Unintended influence of leader forgiveness: increased employee cyberloafing
ISSN: 0025-1747
Article publication date: 17 November 2023
Issue publication date: 22 January 2024
Abstract
Purpose
The substantial cost of employee cyberloafing to organizations calls for research into exploring the factors that influence such behavior. Drawing upon social cognitive theory, the authors develop a theoretical model that unpacks when and why leader forgiveness induces employee cyberloafing. Specifically, the authors identify moral disengagement as a linking mechanism and employee empathic concern as a key boundary condition in the association between leader forgiveness and employee cyberloafing behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted multilevel analyses to examine the authors' hypotheses by utilizing a sample of 71 supervisors and 306 direct reports.
Findings
Results showed that leader forgiveness encouraged employee cyberloafing via moral disengagement among employees with low empathic concern, whereas the indirect effect was not present among those with high empathic concern.
Originality/value
The authors contribute to the literature on cyberloafing and leader forgiveness. First, this study extends the cyberloafing research by considering leader forgiveness as an enabler, challenging the dominant notion that positive leader behaviors (e.g. leader mindfulness) constrain employee cyberloafing while negative leader behaviors (e.g. abusive supervision) elicit it. Second, although past studies have predominantly concentrated on the positive outcomes of forgiveness, the current research contributes to the balanced and comprehensive understanding of leader forgiveness by linking leader forgiveness with employee cyberloafing.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72271065) and the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2022A1515011788).
Citation
Zhang, J., Xie, K., Zhang, Y. and Wang, Y. (2024), "Unintended influence of leader forgiveness: increased employee cyberloafing", Management Decision, Vol. 62 No. 1, pp. 107-128. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-10-2022-1426
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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