The online office : a Study on the Relationship between Workplace Flexibility and Work Engagement through Cyberloafing

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THE ONLINE OFFICE

A Study on the Relationship between Workplace Flexibility and

Work Engagement through Cyberloafing

Dorien Sauer

12320889

Master’s Thesis

Graduate School of Communication

Master’s Programme Communication Science

Supervisor: dr. C.L. ter Hoeven

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WORKPLACE FLEXIBILITY, WORK ENGAGEMENT AND CYBERLOAFING

Index

Abstract 3 Introduction 4 Theoretical background 7 Hypothesis 1 7 Hypothesis 2 9 Hypothesis 3 10 Method 12

Research design and participants 12

Measures 13

Demographic and control variables 13

Workplace flexibility 14 Cyberloafing 14 Personal responsibility 15 Work engagement 15 Results 16 Descriptive analysis 16 Hypothesis testing 18

Relationship workplace flexibility and cyberloafing 18

Cyberloafing as mediation 19

Personal responsibility as moderator 20

Discussion 23

Implications 23

Limitations 24

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Conclusion 26

References 27

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Abstract

Workplace flexibility is often used in the modern workplace and studied in many ways by scholars. This study focuses on the perspective of the employees on the actual use of workplace flexibility in relation to work engagement, cyberloafing, and the interaction of personal responsibility. The data is collected through an online survey, and the results show (N =181) that workplace flexibility is positively associated with work engagement, which means that employees who make use of workplace flexibility are more engaged with their work. However, the results also show that there are no relationships found with the addition of cyberloafing and personal responsibility. These results can help future research to focus on the relationship of workplace flexibility with other work-related concepts.

Keywords: workplace flexibility, cyberloafing, work engagement, personal responsibility,

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Introduction

In the Netherlands, 75% of the employees’ state to be happy with their work, while the European average is 73% (Mancini, 2017). Another component on which Dutch employees score higher than other European employees is freedom in the workplace (Mancini, 2017). Other statistics also show that employees in the Netherlands are leading in using remote work with 13,7% relative to other European countries, such as Luxembourg with 12,7% and

Finland 12,3% (de Waard, 2018). The statistics about freedom in the workplace and the use of remote work together, show that workplace flexibility is nowadays an essential part of the contemporary workplace (Hill et al., 2008). Besides the focus of organizations on

implementing workplace flexibility, many scholars also studied this new way of working (Hill et al., 2008; Avery & Zabel, 2001; Putnam, Myers, & Gailliard, 2014).

Workplace flexibility is a broad concept and defined in multiple ways in the literature (Sullivan, 2003; Cowan & Hofman, 2007). Hill et al. (2008) conceptualized the definition of workplace flexibility from multiple definitions mentioned by other researchers. This

conceptualization resulted in a final definition of workplace flexibility by Hill et al. (2008) combining several essential features, such as flexible start and finish times, compressed work weeks, and telecommuting. Therefore, workplace flexibility is defined as: “the ability of workers to make choices influencing when, where, and for how long they engage in work-related tasks” (Hill et al., 2008, p. 152).

This new way of working is found as an association with certain work outcomes for employees. Earlier research shows two different results of workplace flexibility on work outcomes. On the one hand, de Menezes and Kelliher (2011) describe results that found none or little evidence between remote working and job satisfaction. However, on the other hand, more researches show that employees who have the opportunity or make use of workplace flexibility are more likely to be satisfied with their job (Almer, & Kaplan, 2002; Hooker,

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Neathey, Casebourne, & Munro, 2007; Kelliher & Anderson, 2010). Besides a positive relationship with job satisfaction, workplace flexibility is also found as a right candidate for work engagement. Employees who make use of workplace flexibility are positively associated with work engagement (Burke & Cooper, 2013; Richman, Civian, Shannon, Hill, & Brennan, 2008). Work engagement is defined as “a positive work-related state of mind that is

characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption” (Schaufeli, Bakker, & van Rhenen, 2009, p. 895).

Another association that has been found with positive work outcomes of employees is the digital phenomenon ‘cyberloafing’ (Lim, 2002; Lim & Chen, 2009; Stanton, 2002). Lim (2002) defined cyberloafing as an employees’ intentional abuse of internet access during work hours to use non-job-related web sites for personal reasons and to check, receive, or send personal e-mail. Cyberloafing has a positive relationship with the employee’s work

performance and well-being (Lim & Chen, 2009). Because these previous studies show that cyberloafing can associate with certain work outcomes, this research will focus on work engagement as a new work-related outcome and will provide new insights in the relationship between cyberloafing and employees’ work engagement.

By using workplace flexibility and the Internet for personal purposes during work as an employee, it can stir up a certain feeling of responsibility towards the organization to behave in a correct way because of the opportunity to use workplace flexibility and because of using Internet during work for personal purposes (Lee, Lee, & Kim, 2007; Pearce & Gregersen, 1991). Responsibility is defined as “personal acceptance of being answerable for our conduct concerning others, our surroundings, and ourselves including fulfilling

obligations, keeping commitments, striving to be our personal best and supporting one another” (Lund & Tannehill, 2014, p. 175). This definition implies that the behavior of an individual requires to acknowledge and accept certain commitments to others, their

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environment, and themselves (Lund & Tannehill, 2014). Personal responsibility could,

therefore, influence the behavior of employees towards workplace flexibility and cyberloafing to achieve being their personal best and their commitment towards the organization.

Altogether, this forms the core of this research, which leads to the following research question:

What is the relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement through cyberloafing, and does personal responsibility mitigate the relationship between workplace

flexibility and cyberloafing?

This research is an extension of previous studies on workplace flexibility. With the addition of work engagement, cyberloafing, and responsibility, it will provide a new

understanding of workplace flexibility and its associations with work-related characteristics. Especially, this research assesses employees’ actual use of workplace flexibility, which is different from previous studies that focused for example on perceived workplace flexibility or the availability of workplace flexibility (e.g., Hayman, 2009; Masuda et al., 2012). With measuring the employee’s use of workplace flexibility and adding the relationship with cyberloafing and work engagement, the knowledge about these concepts can be expanded.

As mentioned before, workplace flexibility is an essential part of the contemporary workplace. Organizations are seeking the best ways to implement flexible work arrangements and to develop specific policies about the use of these arrangements. Nevertheless,

organizations also want to find the positive and negative consequences of workplace flexibility. This research can already provide insights into the relationship of workplace flexibility with cyberloafing and work engagement, which organizations can consider and can take into account in developing their policies.

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Theoretical Background

Workplace flexibility and cyberloafing

In the past decades, the work environment in organizations changed. Most of these changes are dedicated to the upcoming of digital and technological innovations, which gave the employees the flexibility to work somewhere different than the office, communicate with colleagues via multiple tools and sometimes even led to the decentralization of the workplace (Colbert, Yee, & George, 2016).

With the rise of workplace flexibility as an innovative form of work, employees have the opportunity to change their working life by using flexible work arrangements. It gives the employees more freedom to arrange their daily lives (Putnam, Myers, & Gailliard, 2014). This feeling of freedom can be attributed to the feeling of autonomy that comes with workplace flexibility. Autonomy refers to “the freedom, independence, and discretion an individual has in scheduling work and task activities” (Putnam, Myers, & Gailliard, 2014, p. 427). However, with the use of workplace flexibility, the boundary between work and personal life is getting blurry (Lim & Teo, 2005; Edley, 2004). If the employee has the

opportunity of using flexible work arrangements, it can lead to a ‘grateful’ feeling towards the organization, which makes it more justified to work after working hours and it becomes easier to intertwine personal and work tasks during the day (Broadfoot, 2001; Lim & Teo, 2005). In line with these statements, Kelliher and Anderson (2010) mention that the potential to use workplace flexibility can lead to work intensification. The advantages of workplace flexibility may cause a reaction in employees, which results in them making more effort towards the organization. However, earlier research has shown that employees benefit from short rest periods in the evening of a work week, because this positively influences employees’ feelings and behaviors (Sonnentag, 2003). Because of less clear boundaries between work and

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breaks during work to recover. The phenomenon cyberloafing is one option to allow the employee the opportunity to take a break during work because cyberloafing is found to have positive consequences, such as increasing positive emotions (Lim & Chen, 2009).

As already mentioned before, cyberloafing offers the employees a short time-out from their work tasks (Lim & Chen, 2009). These breaks of cyberloafing can, namely, function as a pleasurable refreshment (Andreassen, Torsheim, & Pallesen, 2014). Besides that, a study by Lim and Chen (2009) show that cyberloafing is already common in the workplace, and they also found that employees find it acceptable to use the Internet for personal reasons during work. However, organizations are concerned about the degree of cyberloafing (Khansa, Barkhi, Ray, & Davis, 2018). Research shows that cyberloafing can have negative outcomes for organizational productivity, costs, and time (Jandaghi, Alvani, Matin, & Kozekanan, 2015). Nevertheless, the use of the Internet for personal purposes can lead to positive outcomes for the employee, such as positive emotions and well-being (Lim & Chen, 2009; Ozler & Polat, 2012). Within the company, the organization is, to a certain extent, able to control the employees about their Internet use during working hours, for example with the help of Internet monitoring mechanisms (D’Arcy, Hovav, & Galletta, 2009; Gagné & Bhave, 2011). Concerning workplace flexibility, the organization is not able to control the amount of cyberloafing of the employee because they are not present in the workplace.

As already mentioned above, the boundary between work and personal life of

employees becomes vague with the rise of workplace flexibility, which can lead to less daily recovery from work.It is possible that employees with workplace flexibility are, therefore, more likely to take breaks during work. Because cyberloafing is found as a pleasurable refreshment during work and is seen as acceptable behavior among employees, it is possible that employees, who use workplace flexibility and are not under control of the organization, are more likely to cyberloaf during working hours. This leads to the first hypothesis:

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Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing

Predictors of work engagement

The rise of workplace flexibility has led scholars to many new investigations. Multiple types of researches already showed that the use of workplace flexibility could have positive work-related consequences for employees. Especially, with a focus on psychological job outcomes of employees, such as job satisfaction and retention (Gajendran, & Harrison, 2007; Hooker et al., 2007; Almer, & Kaplan, 2002; Richman et al., 2008).

Previous research also studied the relationship between autonomy and work

engagement (Swanberg, McKechnie, Ojha, & James, 2011). It is found that employees who experience more freedom during their work are more likely to have higher work engagement than employees who are controlled by the organization (Gerdenitsch, Kubicek, & Korunka, 2015). Research by Ten Brummelhuis, Bakker, Hetland and Keulemans (2012) studied the direct relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement, and the results showed that employees found themselves more engaged in their work on days they made use of workplace flexibility than the working days they were under control of the organization. In line with these findings, Richman et al. (2008) focused on the relationship between perceived flexibility and work engagement of employees. This study also states that there is a positive relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement. The relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement is in both studies ascribed to the feeling of received autonomy and being able to control their own work life instead of being controlled by the organization (Ten Brummelhuis et al., 2012; Richman et al., 2008). However, because these studies focused on the occasional use of workplace flexibility and the perceived

flexibility, it is therefore interesting to study if the actual use of workplace flexibility also has a positive association with work engagement.

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Besides the positive relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement, research also showed that cyberloafing could provide certain benefits and positive outcomes for employees. Even though research found that cyberloafing by employees has negative effects for organizations, on the individual level, it can help to refresh and reenergize employees’ focus (Lim & Chen, 2009). Results also show that browsing non-job-related websites have a positive impact on the emotions of employees (Lim & Chen, 2009). Furthermore, employees who used the Internet for personal purposes are more likely to be highly satisfied employees (Stanton, 2002). It is therefore interesting to measure if the association with cyberloafing is also positive for other work-related outcomes, such as work engagement.

All in all, on the one hand, workplace flexibility can cause more cyberloafing; on the other hand, cyberloafing can likely cause an increase in work engagement. Given all of the above, it can be interesting to study the relationship between cyberloafing with workplace flexibility and work engagement. Therefore, cyberloafing can contribute as an underlying mechanism to the connection between workplace flexibility and work engagement. This leads to the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: The positive relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement is mediated by cyberloafing. More use of workplace flexibility leads to more cyberloafing, which positively predicts work engagement

Personal responsibility

As mentioned above, workplace flexibility can influence employees’ cyberloafing because of the feeling of freedom and the thin line between personal and work life.

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cyberloafing can depend on several characteristics traits of a person (Prasad, Lim, & Chen, 2010). One characteristic trait that the relation between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing can influence is personal responsibility. As mentioned earlier, responsibility focuses on striving to be our personal best and to accept certain commitments to others, our environment, and ourselves (Lund & Tannehill, 2014).

The first part about striving to be our personal best can be found in a part of

responsibility, which is called self-concept. Self-concept refers to the individuals own internal goals and values towards appropriate behavior (Moody & Siponen, 2013). Moody and

Siponen (2013) studied the relationship between social factors and personal Internet use during work. They found that internal goals and values influence the use of the Internet for personal purposes. In line with this finding, the feeling of responsibility denial is found to be a factor of using the Internet during working hours (Lee, Lee, & Kim, 2007). Thus, people with a low feeling of responsibility are more likely to cyberloaf than people with a high feeling of responsibility.

Besides the feeling of self-concept towards personal Internet use, self-concept also plays a role in workplace flexibility. Employees with higher self-concept are more likely to behave in a grateful way towards the organization by receiving workplace flexibility than employees with non-workplace flexibility (Broadfoot, 2001). The employees want to show that they are actually working, for example, by working more hours. It is therefore likely that employees with high self-concept, are feeling more responsible.

Another essential part of the relationship between workplace flexibility and

cyberloafing focuses on the autonomy of the employees. If employees feel a certain freedom, they have the feeling to behave in a positive social way according to the organization’s standards (Pearce & Gregersen, 1991). This feeling is also mentioned in the definition of responsibility about accepting commitments to others (Lund & Tannehill, 2014). Hackman

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and Oldman (1976) studied the relationship between responsibility and autonomy because the employee’s feeling of responsibility for work is linked with autonomy. They state that the positive outcomes of an employee’s work depend on the personal responsibility of the employee and the autonomy s/he received (Hackman & Oldman, 1976). Therefore, by

receiving autonomy of the organization, employees with high responsibility are more likely to strive to act in a positive social way that is determined by the organization.

In conclusion, previous research showed that self-concept and autonomy, which are parts of responsibility, are found as associations with workplace flexibility and cyberloafing. Therefore, the characteristics trait personal responsibility is likely to have a relationship with workplace flexibility and cyberloafing.

Hypothesis 3: The positive relation between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing is weaker for people with high responsibility as opposed to people with low responsibility

Figure 1: Conceptual Model

Method

Research design and participants

The survey of this research was drafted in Qualtrics, and data was gathered via multiple social media platforms, such as LinkedIn and Facebook. This research was focused on employees in the Netherlands as a population.

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There were two requirements to which the participants must comply. The participants needed to be full- or part-time employed and with a minimum of 20 hours per week. As a result of this, 181 respondents fitted the requirements.

The participants were between the age of 18 and 64, with M = 35 (SD = 13.7). All participants were divided into 45% male, 54,5% female and 0,5% other. The participants had mainly Dutch nationality (98,8%). Furthermore, 28% of the participants had a managerial position relative to 72% with no managerial position. The sectors in which the respondents worked the most were hospitality and events management (9,4%), marketing, advertising, and PR (8,8%) and healthcare (8,3%).

When the participants opened the survey, they first saw the factsheet with an

introduction of this research and all the important information. After this, they were asked to agree to the consent form regarding their rights. The first questions they came across were demographic variables, such as age and gender, and the control questions which checked if they were employed and if they worked more than 20 hours per week. Next, the items related to workplace flexibility, work engagement, responsibility, and cyberloafing were asked. In the end, the participants were thanked for their response to the survey.

Measures

Demographic and control variables. First of all, at the beginning of the survey, there

were a few questions asked based on demographics and job-related questions, such as gender, age, and managerial position. Age was taken into account as a control variable because the older people get, the more they make use workplace flexibility (de Waard, 2018). Besides that, women are more likely to use workplace flexibility than men, and therefore, gender is also used as a control variable (Hill et al., 2008).

Secondly, there were two items in this study to check if the participant met the

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question was answered with “yes” or “no” (M = 1, SD = 0). When the participant answered “no”, the survey was skipped to the end and he or she was thanked for the participation. If the participant answered “yes”, the working hours were checked. Working hours have become more variable, e.g., 40 hours per week, part-time, 6 or 12 hours shifts and therefore needed to be taken into account (Costa et al., 2004). In this survey, this was asked by one open question: “How many hours per week do you work? If irregular give the average” (M = 33.8, SD = 9.61). If this answer was less than 20 hours, the participant was also sent to the end of the survey and thanked for the participation. Because working hours have come more variable, it is also taken into account as a control variable. Finally, the last control variable was about the managerial position of the participant. This question was answered with “yes” or “no” and was important because managers can generally make more use of workplace flexibility (M = .28, SD = .45). If the participant answered “no”, they were still able to complete the survey.

Workplace flexibility. To measure if the participant utilized certain forms of

workplace flexibility, a scale was developed to measure the five core elements mentioned in the literature (Hill et al., 2008; Kassinis & Stavrou, 2013; den Dulk, Peters, & Poutsma, 2012). These parts were answered with “yes” or “no”, with questions such as “I work part-time” and “I make use of teleworking”. To ensure that the core elements were understood correctly, there was an explanation written under every question.

A high score indicated more use of workplace flexibility, while a low score indicated low use of workplace flexibility. The answers (1) yes and (0) no were for each participant summed up and resulted in an overall score on workplace flexibility, which resulted in the workplace flexibility scale (M = 1.83, SD = 1.18, min = 0, max = 5).

Cyberloafing. Cyberloafing was measured with a scale developed by Lim (2002). In

this scale, two parts were questioned: personal browsing activities and e-mailing activities. 11 items were introduced with the question to indicate how often they engaged in these activities,

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such as “non-job-related websites” and “send non-work related e-mail”, during working hours. The answers were scored on a 5-point scale ranging from (1) Never to (5) Constantly.

Even though the questionnaire measured two parts, this research focused on the overall concept of cyberloafing and not the parts separately. A high score on this scale indicated more cyberloafing, while a low score indicated less cyberloafing. This scale had a high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = .83, M = 2.3, SD = .62).

Personal Responsibility. Hakstian, Suedfeld, Ballard, and Rank (1986) developed the

Ascription of Responsibility Questionnaire with four factors. For this research, only the factor about exercised responsibility was used including seven items (e.g., “I enjoy taking charge of things”) and was answered on a 7-point Likert scale (1= strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree,

M =4.94, SD = .99).

One item (“I prefer following rather than leading”) was recoded. A high score on this scale indicated more responsibility, while a low score indicated less responsibility. This scale demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = .82).

Work Engagement. Three parts of work engagement were measured by using the

scale of Schaufeli and Bakker (2006): vigor, dedication, and absorption. The 17 items (e.g., “At my work, I feel bursting with energy”, “I am enthusiastic about my job”, and “To me, my job is challenging”) were measured on a 7-point Likert scale rating from (0) Never to (6) Always. A higher score indicated higher work engagement, while a low score indicated a low level of work engagement (M = 4.68, SD = .76). The scale demonstrated a high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.92).

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Results

Descriptive analysis

The hypotheses were analyzed in SPSS version 24 and tested by regression analysis using PROCESS (Hayes, 2013). PROCESS was chosen because the conceptual model of this research fitted PROCESS model 7 (Hayes, 2013). As mentioned before, the participants needed to be employed with a minimum of 20 hours per week. Participants who did not fulfill these requirements or did not finish the whole questionnaire, were excluded from the data. In the end, the final sample contained 181 participants (N =181) with a completion rate of 78,4%.

Before the analyses of the hypotheses, there is an overview of the descriptive statistics. The independent, control, and dependent variables, including the mean and standard deviation, are displayed in Table 1.

Table 1: Descriptive statistics

N = 181 M SD 1 Workplace flexibility 1.83 1.18 2 Cyberloafing 2.30 .62 3 Personal responsibility 4.94 .99 4 Work engagement 4.68 .76 5 Gender .55 .50 6 Age 35 13.7 7 Managerial position .28 .45 8 Working hours 35.00 13.70

Furthermore, the correlations between the independent and dependent variables are shown in Table 2. The first correlation shows that there is no significant correlation between

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workplace flexibility and cyberloafing, which means that there is no significant relationship. Secondly, the correlation between workplace flexibility and personal responsibility is found as a significant positive correlation (p < .01), which means that there is a significant

relationship between workplace flexibility and personal responsibility. Thirdly, workplace flexibility, and work engagement are also correlated positively, and significant (p < .01), which means that there is a statistically significant relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement. Next, the correlations between cyberloafing and personal

responsibility and work engagement are both found not significant. This means that there are no significant relationships between cyberloafing and personal responsibility and cyberloafing and work engagement. Finally, work engagement and personal responsibility are correlated positively, and significant (p < .01), which means that there is a statistically significant relationship between personal responsibility and work engagement.

Besides the independent and dependent variables, the correlations with the control variables are also showed in Table 2. The control variable gender was found as a significant negative correlation with personal responsibility (p < .05). This means that there is a

significant relationship between gender and personal responsibility. Age is correlated positively with workplace flexibility and work engagement, and significant (p < .05), which means that there is a significant relationship between age and workplace flexibility and work engagement. Working hours are also statically significant correlated with workplace

flexibility and work engagement but also with personal responsibility (p < .01). There is a significant relationship between working hours and workplace flexibility, work engagement, and personal responsibility. Finally, managerial correlates positively and significantly with personal responsibility and work engagement (p < .01).

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Table 2: Correlations between independent, dependent and control variables

N = 181 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 Workplace flexibility 1 2 Cyberloafing .109 1 3 Personal responsibility .217** -.041 1 4 Work engagement .193** -.030 .408** 1 5 Gender .081 -.111 -.165* -.067 1 6 Age .177* -.033 .099 .155* -.228** 1 7 Working hours -.252** .107 .281** .286** -.367** .127 1 8 Managerial position .112 .033 .343** .232** -.249** .426** .328** 1 ** p <.01, * p <.05 Hypotheses testing

Relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing. The first hypothesis

assumed that there is a positive relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing. A linear regression analysis was conducted to test the positive relationship between the independent variable workplace flexibility and the dependent variable cyberloafing. The overall model was found not significant (R² = .04, F(5,174) = 1.45, p = .208). Nevertheless, the relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing was found marginal

significant (see Table 2). However, because the overall model was found not significant, it cannot be stated that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing. Following the results mentioned, hypothesis 1 can be rejected.

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Table 2: Regression matrix with dependent variable cyberloafing, independent variable workplace flexibility and control variables age, gender, managerial position and working hours Model Unstandardized B Std. Error Standardized Beta t p 1 (Constant) 2.097 .264 7.928 .000 Workplace flexibility .082 .041 .158 1.982 .049 Age -.003 .004 -.074 -.873 .384 Gender -.125 .100 -.102 -1.244 .215 Managerial position -.032 .119 -.023 -.267 .790 Working hours .008 .006 .121 1.400 .163

Note. Dependent variable: Cyberloafing, R² = .04

Cyberloafing as a mediation on the relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement. The mediation hypothesis suggested that the positive relationship

between workplace flexibility and work engagement is positively mediated by cyberloafing. First, the relation of cyberloafing as mediation is tested with model 4 of PROCESS. The overall model is found significant (R² = .18, F(6,173) = 6.25, p = < .01). The direct

relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement is also found significant (b = .17, t = 3.63, p < .01, 95% BCa CI [.08, .27]. However, the direct relationship of

cyberloafing and work engagement is found not significant (b = -.11, t = -1.28, p = .200). The upper and lower confidence interval also crosses zero [-.29, .06]. Besides that, the indirect relationship between cyberloafing on the relationship of workplace flexibility and work engagement is found not significant (b = -.01, 95% BCa CI [-.03, .01]. Again, the upper and lower confidence interval crosses zero.

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After that, the moderator personal responsibility was taken into account with

PROCESS model 7 to check the mediating relationship of cyberloafing on the overall model. The overall model was still found significant (R² = .18, F(6,173) = 6.24, p < .01). The

moderating relationship of personal responsibility is found not significant (b = .02, t = .53, p = .596, BCa CI [.05, .09]. Besides that, the moderated mediation is also not significant (b = -.00, BCa CI [-.02, .01]. With the results of both analyses mentioned, hypothesis 2 can be rejected.

Personal responsibility as a moderator on the relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing. The moderation hypothesis suggested that the positive

relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing is lower for people with high personal responsibility relative to people with low personal responsibility. This hypothesis is analyzed with model 7 of PROCESS. The overall model is found not significant (R² = .06,

F(7,172) = 1.56, p = .150. In contrast to the linear regression analysis, the direct effect of

workplace flexibility on cyberloafing is found not significant (b = .00, t = .02, p = .985, 95% BCa CI [-.38, .39]. Besides that, the interaction of personal responsibility on this relationship is also found not significant (b = .02, t = .53, p = .595, 95% BCa CI [-.05, .09]. Because the overall model was not significant, it states that there is no relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing and that there is no interaction of personal responsibility on this relationship. These results lead to rejecting hypothesis 3.

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Figure 2: Results of data analyses

Discussion

The current study investigated if workplace flexibility and cyberloafing influenced employees’ work engagement and if personal responsibility affected the relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing. The results first show that workplace flexibility is not related to cyberloafing. However, workplace flexibility is significantly related to work engagement. Nevertheless, results show that cyberloafing is not related to work engagement, which also means that cyberloafing does not mediate the relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement. Finally, personal responsibility does not moderate the relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing.

Because of the scientific interest in workplace flexibility, more studies focused on this concept with different perspectives. This research concentrated specifically on the perspective of the employees and the association of workplace flexibility with multiple job-related

consequences. First of all, hypothesis 1 stated that employees who used workplace flexibility would cyberloaf more than employees who did not use workplace flexibility. This because the line between personal and working life becomes more unclear with workplace flexibility and because the autonomy that the employee receives is higher. This could lead to intertwining personal and work tasks during the day, which could, therefore, result in seeking breaks during work in the form of cyberloafing to compensate personal time (Lim & Teo 2005;

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Edley, 2004; Broadfoot, 2001; Lim & Chen, 2009). However, the results of this research show that this relationship is not significant.

The missing relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing can be

contributed to the findings of other studies, which state that the use of workplace flexibility increases the productivity of the employees (e.g., Cascio, 2000; Baruch, 2000). Because workplace flexibility gives the opportunity to fill in working hours or working space, employees who use workplace flexibility are more likely to spend their working hours in a useful work-related way instead of using that time for personal reasons.

In hypothesis 2, it was assumed that cyberloafing would mediate the positive relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement, which stated that more workplace flexibility would lead to more cyberloafing, which positively predicted work engagement. This research found that there is a positive relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement. This positive relationship can partly be explained by results of previous studies, which also found that employees with workplace flexibility engaged more in their work because of the received autonomy that comes with workplace flexibility (Ten Brummelhuis, 2012; Richman et al., 2008). Nevertheless, this research expanded these earlier results by finding a significant positive relationship between the actual use of workplace flexibility and work engagement, instead of for example perceived workplace flexibility (Richman et al., 2008).

Differently, the results showed that cyberloafing does not have a mediation effect on the relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement. As aforementioned, studies found that employees who use workplace flexibility are more productive during their work and, therefore, do not use working hours for completing personal related purposes. Because there already is a missing link between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing, the mediation effect of cyberloafing does not exist.

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Lastly, the third hypothesis expected that the positive relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing was weaker for people with high responsibility as opposed to people with low responsibility. The results showed that there is no significant relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing, which also causes that there is no significant relationship found of personal responsibility as an interaction.

All in all, the non-significant relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing has influenced the other relationships within this research. Nevertheless, the relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement, the only relationship without cyberloafing, was found significant.

Implications

To our knowledge, this is the first study providing insight into the relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement with the influences of cyberloafing and personal responsibility.

The results of this study show that there are no relations between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing, and between cyberloafing and work engagement. Because this research is the first to study these relationships, it gives scientific research new insights. Especially, employees’ actual use of workplace flexibility was different from the perspectives that are normally used in this field, for example, perceived flexibility or availability of workplace flexibility (Richman et al., 2008; Hayman, 2009; Masuda et al., 2012). The perspective of this study can contribute to developing a consistent and reliable scale for workplace flexibility use. However, the result of this study, with regard to the positive relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement, is in line with previous findings in other studies (Ten Brummelhuis et al., 2012; Richman et al., 2008).

With the results of this study, it can be helpful for organizations and employees to use this information. Employees who use workplace flexibility are found to engage more with

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their work than employees without the use of workplace flexibility. It can help employees to consider the use of workplace flexibility in their working life. Even though the other

relationships were not significant, the results can help organizations in their development of strategies and policies towards workplace flexibility and cyberloafing. For example, it is not necessary to control employees who make use of workplace flexibility more, concerning cyberloafing, than employees who are present in the workplace. However, organizations can implement rules in their policies about workplace flexibility. For example, employees who use workplace flexibility need to communicate openly about the hours they are available. Thus, co-workers and managers know when to approach the employee, which will make the thin line between personal and work life less blurry.

Limitations

The present study is limited in certain ways. First of all, this research has a cross-sectional design, which means that the survey was only available a short period, and the independent and dependent variables were measured at the same time. It makes it therefore, difficult to check casual relationships. Besides that, the survey that has been used in this research can lead to certain bias because it is possible that the answers given by the participant are not entirely accurate, which can eventually influence the results of the

analyses. In line with this, it could be that the participants gave socially desirable answers in the survey, for example, the questions focused on cyberloafing, such as “how many times you shop online for personal goods during working hours.” It is possible that they were reflected in their behavior, and therefore not responded sincere or choose an option that was less than they actually do.

Besides that, there is no scientific scale developed in previous studies that measure the actual use of workplace flexibility of employees. Therefore, a scale was developed for this research based on the core concepts mentioned in previous literature.

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Future research

While workplace flexibility is often researched in multiple designs, it was never studied with the combination of cyberloafing, personal responsibility, and work engagement. This study can, therefore, be used as a starting point for future research.

It is essential for future research to focus on a reliable scale to measure the use of workplace flexibility. Previous studies developed scales for workplace flexibility, however, these only measures the possibility to use workplace flexibility, the intention to use workplace flexibility or the attitude towards the use of workplace flexibility (Ten Brummelhuis et al., 2012; Hayman, 2009; Albion, 2004). As mentioned earlier, the scale of workplace flexibility was found not reliable, which makes it interesting for future research.

Besides the scale of workplace flexibility, it could also be interesting to measure cyberloafing in combination with social media use because social media use is nowadays implemented in people’s daily lives. Within the scale of Lim and Chen (2002), social media is not taken into account. It is therefore interesting to study if there is a relationship between workplace flexibility and social media use instead of cyberloafing. Nowadays, it is possible to see the amount of time spend on social media platforms on apps or in phone settings. It could be interesting to ask the participants about the time that is measured and analyze this in association with workplace flexibility. It is more likely that a relationship will be found because social media, in most cases, send notifications, which will trigger more than visiting websites voluntarily.

Furthermore, this research is written from the perspective of the employees. It focused on the use of workplace flexibility, cyberloafing, responsibility, and work engagement of the employees. Future research could focus more on the perspective of the organization towards workplace flexibility and cyberloafing and also study about policies or digital innovations towards these phenomena.

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Lastly, future research could also take a look at the sectors in which the employees work and how these differ from each other concerning workplace flexibility. For example, within the finance and banking sector, the standards and attitudes towards workplace flexibility could be different than for people in the hospitality and event management.

Conclusion

To conclude, this research studied multiple consequences of workplace flexibility from the perspectives of the employees. The relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing was not studied before to our knowledge, which makes this research the first to include this relationship. Even though the results showed that all of the hypotheses could be rejected, this study can be seen as a starting point for future research. However, it could be stated that there is no relationship between workplace flexibility and work engagement through cyberloafing, and that personal responsibility does not mitigate the relationship between workplace flexibility and cyberloafing.

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Appendix: survey

Demographic variables

What is your gender? O Male

O Female

O I rather not say

What is your age? _____________

What is your nationality? O Dutch

O Other, namely ______________

In which sector do you work?

O Accountancy, banking and finance O Business, consulting and management O Charity and voluntary work

O Creative arts and design O Energy and utilities

O Environment and agriculture O Healthcare

O Hospitality and events management O Information Technology

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O Law

O Law enforcement and security O Leisure, sport and tourism O Marketing, advertising and PR O Media and internet

O Property and construction

O Public services and administration O Recruitment and HR

O Retail O Sales

O Science and pharmaceuticals O Social care

O Teacher training and education O Transport and logistics

Control questions

Do you currently have a job? O Yes

O No

How many hours per week do you work? If irregular give the average. _____________

Do you have a managerial position? O Yes

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O No

Questions workplace flexibility

In the next questions, you are asked about your use of workplace flexibility during your current job. The definition of the concept is given underneath the statement.

Yes No

In my work, I work part-time

Part-time: work less than a full week on a regular basis O O

In my work, I make use of flextime

Flextime: choose your own start and finish work times O O

In my work, I make use of job sharing

Job sharing: two employees share the responsibilities of one full-time position

O O

In my work, I make use of a compressed work week

Compressed work week: work fewer days than standard

by extending the length of each working day O O

In my work, I make use of tele-working

Tele-working: work away from the office, maintaining an electronic presence in the office

O O

Questions work engagement

The following 17 statements are about how you feel at work. Please read each statement carefully and decide if you ever feel this way about your job. Choose the option that best describes how frequently you feel that way.

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Never Almost

Never Rarely Sometimes Often

Very

often Always At my work, I

feel bursting

with energy O O O O O O O

I find the work that I do full of meaning and

purpose

O O O O O O O

Time flies when

I am working O O O O O O O At my job, I feel strong and vigorous O O O O O O O I am enthusiastic about my job O O O O O O O When I am working, I forget everything else around me O O O O O O O My job inspires me O O O O O O O When I get up in the morning, I feel like going

to work

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WORKPLACE FLEXIBILITY, WORK ENGAGEMENT AND CYBERLOAFING I feel happy when I am working intensely O O O O O O O I am proud of the work that I

do O O O O O O O

I am immersed

in my work O O O O O O O

I can continue working for very long periods at a time O O O O O O O To me, my job is challenging O O O O O O O I get carried away when I am working O O O O O O O At my job, I am very resilient, mentally O O O O O O O It is difficult to detach myself from my job O O O O O O O At my work, I always persevere, even O O O O O O O

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when things do not go well

Questions personal responsibility

The next questions are about your experience with responsibility in your daily and working life. Strongly disagree Disagree More of less disagree Undecided More or less agree Agree Strongly agree I have often been a

group leader O O O O O O O

I enjoy taking

charge of things O O O O O O O

I have held many positions of responsibility in the past in my job(s) and extracurricular activities O O O O O O O I prefer following

rather than leading O O O O O O O

I often make

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I was given a lot of responsibility as a

child O O O O O O O

I have a lot of responsibility in my present job and extracurricular activities

O O O O O O O

Questions cyberloafing

This is the last question of the survey and is about your Internet use during work. Base your answers on the following question:

How many times do you visit these websites during work hours?

Never Seldom Sometimes Often Constantly

Sports related Web sites O O O O O

Investment related Web sites

O O O O O

Entertainment related Web sites

O O O O O

General news sites O O O O O

Non-job related Web sites O O O O O

Download non-work related information

O O O O O

Shop online for personal goods

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Adult-oriented (sexually explicit) Web sites

O O O O O

Check non-worked related e-mail

O O O O O

Send non-work related e-mail

O O O O O

Receive non-work related e-mail

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