors, data and visiting social networking sites (the social networking
collection was arranged so that subordinates did not have item was added to the current investigation). Participants
access to their supervisors’ responses. Subordinates solic- rated their perception of the acceptability of the behavior at
ited participation from supervisors by handing them a one- work for each referent on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly dis-
page instruction sheet, which included the supervisor approve, 5 = strongly approve). A sample item is “My
survey URL and a linking code. Supervisors completed supervisor would approve of me visiting social networking
the survey online, and their responses were linked to the sites (Facebook, etc.).” Both subscales showed good reli-
subordinate later by the researchers using the linking ability (αsupervisor = .90 and αcoworkers = .91).
codes. This approach was successful in recruiting 447 sub-
ordinates and 130 supervisors from diverse industries. The [Actual] Descriptive Supervisor Norm.  Supervisor cyberloaf-
subordinate sample was 75.6% female and had an average ing was measured in a comparable manner to how employee
Askew et al. 7

Table 1.  Descriptive Statistics and Correlations in Study 1.

Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
  1. Cyberloafing 2.14 0.94 .92  
  2. Descriptive—Comb. 3.68 1.28 .36** .85  
  3. Descriptive—Sup. 3.20 1.52 .28** .88** .85  
  4. Descriptive—Co. 4.11 1.42 .36** .86** .49** .86  
  5. Prescriptive—Comb. 2.69 0.76 .19** .34** .28** .32** .85  
  6. Prescriptive—Sup. 2.17 0.96 .15** .18** .22** .10* .83** .90  
  7. Prescriptive—Co. 3.22 0.90 .16** .37** .24** .43** .81** .36** .91  
  8. Actual Descriptive—Sup. 1.81 0.75 .43** .31** .36** .21* .28** .31** .14 .91  
  9. Actual Prescriptive—Sup. 2.18 0.92 .31** .15 .16 .14 .46** .52** .22* .54** .84  
10. Age 23.78 6.78 −.03 −.04 .01 −.07 −.07 −.01 −.11* −.00 .03 —  
11. Gender 1.75 0.43 −.08 −.06 −.08 .01 .01 −.05 .07 .02 .04 −.12* —

Note. N = 130-428 (not all subordinates recruited their supervisors resulting in a smaller sample size for the correlations involving one or both
supervisor-rated variables). Comb. = combined; Sup. = supervisor; Co. = coworker; SD = standard deviation. Variables 1-7 and 10-11 are
subordinate-rated variables. Variables 8 and 9 are supervisor-rated variables. Coefficient alphas are shown in bold.
*p < .05. **p < .01.

cyberloafing was measured: by having the actor of the (typ- No clear pattern emerged regarding what referent was
ically private) behavior self-report behavior under honest more strongly associated with cyberloafing. There was
conditions. We refer to this as actual supervisor cyberloaf- good discriminate validity for the four basic social norms,
ing to distinguish it from employee perceptions of supervi- with inter-correlations ranging from .10 to .49. Therefore,
sor cyberloafing and because self-reporting under honest employees can distinguish among coworker expectations,
conditions is a recommended way to measure counterpro- coworker behavior, supervisor expectations, and supervi-
ductive work behaviors (Bennett & Robinson, 2000; Fox & sor behavior. Also in line with expectations, the two actual
Spector, 1999). Lim’s (2002) extended 18-item scale was supervisor norms were significantly correlated with [sub-
used, and supervisors rated the frequency with which they ordinate] cyberloafing.
engaged in cyberloafing behaviors at work on a 6-point Next, we examined the incremental validity of the differ-
scale (1 = never, 4 = once a day, and 6 = constantly). A ent social norm variables to test what social norms might
sample item is “Play online games.” The scale demonstrated account for unique variance in cyberloafing. If employees
high internal consistency in Study 1 (α = .91). are consistently using a social norm as a source of informa-
tion in their decision making, then that social norm should
[Actual] Prescriptive Supervisor Norm.  Supervisor acceptance be consistently significant across multiple regression analy-
of cyberloafing was measured using Blanchard and Henle’s ses. Social norms that are not consistently utilized by
(2008) social norms scale with the items modified to refer- employees or provide redundant information should not be
ence oneself instead of one’s supervisor or coworker. Super- significant across analyses.1 Results from the multiple
visors were instructed to rate the extent to which they regression analyses are shown in Table 2. As expected, in
approved of each behavior, and the instructions made it every analysis, at least two of the four basic social norms
clear that they were supposed to rate their approval or dis- were significant—suggesting that employees are using mul-
approval of the behavior during working hours. The scale tiple social norms as sources of information in the process
consisted of three items in total. A sample item is “I approve of deciding whether or not to cyberloaf. Regarding
of my employees visiting nonjob-related websites.” The Hypotheses 1 to 4—which collectively addressed the ques-
scale demonstrated good internal consistency (α = .84). tion of what social norms might drive cyberloafing—two
social norms were consistent predictors of cyberloafing
across analyses: descriptive coworker norms and descrip-
Results tive supervisor norms. Model 5 was supported as a poten-
Descriptive statistics and correlations among the study tially parsimonious explanation of how social norms
variables are shown in Table 1. As expected, the four sub- influence cyberloafing, βDN.Sup = .11, p < .05; βDN.Co =
jective social norms were all significantly correlated with .30, p < .01; βPN.Sup = .11, p < .05; R2 = .15, based on the
cyberloafing. Hotelling’s t tests revealed that the two criteria of no nonsignificant predictors and the amount of
descriptive subjective norms were correlated more strongly variance accounted for in cyberloafing (Zellner, 2001). For
with cyberloafing than the two prescriptive subjective norms Model 5, the descriptive coworker beta weight was signifi-
(rDN.Sup = .28; rDN.Co = .36, rPN.Sup = .15; rPN.Co = .16). cantly stronger than the prescriptive supervisor beta weight,
8 Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 00(0)

Table 2.  Multiple Regression Analyses in Study 1. weights analysis (Johnson, 2000). By running a RWA we
can examine each predictor’s relative importance consider-
Predictors b 95% CI β R2
ing both the predictor’s direct effect on the criterion and the
Model 1 predictor’s effect when combined with other predictors
 Descriptive—Supervisor .08 [.02, .15] .12* .14** examined (Johnson & LeBreton, 2004). As shown in Table
 Descriptive—Coworkers .20 [.13, .27] .30**   3, the results agree with the main analysis. Descriptive
Model 2 coworker norm accounted for the most explained variance
 Prescriptive—Supervisor .11 [.01, .20] .11* .04** in cyberloafing (58.6%), followed by the descriptive super-
 Prescriptive—Coworkers .13 [.03, .24] .13*   visor norm (26.4%), the prescriptive supervisor norm
Model 3 (9.2%) and then the prescriptive coworker norm (5.8%).
 Descriptive—Supervisor .16 [.10, .22] .25** .09** One insight from the relative weights analysis was how
 Prescriptive—Coworkers .11 [.01, .21] .11*  
close the relative contribution of the two prescriptive norms
Model 4
were despite the difference in pattern of significance in the
 Descriptive—Coworkers .23 [.17, .29] .34** .14**
main analyses.
 Prescriptive—Supervisor .11 [.03, .20] .12*  
Second, given congruence between what is said (pre-
Model 5
 Descriptive—Supervisor .07 [.01, .13] .11* .15**
scriptive) and done (descriptive) may lead to stronger nor-
 Descriptive—Coworkers .20 [.13, .27] .30**   mative sway, we tested if agreement between norm types
 Prescriptive—Supervisors .11 [.01, .20] .11*   influences cyberloafing using polynomial regression anal-
Model 6 yses with response surface plots (Edwards & Parry, 1993;
 Descriptive—Supervisor .08 [.02, .15] .13* .14** Shanock, Baran, Gentry, Pattison, & Heggestad, 2010).2
 Descriptive—Coworkers .20 [.12, .27] .29**   Polynomial regression yield regression coefficients for
 Prescriptive—Coworkers .01 [−.10, .11] .01   two linear terms (i.e., prescriptive and descriptive norms),
Model 7 their interaction, and two quadratic terms (i.e., squares of
 Descriptive—Supervisor .15 [.09, .21] .24** .09** prescriptive and descriptive norms) and relates them to a
 Prescriptive—Supervisor .08 [−.02, .18] .08   dependent variable (e.g., cyberloafing). The coefficients
 Prescriptive—Coworkers .09 [−.02, .19] .09†   (b1 to b5) are translated into four surface values (a1 to a4)
Model 8 describing whether different relationships between the
 Descriptive—Coworkers .24 [.17, .30] .36** .14** predictor variables are related to the outcome by defining
 Prescriptive—Supervisor .13 [.03, .22] .13**   the response surface (RS) plane of a three-dimensional
 Prescriptive—Coworkers −.04 [−.15, .07] −.04   plot. RS plots have, numerically, a line of congruence
Model 9 (LOC: X = Y) and a line of incongruence (LOIC: X =
 Descriptive—Supervisor .07 [.01, .13] .11* .15** −Y), which are derived by fully crossing the numeric lev-
 Descriptive—Coworkers .21 [.13, .28] .31**   els of two continuous predictors variables X and Y. The
 Prescriptive—Supervisors .12 [.02, .21] .12*   LOC is defined by a linear slope (a1) and a curvature (a2);
 Prescriptive—Coworkers −.04 [−.15, .08] −.04  
similarly, the LOIC is defined by a linear slops (a3) and a
Model 10
curvature (a4). Thus, the LOC and LOIC provide insight
  Actual Descriptive—Supervisor .43 [.21, .64] .36** .19**
into how incongruence and congruence between the
  Actual Prescriptive—Supervisor .11 [−.06, .29] .12  
sources of norms are related to cyberloafing, which is
Note. CI = confidence interval. plotted on the z-axis (see Shanock et al., 2010, for tutorial
†
p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. and interpretations of surface values). Analyses were car-
ried out in R using the RSA package using predictors cen-
t(405) = 2.66, p < .05, and the descriptive supervisor beta tered on their scale midpoints (Schönbrodt, 2016). Several
weight, t(405) = 2.10, p < .05. The difference between the nested and nonnested polynomial regression models (e.g.,
beta weights for descriptive supervisor and prescriptive full, rising ridge) were compared using the corrected
supervisor norms was not significant, t(402) = .03, ns. To Aikaike Information Criteria (AICc) that balances model
confirm the incremental validity of each predictor in Model complexity with predictive accuracy. The parameters and
5, we conducted three hierarchal regressions which are plots are presented in Table 4 and Figure 3. The congru-
shown in supplemental material A (available in the online ence hypothesis, which posits maximal outcomes occur
version of the article). The hierarchical regressions con- for congruent predictor combinations, was rejected along
firmed that all three variables in Model 5 accounted for a multiple criteria (Humberg, Nestler, & Back, 2018). In all
significant amount of additional variance as judged by the cases, either the first principle axis is rotated away from
change in R2 statistic. the line of congruence, the a4 parameter was nonsignifi-
We conducted two supplemental analyses to further cant, or a3 was significantly different from zero. Model
address Hypotheses 1 to 4. First, we conducted a relative comparisons suggests the simplest, best fitting model was
Askew et al. 9

Table 3.  Relative Weight Analysis Study 1.

Predictor (norms)

  Descriptive supervisor Descriptive coworker Prescriptive supervisor Prescriptive coworker

RRW .04 .09 .01 .01
Rescaled RW 26.4% 58.6% 9.2% 5.8%

Note. R2 for the model = .15. RRW = raw relative weights. Rescaled RW = computed by dividing RRW by R2 in order to find the percentage of
criterion variance attributable to each predictor.

Table 4.  Study 1 Polynomial Regression Coefficients (b1 to b5) and Response Surface Results (First Principal Axis and a1 to a4) for
Descriptive and Prescriptive Norms in Predicting Cyberloafing.

Polynomial regression coefficients Shape of surface along lines

Position of first
  b principal axis LOC LOIC

Source Db1 Pb2 D2b3 DPb4 P2b5 p R2 p10 p11 a1 a2 a3 a4

Sup Norms .18** .11 .01 .02 .00 <.001 .09 −.36 .62 .29** .04 .07 −.01
Co Norms .21** .01 .04 .02 −.05 <.001 .14 −.16 .13*a .22** .02 .20** −.03
Actual Sup .77** −.12 .19 −.20 .04 <.001 .20 12.40 −.50*a .64** .03 .89** .42

Note. Unstandardized beta weights reported. N ranged from 129 (actual supervisor behavior) to 422 (coworkers norms). D = descriptive norms; P =
prescriptive norms; LOC = line of congruence; LOIC = line of incongruence.
a
The 95% confidence interval of p11 excludes 1.
*p < .05. **p < .01.

Figure 3.  Response surface plots for all polynomial analyses.

Note. The first row of figures (a, b, and c) are from Sample 1 and the second row of figures (d, e) are from Sample 2. The legends correspond to the
amount of cyberloafing. The line of congruence (Y = X) extends from the bottom corner where to the upper back corner. The line of incongruence
(Y = −X) extends from the left to right side of the plane. A bagplot projected onto the surface depicts actual data, with 50% included within the inner
circle and 100% of the points within the outer circle.
10 Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 00(0)

Table 5.  Mediation Analyses Following Preacher and Hayes but there is also evidence that employees pay attention to
(2004). prescriptive norms, as the most parsimonious model in the
Analysis B Boot SE LL CI UL CI R2 main analysis was Model 5 (i.e., the model comprising
both coworker/supervisor descriptive norms and prescrip-
Descriptive .14* .05 .06 .55 .27 tive supervisor norms). Supplementary response surface
Prescriptive .03 .05 −.06 .12 .10 analyses confirm this effect, suggesting cyberloafing is
Note. The predictor in both analyses was the actual norm, the mediator
greatest when followers think supervisors both encourage
was employee perceptions of that norm, and the criterion was and engage in such behaviors and is also more likely when
cyberloafing. SE = standard error; LL = lower limit; UL = upper limit; descriptive norms were greater than prescriptive norms
CI = confidence interval. rather than vice versa. We also found evidence consistent
*p < .05. **p < .01.
with actual descriptive norms as a distal cause of cyber-
loafing, the effect of which is mediated by employee per-
a simple main effect for both the descriptive coworker ceptions of these norms. Interestingly, we found no
norm (AICc = 7896.47, Adjusted R2 = .131) and actual evidence for the theory that actual prescriptive norms are
descriptive supervisor norm (AICc = 1619.64, Adjusted a distal cause of cyberloafing, the effect of which is medi-
R2 = .212) but a linear additive or rising ridge model for ated through employee perceptions.
follower perceptions of descriptive and prescriptive super- A limitation of Study 1 is that we used a sample of stu-
visory norms (AICc = 8071.86, Adjusted R2 = .083). The dents who were employed, which was biased because par-
latter finding suggests a joint increase in perceptions of ticipants were young relative to the general working
what a supervisor says and does leads to greater cyberloaf- population and could be different in other ways from the
ing such that high/high combinations of supervisory norms general population as well. Accordingly, in Study 2, we
has a larger effect compared to a low/low combination. We sought to test the generalizability of our findings by exam-
note there were also positive a3 effects for coworker and ining a more representative sample of individuals in the
actual supervisory behavior which suggests direction of general working population who use computers at work.
dissimilarity may affect cyberloafing such that effects are
stronger when descriptive norms were higher than pre-
scriptive norms and vice versa.
Study 2
Finally, we tested Hypotheses 5 and 6, which collec- Method
tively state that actual supervisor norms influence cyber-
loafing through subordinate perceptions of these norms. To Participants and Procedure.  In order to obtain a more repre-
test our mediation hypotheses, we used Preacher and sentative sample of the general working population, we
Hayes’ (2004) method for testing mediation. While Baron recruited participants from the downtown area of a major
and Kenny’s (1986) method is historically popular, it has southeastern city using the same procedure as Askew et al.
been criticized by statisticians and methodologists for (2014). In particular, the researcher approached potential
being an indirect test for mediation (Hayes, 2009; participants and invited them to participate in a research
MacKinnon & Fairchild, 2009). Preacher and Hayes’ study. Individuals who agreed to participate were asked if
(2004) method tests for mediation directly by estimating they were currently employed and had access to a computer
the indirect effect and testing the difference from zero. A with Internet connection at work. Only people who
significant indirect effect is evidence of mediation. Table 5 responded affirmatively to both questions were allowed to
presents the results of the mediation analyses. As shown in participate in the study and handed the survey. We were
the table, the results supported Hypothesis 5, as the indirect successful in recruiting a total of 220 employees (56.7%
effect of actual descriptive supervisor norms on cyberloaf- male) from a variety of industries, such as telecommunica-
ing was significant, Β = .14, SE = .05, R2 = .27, suggest- tions, law, insurance, government, information technology,
ing that actual descriptive supervisor norms might influence real estate, civil engineering, transportation, health care,
cyberloafing through subordinate perception of this norm. investment banking, economics, publishing, sales, personal
In contrast, the mediation analyses were not supportive of care, and the power industry. Participants’ age was approxi-
Hypothesis 6, as we found no evidence that subordinate mately normally distributed, with the mean age falling
perceptions of prescriptive supervisor norms mediated the within the boundaries of 36 and 45 years.
influence of actual prescriptive supervisor norms.
Measures
Discussion The same measures used in Study 1 were used in Study 2.
The results of Study 1 confirm the expectation that
employees use multiple sources of normative information
Results
in the process of deciding to cyberloaf. Results from mul-
tiple regressions and relative weights analysis suggest The bivariate correlations and reliabilities for Study 2 are
employees pay particular attention to descriptive norms, shown in Table 6. Similar to Study 1, all four of the basic
Askew et al. 11

Table 6.  Descriptive Statistics and Correlations in Study 2.

Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Cyberloafing 2.61 1.10 .91  
2. Descriptive—Comb. 3.71 1.46 .68** .93  
3. Descriptive—Sup. 3.44 1.68 .63** .94** .97  
4. Descriptive—Co. 3.97 1.48 .65** .92** .73** .93  
5. Prescriptive—Comb. 2.59 1.04 .51** .53** .47** .52** .88  
6. Prescriptive—Sup. 2.30 1.17 .41** .47** .44** .43** .90** .93  
7. Prescriptive—Co. 2.86 1.15 .50** .49** .40** .52** .90** .61** .90  
8. Age 3.16 1.27 −.37** −.21** −.21** −.21** −.10 −.04 −.13 —  
9. Gender 1.40 0.49 .04 .02 .03 −.00 −.03 −.04 −.00 −.18* —

Note. N = 220. Comb. = combined; Sup. = supervisor; Co. = coworker; SD = standard deviation. Coefficient alphas are shown in bold.
*p < .05. **p < .01.

social norms were correlated with cyberloafing. In addition, Table 7.  Multiple Regression Analyses in Study 2.
the results of Hotelling’s t tests found the same pattern of
Predictors b 95% CI β R2
results as in Study 1, such that descriptive social norms
were significantly more strongly correlated with cyberloaf- Model 1
ing than prescriptive norms, and no pattern emerged regard-  Descriptive—Supervisor .22 [.12, .32] .34** .48**
ing what referent more strongly related to cyberloafing.  Descriptive—Coworkers .30 [.19, .41] .41**  
The results of the multiple regression analyses for Study Model 2
2 are shown in Table 7. The results were largely consistent  Prescriptive—Supervisor .16 [.02, .30] .17* .27**
with the results from Study 1. Descriptive norms for both  Prescriptive—Coworkers .38 [.24, .52] .40**  
referents were significant in all analyses in which they were Model 3
included. Interestingly, and not entirely consistent with  Descriptive—Supervisor .33 [.26, .41] .50** .49**
Study 1, the prescriptive coworker norm was also signifi-  Prescriptive—Coworkers .31 [.20, .42] .32**  
Model 4
cant across all analyses. Regarding the most parsimonious
 Descriptive—Coworkers .41 [.33, .50] .56** .46**
model, there were two models that received support based
 Prescriptive—Supervisor .19 [.08, .30] .20**  
on the criteria of no nonsignificant predictors and the
Model 5
amount of variance accounted for in cyberloafing (Zellner,
 Descriptive—Supervisor .19 [.09, .29] .29** .51**
2001). Specifically, Model 5—the same model that was  Descriptive—Coworkers .27 [.16, .38] .37**  
found to be the most parsimonious explanation of cyber-  Prescriptive—Supervisors .17 [.06, .28] .18**  
loafing in Study 1—was again supported, βDN.Sup = .29, p Model 6
< .01; βDN.Co = .37, p < .01; βPN.Sup = .18, p < .01; R2 =  Descriptive—Supervisor .21 [.12, .31] .32** .52**
.51. A comparison of the magnitude of the beta weights did  Descriptive—Coworkers .21 [.10 .33] .29**  
not find any significant differences. In addition, Model 6,  Prescriptive—Coworkers .23 [.12, .34] .24**  
which contained the two descriptive norms and the pre- Model 7
scriptive coworker norm, also received support, βDN.Sup =  Descriptive—Supervisor .32 [.24, .40] .49** .49**
.32, p < .01; βDN.Co = .29, p < .01; βPN.Co = .24, p < .01;  Prescriptive—Supervisor .07 [−.06, .20] .08  
R2 = .52. No significant differences among the three norm  Prescriptive—Coworkers .27 [.14, .39] .28**  
beta weights were found in Model 6 either. Hierarchical Model 8
regression analyses for both Models 5 and 6 confirmed that  Descriptive—Coworkers .38 [.29, .46] .51** .47**
each predictor accounted for significant additional variance  Prescriptive—Supervisor .12 [−.01, .24] .13†  
in cyberloafing (see supplemental material A; available in  Prescriptive—Coworkers .15 [.02, .28] .16*  
the online version of the article). These findings suggest Model 9
that in the general working population, employee cyber-  Descriptive—Supervisor .20 [.10, .30] .31** .53**
loafing might be influenced by the two descriptive norms  Descriptive—Coworkers .21 [.10, .33] .29**  
and a prescriptive norm—with evidence favoring the pre-  Prescriptive—Supervisors .08 [−.05 .20] .08  
scriptive coworker norm over the prescriptive supervisor  Prescriptive—Coworkers .19 [.06, .32] .20**  
norm, given the more consistent significance of the Note. CI = confidence interval.
coworker norm coefficient across analyses. †
p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01.
12 Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 00(0)

Table 8.  Relative Weight Analysis Study 2.

Predictor (norms)

  Descriptive supervisor Descriptive coworker Prescriptive supervisor Prescriptive coworker

RRW .18 .18 .05 .10
Rescaled RW 36% 35.3% 9.5% 19.2%

Note. R2 for the model = .51. RRW = raw relative weights. Rescaled RW = computed by dividing RRW by R2 in order to find the percentage of
criterion variance attributable to each predictor.

Table 9.  Study 2 Polynomial Regression Coefficients (b1 to b5) and Response Surface Results (First Principal Axis and a1 to a4) for
Norms in Predicting Cyberloafing.

Polynomial regression coefficients Shape of surface along lines

Position of first
  B principal axis LOC LOIC

Source Db1 Pb2 D2b3 DPb4 P2b5 p R2 p10 p11 a1 a2 a3 a4

a
Sup Norms .41** .15* −.03 .10* −.13** <.001 .48 −.07 .42 .56** −.05 .25** −.25**
Co Norms .43** .19** −.01 .13** −.09 <.001 .50 −.25 .57 .62** .04 .25** −.22**

Note. Unstandardized beta weights reported. N ranged from 189 to 201. D = descriptive norms; P = prescriptive norms; LOC = line of congruence;
LOIC = line of incongruence.
a
The 95% confidence interval of p11 excludes 1.
*p < .05. **p < .01.

The same supplemental analyses as Sample 1 were (AICc = 4142.18, Adjusted R2 = .49) or full polynomial
run to further investigate the first four hypotheses. We (AICc = 4142.43, Adjusted R2 = .50). Figures 3d and 3e
again used relative weights analysis to examine the con- are both concave and resemble a shifted rising ridge, with
tributions of all the norms in the prediction of cyber- the first principal axis only slightly displaced clockwise
loafing by taking into account both the direct effect of from the line of congruence. Overall, these surfaces depict
the norms on cyberloafing and the effect when com- three basic effects. First, there is some evidence for a simi-
bined with the other norms. As shown in Table 8, the larity effect that cyberloafing is higher when descriptive
results agree with the main analysis. The descriptive and prescriptive norms are similar to one another than
supervisor norm and the descriptive coworker norm when they differ, as indicated by the downward slope on
each accounted for approximately the same amount of the surface of either side of the line of congruence. This
explained variance (36% and 35.3%, respectively) fol- can be interpreted as cyberloafing being lowest (highest)
lowed by the prescriptive coworker norm (19.2%), and when there are large (small) discrepancies between norm
then the prescriptive supervisor norm (9.5%). The levels. However, this must be qualified by significant lin-
results of the relative weights analysis also seem to sup- ear effects (a3) and rotated axis that suggest (a) employees
port the notion that prescriptive coworker norm was are more likely to cyberloaf when descriptive norms are
relatively more important than the prescriptive supervi- greater than prescriptive norms and (b) the optimal match
sor norm. does not exist when both norms have the exact same score.
Additionally, the same response surface analyses and Two, and similar to Study 1 for supervisors, cyberloafing
modeling strategy as sample 1 were run to explore the is highest when both norms are higher rather than lower as
joint impact of norm types on cyberloafing (see Table 9 indicated by the positive slope along the line of congru-
and Figure 3 for results). In contrast to Study 1, the best ence. Finally, a significant interaction effect can be visual-
solution for supervisor norms was a rotated and shifted ized for coworkers (nonsignificant for supervisors) in
rising ridge model (AICc = 4052.18, Adjusted R2 = .47), which the effect of either norm tends to amplified by high
which is a variant on the basic squared difference model levels of the other. Thus, employees are more sensitized or
but with predictor main effects (rise) and a shifted attuned to the other form of normative information when
and rotated ridge so optimal levels of similarity are not the rules are clear (prescriptive, hence they are more sway
needed at numerical equality. Similarly, coworker norms by what others do) or everyone is already deviant (descrip-
were best modeled as either just an interaction model tive, hence are more swayed by the rules).
Askew et al. 13

Discussion demonstrating the role of actual, not simply perceived,

norms in the cyberloafing process. When we examined the
Overall, the results of Study 2 largely replicated those of incremental validity of the four types of social norms in
Study 1. Employees in both samples appeared to attend pri- Studies 1 and 2, results revealed that employees attend to
marily to what others in the work environment are doing, as multiple types of social norms and that they pay particular
evidenced by the fact that both descriptive norms were sig- attention to the amount of cyberloafing in which their
nificant predictors of cyberloafing in all analyses in which coworkers and supervisors engage when deciding whether
they were included. In addition, the results of Study 2 were or not to cyberloaf. There was also evidence that employees
consistent with Study 1 in that we found prescriptive social consider the expectations of others in the work environ-
norms to play a role in cyberloafing, although what prescrip- ment. The results from Study 1 supported the notion that
tive norm is most relevant varied between the two studies. actual descriptive supervisor norms act as a distal cause of
Namely, employees in Study 1 indicated that they were ori- cyberloafing, the effect of which is mediated through subor-
ented toward their supervisor’s expectations regarding dinate perceptions of this norm. Results were less clear for
cyberloafing, whereas employees in Study 2 indicated that the role of actual prescriptive supervisor norms since medi-
they were oriented toward their coworkers’ expectations for ation analyses did not result in a significant indirect effect.
personal computer use. Finally, response surface analyses Before conducting our studies, we speculated on what
suggest further nuance to the interplay of norms on cyber- combination of social norms would account for the incre-
loafing. What others are doing in the workplace tend to have mental variance in cyberloafing. Although predictions from
greater effects on cyberloafing when matched by others’ the focus theory of normative conduct as applied to cyber-
approval, but descriptive norms had stronger effects when loafing are somewhat ambiguous—as it depends on the
higher than prescriptive as opposed to the other way around. assumptions that one makes regarding the environment in
Furthermore, the norms interacted such that the effect of one which cyberloafing typically occurs—we presented a few
norm on cyberloafing was stronger when the other norm was speculated explanations as to why different norms or com-
also high. Collectively, this suggests the salience of both binations of norms might contribute to cyberloafing.
norms may come in to sharper focus when they are aligned Returning to these explanations post hoc, the interpretation
or extreme with higher levels of descriptive norms motivat- of the theory that best matches the current pattern of find-
ing behavior when slight discrepancies are present. ings is that descriptive norms contribute the most to cyber-
Some of these disparate results could be attributable to loafing because they are the most salient. The opinions of
the distinct populations from which we sampled. Participants others in the work environment with regards to cyberloaf-
in Study 1 were employed students who were relatively ing might not be readily available, so employees look to
young and possibly at the earlier stages of their careers. In what others in the environment are doing for evidence of
contrast, participants in Study 2 were sampled from the what is adaptive behavior. The response surface analyses
general working population and, on average, presumably bring this point into sharper focus. In both samples, the sig-
further along in their career. Thus, a possible explanation nificant a3 implies a form of norm conflict whereby one
for the different findings regarding prescriptive norms is form takes precedence over another. Across studies there
that when people are employed in positions that are typical appears to be a higher likelihood to cyberloaf when descrip-
of early careers, they are oriented toward their supervisors, tive norms are greater than prescriptive norms. This sug-
who often have a great amount of authority over them. As gests less dissonance in cyberloafing when violating
people advance in their careers, their jobs become more prescriptive rules because everyone else is doing it as
interdependent with their coworkers, and, in turn, cowork- opposed to doing it when the rules are permissive but col-
ers’ expectations become more influential. However, it is leagues do not engage. Furthermore, significant a4 effects in
not possible to confirm this explanation with the current Study 2 suggests very large discrepancies between norma-
data, as age does not correspond directly to career stage, tive information is eventually associated with lower cyber-
and we did not measure career stage, work experience, or loafing. This suggests large conflicts in norms may send
any other closely related variables. mixed messages that lead employees to err on the side of
caution when deciding to cyberloaf. Collectively, this sug-
gests descriptive norms beat out prescriptive norms in the
General Discussion
face of discrepancy but, at a certain point, large gaps lead to
This investigation made considerable progress in bridging ambiguity in appropriate behavior.
two important gaps in the literature regarding the manner in
which social norms influence cyberloafing. The first gap
Contributions
that was addressed was uncovering the normative informa-
tion that employees attend to when deciding whether or not The current investigation makes four important contribu-
to cyberloaf. The second gap that was addressed was tions to theory and practice. First, this investigation is the
14 Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 00(0)

first, of which we are aware, to examine the influence of mixed messages lead to ambiguity to the appropriateness of
actual cyberloafing norms as opposed to simply percep- the behavior. These congruency effects add an additional
tions of social norms. Consistent with the focus theory of layer of nuance to our understanding of how social norms
normative conduct, we found evidence that descriptive contribute to cyberloafing and further underscores the
norms influence behavior through employees’ perceptions importance of measuring social norms at the referent level
of these norms. This finding provides empirical support to in addition to the prescriptive and descriptive level. They
an implicit assumption in the literature and suggests that also suggest that current theories of cyberloafing, which
models of cyberloafing that include subjective descriptive postulate simple main effects for social norms, might not
norms could be extended to included actual norms as an sufficiently capture the complex process of normative
immediately distal antecedent. Interestingly, we did not find influence.
the same support for the posited process involving prescrip- The fourth contribution of this investigation is that it
tive norms, which potentially challenges the conventional identifies normative intervention points for decreasing
assumption of the driving force behind perceptions of pre- cyberloafing. Managers and organizational leaders inter-
scriptive norms. However, it is important to note that ested in curtailing cyberloafing should direct their efforts to
absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This study reducing the perception of others’ cyberloafing while mak-
does not refute the theory that actual prescriptive norms ing sure this perception is congruent with the prescriptive
influence prescriptive norms, but it does highlight the need messages they deliver. Given the current findings, at least
to look further into this assumption. This is especially true two interventions seem like possible approaches. First,
since it is conceivable that prescriptive norms regarding there could be an educational effort targeted at the supervi-
cyberloafing are hard for employees to infer. sor. Supervisors could be educated on how their cyberloaf-
Second, the current investigation provides conceptual ing potentially influences their coworkers, and the
clarity to one of the most robust predictors of cyberloafing supervisors’ desktop could be arranged in such a way to
(Weatherbee, 2010). By examining the incremental validity model the organization’s desired level of cyberloafing.
of four types of social norms, we were able to determine However, this approach would only work in situations
what norms provide unique information about cyberloaf- where the manager is motivated and does not engage in
ing—a condition consistent with that norm as a cause of undesirable amounts of cyberloafing. A second approach is
cyberloafing. Furthermore, using relative weights analysis, to target employees’ perceptions of other coworkers’ cyber-
we were able to examine the relative contribution of each loafing habits. In practice, this could involve an electronic
norm. Both analyses show that employees are primarily ori- monitoring system—which is already used by many organi-
ented toward the cyberloafing behavior of both their super- zations (American Management Association, 2007)—to
visor and coworkers. These finding provide empirical provide feedback to high cyberloafers in the form of a com-
justification, missing up until this point, for combining parison with normative information from their peers.
cyberloafing descriptive norms across referents in cyber- Normative information interventions have a rich history in
loafing theories. We also found evidence that employees the social psychology literature from which practitioners
consider their perceptions of others’ approval of cyberloaf- could draw (e.g., Donaldson, Graham, & Hansen, 1994;
ing; however, the referent might vary by position. We spec- Larimer & Neighbors, 2003; Schultz, Juran, & Boudreau,
ulate that people early in their career may be more oriented 1999), and normative information has also been shown to
toward their supervisors’ opinions, whereas people later in increase task performance (Mitchell, Rothman, & Liden,
their careers might be more oriented toward their cowork- 1985). This lends credibility to the notion that such an
ers’ opinions. Whatever the reason for the discrepant find- approach would work with cyberloafing as well.
ing across the two samples, it argues against combing
prescriptive norms across referents.
Limitations and Future Directions
Third, this investigation is the first we are aware of to
examine the notion of norm congruence with regards to The current investigation has some limitations that should
cyberloafing. There was evidence norm alignment brings be acknowledged. First, the data were cross-sectional,
additional focus to the norms, resulting in high/high combi- which limits our ability to make causal inferences. Although
nations having a larger effect on cyberloafing than low/low we found evidence that is consistent with descriptive super-
combinations. Moreover, we found that when discrepancies visor and coworker norms as unique causes of cyberloafing,
exist between social norms, more cyberloafing is likely to it is possible that these relationships are recursive in nature.
occur when the descriptive norm is higher rather than the It is also possible that there is no causal relationship between
reverse—that is descriptive norms beat prescriptive norms these norms and cyberloafing and that the observed rela-
when there is mild-to-moderate normative conflict. tionships are caused by some unseen third variable.
However, at a certain point large discrepancies in norms Contextual variables are possible candidates for third
lead to employees to engage in a play-it-safe strategy as the variables in this study since they could have influenced both
Askew et al. 15

social norms and employee cyberloafing. Organizational that it is unclear whether descriptive norms and prescriptive
culture, for example, is a broad construct that contains norms of both types would show the same associations with
norms as a component (Armstrong, 2009). The other com- cyberloafing for activities that are less common. One inter-
ponents are values, beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions. esting possibility is that descriptive norms could be more
These components influence behavior directly and indi- influential for common observable activities than prescrip-
rectly through each other (Armstrong, 2009), so it is possi- tive norms, whereas for less common behaviors where the
ble that a different component of culture drove the observed base-rate of observation of those behaviors are low, employ-
relationships between social norms and cyberloafing in ees might utilize their perceived estimation of the prescrip-
these studies. The presence or absence of a formal Internet tive norms instead. In support of this, we would hypothesize
usage policy is another potential third variable because it is that an employee interested in watching pornography at
plausible that prescriptions from the organization could work (an uncommon cyberloafing behavior) would proba-
have influenced employee perceptions and employee per- bly still not do so because they are aware of the expectations
sonal computer use. Finally, organizational climate and of their coworkers and supervisors. Likewise, a foreign
subgroups norms were also unaccounted for and could have expatriate living in the United States who is interested in
affected our results. following their home country’s election results via an updat-
The third variable hypothesis is weakened because both ing webpage (another uncommon cyberloafing behavior),
descriptive supervisor and coworker norms incrementally probably would feel comfortable doing so—not because
predicted cyberloafing. Therefore, such a third variable they have seen another person engage in this very specific
would need to have unique relationships with each descrip- activity—but because they are using their subjective esti-
tive norm or there would have to be two distinct third vari- mation of the prescriptive norms to inform whether they
ables, one for each social norm, to account for the observed should engage in the behavior. A future investigation should
results. Nonetheless, further research should investigate the investigate the generalizability of these findings by measur-
effect of social norms while measuring and statistically con- ing social norms constructs using a more complete list of
trolling for potential third variables like organizational cul- activities.
ture, organizational climate, the presence or absence of a A fourth limitation is that we were not able to measure
formal Internet usage policy, and subgroup norms. Studies actual coworker norms. Consequently, we were not able to
with stronger designs, such as laboratory simulations where test the hypothesized causal chain for coworker norms—
coworkers’ and supervisors’ behaviors are manipulated, that actual norms influence cyberloafing through employee
could also help to establish causation (Cook, Campbell, and perceptions—like we were able to with supervisor norms.
Shadish, 2002). We believe the results of the other analyses inform what we
A second limitation is that cyberloafing was measured would likely find had we been able to measure actual
using self-report instruments instead of measuring cyber- coworker norms. The supervisor descriptive causal chain
loafing directly. Therefore, the precision with which we was supported by mediation analyses, and descriptive
measured cyberloafing depends on the extent to which peo- coworker perceptions were significant in all the subjective
ple can remember their past cyberloafing and are willing to norms analyses. Therefore, we expect that the hypothesized
report it accurately. It was not possible to electronically causal chain would be supported for at least the descriptive
record the cyberloafing behaviors of all the employees in coworker norms. Nonetheless, future studies should exam-
our investigation, given the hundreds of organizations from ine the role of actual coworker norms empirically.
which we sampled; therefore, we used an established cyber- An additional limitation is that we did not measure norm
loafing scale instead (Blanchard & Henle, 2008; Lim, salience in either study. The investigation was inductive and
2002). However, self-report measures are only problematic found a pattern of results that were consistent with the focus
if they change the observed covariance matrix. If the rank theory of normative conduct. However, because we did not
order of participants was relatively preserved, this limita- measure salience, we were unable to probe whether the
tion should not affect our conclusions. Recent evidence also results found were due to descriptive norms being more
supports the use of self-report cyberloafing, as Polzer- salient than prescriptive norms as speculated. A future study
Debruyne et al. (2014) measured cyberloafing using both should measure the salience of the four types of social
self-report and electronic monitoring and found the same norms in addition to measuring the four norms, so that the
pattern of relationships with other study variables. explanation offered here can be formally tested.
A third limitation is that the social norms scales were Alternatively, a laboratory study in participants are given a
deficient in the range of cyberloafing activities that they work-related task and norms and norm-saliency are manip-
covered. The four perceived norms scales covered only three ulated could also establish saliency as moderator.
common cyberloafing activities: general web-browsing, A sixth limitation is that we were unable to make firm
checking e-mail, and visiting social networking sites. The conclusions regarding the role of actual prescriptive supervi-
deficiency in activities creates a generalization issue such sor norms. We did not find evidence that actual supervisor
16 Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 00(0)

prescriptions influence cyberloafing through subordinate the effect of which was mediated through perceptions of
perceptions in Study 1. It is unclear if we obtained this null these norms in Study 1. Interestingly, we did not find the
result because actual prescriptive social norms are not a distal same corresponding evidence for prescriptive norms in the
cause of cyberloafing or because we lacked sufficient power same study.
owing to the smaller effect of prescriptive norms and the rela- In short, this investigation took an important and large
tively small number of supervisors (n = 130). Given that step toward disentangling how other people in the work
studies in other areas have shown that actual prescriptive environment influence cyberloafing. Our findings provide
norms influence behavior through perceptions, we believe conceptual clarity to one of the most studied predictors of
that the issue of limited statistical power is a possibility. cyberloafing, which can provide guidance to practitioners
However, it is also possible that actual prescription cyber- interested in curtailing cyberloafing through norms-based
loafing norms are not salient enough to influence prescriptive interventions. The next step is to expand upon the current
norm perceptions. A future study with a larger sample size of findings by conducting further investigations that measure
supervisors should try to tease apart these two explanations. all four norms, as well as potential moderators, such as
Finally, the results of the multiple regression analyses norm saliency, career position and work-group interdepen-
provided slightly different conclusions across the two dency. In the same investigations, there should also be an
studies regarding the specific prescriptive norm or norms attempt to understand how congruency between norms
to which employees are attending. Therefore, while we interfaces with these moderators. Additional studies mea-
can make conclusions about descriptive norms, it is too suring actual norms are also needed.
early to make firm conclusions regarding what prescrip-
tive norms contribute to cyberloafing except to say that
there is evidence that prescriptive norms do play a role in
Appendix
cyberloafing. We speculated that the different results for
Data Transparency Table.
prescriptive norms across the two studies was due to the
second sample having more work experience and being Askew Study 1 (current
further along in their careers than the first sample and Variables in the data set et al. (2014) investigation)
cited the age of the two samples as indirect evidence of Cyberloafing X X
this. However, it is important to emphasize that age is a Attitudes X  
poor proxy for work experience and career stage, and Self-Efficacy to Hide CL X  
because we did not measure many demographic variables Web Access Self-Efficacy X  
further investigation into sample differences was not pos- Descriptive Norm—Overall X  
sible. As a consequence, the proposed explanation for the Descriptive Norm—Supervisor X
differences in results across the two samples is highly Descriptive Norm—Coworker X
speculative and should be viewed with suspicion. Future Prescriptive Norm—Overall X  
studies should examine the role of prescriptive social Prescriptive Norm—Supervisor X
norms with job moderators, such as power distance and Prescriptive Norm—Coworker X
coworker interdependency. They should also include more Behavioral Intentions X  
demographic variables to both obtain a better understand- Withdrawal X  
ing of the sampled groups and to investigate the role Lateness X  
demographic variables might play in cyberloafing. Absenteeism X  
Extended Break X  
Leaving Early X  
Summary and Conclusion Actual Descriptive Supervisor X
In this investigation, we aimed to fill two critical gaps in the Actual Prescriptive Supervisor X
cyberloafing literature—an understanding of which social Electronic Monitoring X
norms contribute unique information about cyberloafing Gender X X
and an understanding of the role of actual norms—to better Age X X
understand how normative information plays a role in Note. No variables are shared between Study 2 and any other published
cyberloafing. Results from the two studies unambiguously article.
show that descriptive norms provide unique information on
cyberloafing. We also found some evidence that prescrip-
tive norms have a role in cyberloafing, and employees take Declaration of Conflicting Interests
into account norm congruence. With regards to the role of The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
actual norms, we found some evidence consistent with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
actual descriptive norms as a distal cause of cyberloafing, article.
Askew et al. 17

Funding of control. Computers in Human Behavior, 24, 1067-1084.

doi:10.1016/j.chb.2007.03.008
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
Blau, G. (1995). Influence of group lateness on individual late-
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ness: A cross-level examination. Academy of Management
Journal, 38, 1483-1496.
Notes Bock, G. W., Park, S. C., & Zhang, Y. (2010). Why employees
1.  We ran the multiple regression analyses with and without do non-work-related computing in the workplace. Journal of
electronic monitoring as a covariate to examine whether elec- Computer Information Systems, 50, 150-163.
tronic monitoring could explain our findings—an explana- Buckner, J. E., Castille, C. M., & Sheets, T. L. (2012). The five
tion that we developed post hoc. The results were virtually factor model of personality and employees’ excessive use of
identical across both sets of analyses in both Studies 1 and technology. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 1947-1953.
2. For the purpose of conciseness, we only present the mul- doi:10.1016/j.chb.2012.05.014
tiple regression analyses without electronic monitoring as a Canaan Messarra, L., Karkoulian, S., & McCarthy, R. (2011). To
covariate. restrict or not to restrict personal Internet usage on the job.
2.  We wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for offering this Education, Business and Society: Contemporary Middle
suggestion. Eastern Issues, 4, 253-266.
Cheung, C. M., Chiu, P. Y., & Lee, M. K. (2011). Online social net-
Supplemental Material works: Why do students use Facebook? Computers in Human
Behavior, 27, 1337-1343. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.07.028
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Chun, Z. Y., & Bock, G. W. (2006, July). Why employees do non-
.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/1548051818813091.
work-related computing: An investigation of factors affecting
NWRC in a workplace. Paper presented at the Pacific Asia
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broad spectrum of Internet abuse. Information Systems Author Biographies
Management, 19, 71-79. Kevin L. Askew, PhD, is an assistant professor of Psychology at
Spector, P. E., Rogelberg, S. G., Ryan, A. M., Schmitt, N., & Montclair State University. His primary research interests include
Zedeck, S. (2014). Moving the pendulum back to the middle: cyberloafing, technology and human behavior at work, and coun-
Reflections on and introduction to the inductive research spe- terproductive work behaviors.
cial issue of Journal of Business and Psychology. Journal of
Business and Psychology, 29, 499-502. Alexandra Ilie, PhD, is an associate professor of Psychology at
Taneja, A. (2006). Determinants of adverse usage of information Illinois State University. Her research interests include counter-
systems assets: A study of antecedents of IS exploit in orga- productive work behaviors, occupational health psychology, and
nizations (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of individual differences in the workplace.
Texas, Arlington. Jeremy A. Bauer, PhD, is an assistant professor currently
Taneja, A., Fiore, V., & Fischer, B. (2015). Cyber-slacking in serving as the program coordinator of the Industrial/
the classroom: Potential for digital distraction in the new Organizational Psychology program at Valdosta State
age. Computers & Education, 82, 141-151. doi:10.1016/j. University. His research interests include workplace health and
compedu.2014.11.009 safety, extra-task behaviors, organizational justice, and organi-
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stigmas on cyberloafing. Computers in Human Behavior, 29,
812-820. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2012.11.005 Daniel V. Simonet, PhD, is an assistant professor of Psychology
Wagner, D. T., Barnes, C. M., Lim, V. K., & Ferris, D. L. (2012). at Montclair State University. His primary research interests
Lost sleep and cyberloafing: Evidence from the laboratory include individual differences, empowerment, and emotions at
and a daylight saving time quasi-experiment. Journal of work.
Applied Psychology, 97, 1068-1076. doi:10.1037/a0027557
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Weatherbee, T. G. (2010). Counterproductive use of technology
AlizPartners, a leading, global professional services and interim
at work: Information & communications technologies and
management firm. His primary research interests include person-
cyberdeviancy. Human Resource Management Review, 20(1),
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35-44. doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2009.03.012
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Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. efficacy, and leadership at work.