Are overqualified employees bad apples? A dual-pathway model of cyberloafing

Purpose Drawing from cognitive and emotional perspectives, the purpose of this paper is to theorize and test a dual-pathway model in which moral disengagement and anger toward organization act as two explanatory mechanisms of the association between perceived overqualification and employee cyberloaf...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Internet research Vol. 30; no. 1; pp. 289 - 313
Main Authors: Zhang, Junwei, Akhtar, Muhammad Naseer, Zhang, Yajun, Sun, Shan
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Bradford Emerald Publishing Limited 03.02.2020
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Subjects:
Anger
Attitudes
Behavior
Careers
Citizenship
Cognition & reasoning
Departments
Developed Nations
Disengagement
Emotional Response
Employees
Employment Qualifications
Epistemology
Human behavior
Identity
Injustice
Internet
Internet access
Job requirements
Job satisfaction
Job Skills
Linear analysis
Model testing
Morality
Motivation Techniques
Occupational Mobility
Organizational aspects
Organizational behavior
Organizational citizenship behaviour
Organizational effectiveness
Overqualification
Perceptions
Physical Health
Productivity
Qualifications
Resource Materials
Social exchange theory
Statistical Data
Task performance
Work Experience
Working hours
Anger
Perceived overqualification
Moral disengagement
Moral identity
Cyberloafing
ISSN:1066-2243, 2054-5657
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Purpose Drawing from cognitive and emotional perspectives, the purpose of this paper is to theorize and test a dual-pathway model in which moral disengagement and anger toward organization act as two explanatory mechanisms of the association between perceived overqualification and employee cyberloafing. The authors further proposed that the strengths of these two mediating mechanisms depend on employee moral identity. Design/methodology/approach The authors used hierarchical linear modeling to examine the hypotheses by analyzing a sample of 294 employees working in 71 departments in China. Findings Results revealed that moral disengagement and anger toward organization mediated the positive link between perceived overqualification and cyberloafing beyond the influence of social exchange. Furthermore, moral identity attenuated the association between the mediators (i.e. moral disengagement and anger) and cyberloafing and the indirect relationship between perceived overqualification and cyberloafing. Originality/value Extant studies have examined the effects of perceived overqualification on employee behaviors in terms of task performance, organizational citizenship behavior, proactive behavior, as well as withdrawal behavior. The study expands this line of research by empirically investigating whether and how perceived overqualification influences cyberloafing.
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ISSN:1066-2243
2054-5657
DOI:10.1108/INTR-10-2018-0469