Exploring the social transmission of cyberloafing at hotels via sanction certainty

This study leverages the transactional theory of stress to examine the social transmission of cyberloafing within the workplace, specifically in the context of five-star luxury hotels in Egypt. A key focus is placed on how coworkers’ cyberloafing behaviors influence employees’ own cyberloafing, mediated by perceptions of formal and informal sanction certainty. Unlike prior studies that have primarily explored cyberloafing as an individual act, this research introduces a novel perspective by investigating it as a socially influenced behavior, highlighting the interplay between coworker behaviors, sanction perceptions, and employee responses. The luxury hospitality sector in Egypt offers a unique and significant context, as it combines a high-pressure work environment with the widespread adoption of advanced technologies, creating both opportunities and challenges for managing employee behavior. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), data from 525 employees reveal that coworkers’ cyberloafing positively affects employees’ cyberloafing and diminishes their perceived certainty of both formal and informal sanctions. Formal sanctions refer to official organizational rules, policies, or penalties, while informal sanctions involve peer pressure, social norms, and unwritten expectations within the workplace. The study finds that as employees observe more cyberloafing behaviors among their coworkers, their perception of the certainty of formal sanctions (e.g., fines or disciplinary actions) decreases, which in turn reduces the certainty of informal sanctions (e.g., peer disapproval or social ostracism). This sequential decrease in the certainty of both types of sanctions encourages employees to engage in cyberloafing. The study uncovers the cascading effects of coworker behaviors and the relationship between formal and informal sanctions in influencing cyberloafing.