Valuating the Impact of Psychological Entitlement on Cyber-Loafing: The Mediating Role of Occupational Attitude

Abstract

The present research study intended to investigate the mediating role of occupational attitude towards the relationship between psychological entitlement and cyber-loafing for the employees working in Higher education sector of Pakistan. A survey based self-administrative questionnaire was used for data collection from 359 participants (admin + faculty) from a cluster-based random sample of universities located in different provinces of Pakistan. SPSS and AMOS was used for testing the required set of hypotheses through structural equation modelling technique. The exogenous variable was psychological entitlement and endogenous variable was cyber-loafing while the occupational attitude was mediator. The initial analysis revealed the model fitness for measurement and structural model. In addition, the internal and external reliability and validity of the constructs were confirmed from factor loadings, Cronbach alpha, composite reliability, and average variance extracted, etc. The structural model estimation for direct relationships inferred that cyber-loafing for the organizational purpose can be beneficial for universities in Pakistan with a positive occupational attitude and positive psychological entitlements of employees. Similarly, the mediating estimation results infer that occupational attitude with positive behavior can significantly enhance the relationship between psychological entitlement and cyber-loafing behavior in higher education sector of Pakistan. All the 4 hypothesis were accepted and results are significant with the previous research studies. The implications of the study for the policymakers in the higher education sector of Pakistan is that a positive attitude of employee’s occupation can be beneficial for their psychological entitlement in defining the positive use of internet at their workplace especially in case of higher education sector. However, the findings of the study are generalizable to the similar organizational structure. The future research may however consider some other factors to consider as the determining the cyber-loafing behavior in the education sector of Pakistan

Keywords: Psychological Entitlement, Cyber-Loafing, Occupational Attitude, Higher Education Sector of Pakistan