The Impact of Professional Ethics in Predicting the Cyber-Loafing Mediated by Organizational Identity

With the advent of new technologies, especially the Internet in organizations, the scope of employee interactions with the Internet has become much wider. Despite the many advantages of this technology, it has also had negative consequences, one of which is the negative consequences of evasion on the virtual. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of professional ethics in predicting the level of virtual evasion; It is mediated by organizational identity.

This study was performed by descriptive-correlation method and by structural equation modeling (SEM) modeling test. The statistical population of the study consisted of all employees of Mohaghegh Ardabili University, of which 196 people were selected using random sampling method. The research instruments included the Cadozir Professional Ethics Questionnaire (2000), the Van Doorn Cyber-loafing Questionnaire (2011) and the Cheney Organizational Identity Questionnaire (1983). The data were analyzed using structural equation method using Spss 25 and Smart-PLS software.

Ethical Considerations:

 In compiling this study, preserving the originality of the texts, honesty and trustworthiness were observed and the participants answered the questionnaires with the knowledge of the objectives of the research.

The results showed that each of the variables of professional ethics and organizational identity have a reversible and significant effect on virtual evasion. Also, the direct effect of professional ethics on organizational identity with a value of t higher than 1.96 and p-value less than 0.005 was statistically significant. In addition, organizational identity was able to enter the model as a mediating role in the relationship between professional ethics and employee avoidance. Finally, the structural model of the research after correction had the desired fit with the experimental data of the research.

Considering the role of organizational identity on Cyber-loafing, it is necessary to make more efforts in organizations to promote organizational identity and identify the destructive and negative effects of professional ethics and teach them to correct it.