Redefining ocb as cybercivism: do work attitudes also explain organizational citizenship internet behaviors?

Abstract

This study presents “cybercivism” as the one extra-role IT behavior that, seeking an opposite direction to cyberloafing, tries to capture the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) that employees show through Internet use. Just as prior research offers empirical evidence that work attitude is an OCB antecedent, the model tested suggests that employees’ positive attitudes toward several work elements could also explain cybercivism. These work elements include attitudes toward their coworkers, supervisors, organizational leaders in general, their own tasks, clients, and toward themselves (self-esteem). Data were collected from 154 of the 758 (20.32 percent) nonteaching employees of a Spanish public university. Structural equation modeling results show that the attitudes toward the clients, the supervisor, and self-esteem, effectively promote cybercivism. Other analyzed attitudes did not reveal significance. Implications of the results for the prediction and monitoring of cybercivism are discussed, and future research directions are offered.