Mindfulness matters: An exploratory study of its effects on behavioral automaticity and affect in cyberloafing

Cyberloafing is a routine workplace deviant behavior that may impose potential security threats. Prior studies have investigated the effect of conscious and unconscious deliberation, such as affect and automaticity, on employees’ cyberloafing. However, the current literature offers very little insight into how to mitigate the effect of the antecedents to cyberloafing. This paper posits that mindfulness is an underexplored yet paramount concept in organizational information security research. Motivated thus, we draw on pertaining literature of mindfulness and selfregulation to propose that mindfulness influences employees’ cyberloafing through attention regulation and emotional regulation. In essence, this paper sheds new light on the interplay between mindfulness and cyberloafing through the mediating effects of behavioral automaticity and affect. Our proposed model will be empirically estimated using data collected from a field experiment and an online survey. Our findings are expected to greatly contribute to the information security literature by unveiling the importance of mindfulness.