Cyberloafing and personality traits: an investigation among knowledge-workers across the Iranian knowledge-intensive sectors

ABSTRACT

Cyberloafing has received increasing research interest in recent years and from a diversity of research streams. The implications of cyberloafing have proved to be significant, stronger and costly as compared to other less knowledge-based settings. Among other antecedents, the interrelationship of knowledge-workers’ personality traits and their inclinations to cyberloaf has not been studied to date. This survey investigates the relationship between the mentioned factors within and across a number of knowledge-intensive professional services firms in Iran. The findings show the significant positive impact of neuroticism, extraversion and openness to experience on both types of cyberloafing (namely activities and behaviours) and the negative impact of agreeableness on only cyberloafing activities.

KEYWORDS:

• Cyberloafing activities
• cyberloafing behaviours
• personality traits
• knowledge-intensive firms

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.