DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.

21432

QUANTITATIVE STUDY

The paradoxical effect of responsible leadership

on employee cyberloafing: A moderated
mediation model

Jinqiang Zhu1 | Hongguo Wei2,3 | Hai Li4 | Holly Osburn3

1
School of Management, Minzu University of
China, Beijing, China
Abstract
2
Department of Management, Robert Morris Drawing on the conservation of resources theory (COR),
University, Moon Township, Pennsylvania this study examines the relationship between responsible
3
Department of Management, University of leadership and counterproductive work behavior of
Central Oklahoma, Edmond, Oklahoma
employee cyberloafing. Incorporating related concepts of
4
School of Economics and Business
Administration, Beijing Normal University,
felt obligation, job stress, and conscientiousness as possible
Beijing, China mediators and moderators between responsible leadership
and cyberloafing, a field study and a quasi-experimental
Correspondence
Hai Li, School of Economics and Business design were conducted on two data sets. Data from Study
Administration, Beijing Normal University, 1 showed that while responsible leadership reduced
No. 19, XinJieKouWai Street, HaiDian
employee cyberloafing through increased felt obligation, it
District, Beijing 100875, China.
Email: lihai@bnu.edu.cn also promoted employee cyberloafing through increasing
job stress. Study 2 further showed that conscientiousness
Funding information
Beijing Excellent Talents Training Fund, Grant/ moderated the mediating effect of felt obligation between
Award Number: 2018000020124G166;
responsible leadership and cyberloafing. The results from
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities: 2021QNPY49 this work illustrate the paradoxical mechanisms of self-
regulatory resources anticipated from COR.

KEYWORDS
conscientiousness, cyberloafing, felt obligation, job stress,
responsible leadership, self-regulatory resources

1 | I N T RO DU CT I O N

Employee cyberloafing is defined as a form of counterproductive work behavior in which employees spend work hours
visiting non-job-related websites or checking personal e-mails that detract them from completing assigned tasks

Jinqiang Zhu, Hongguo Wei, and Hai Li contributed equally to this study.

© 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Human Resource Development Quarterly. 2021;1–28. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrdq 1

2 ZHU ET AL.

(V. K. G. Lim, 2002). Over recent years, cyberloafing has become extensive and costly in the workplace (Baturay &
Toker, 2015). For example, an estimated 85 billion dollars are lost in the United States annually due to employee
cyberloafing (Wagner et al., 2012). Cyberloafing becomes an even more critical concern with the rise of teleworking
due to the pandemic health crisis. Working on computers from home allows employees more autonomy and fewer
face-to-face interactions with leaders that may lead to increased cyberloafing activity (O Neill et al., 2014).
Given the damaging effects of employee cyberloafing on organizations, human resource development (HRD)
professionals are obligated to address the deleterious impact of such behavior on organizations because they play an
essential role in developing an organization's human capital. Yet, to reduce employee cyberloafing, HRD profes-
sionals first need to understand what factors impact employee cyberloafing. Then, they may consider what training
programs to develop and which personality traits to emphasize when making recruitment.
The potential waste associated with cyberloafing has motivated a significant number of studies on manage-
ment strategies to effectively deal with these cyber activities. To date, prior work has tested a number of differ-
ent antecedents of employee cyberloafing, mainly focusing on individual factors (e.g., demographic factors,
personality, and habits) and workplace situational factors (e.g., organizational security policies, perception of fair-
ness, role ambiguity and role conflict) (Jia et al., 2013; Lara, 2006; V. K. G. Lim & Teo, 2005; Moody &
Siponen, 2013; Ugrin et al., 2008). In a synthetic review of antecedents of cyberloafing, Weissenfeld et al. (2019)
further classified workplace situational factors into job-related factors (e.g., tenure, organizational position) and
organizational factors (e.g., organizational size, norm). Leadership is one of the most important workplace situa-
tional factors in shaping employee behaviors in the workplace (Detert & Burris, 2007; Ouyang et al., 2015; Wei &
Si, 2013) and HRD emphasizes the importance of leadership to enable and support individual and organizational
development (McLean, 2009); however, previous research has not sufficiently integrated leadership into
employee cyberloafing research in the context of HRD (Kim et al., 2016). We assert that exploring the effect of
leadership on cyberloafing is imperative because leadership can be leveraged to effectively influence employees'
cyberloafing (Zoghbi-Manrique-De-Lara & Viera-Armas, 2017).
So far, only one article has examined how leadership undermines employee cyberloafing, specifically considering
ethical leadership from the perspective of morality (Zoghbi-Manrique-De-Lara & Viera-Armas, 2017). Yet, research
indicates that cyberloafing is more than a moral issue, but also a type of behavior affected by individual self-regulatory
resources, which is defined as resources governing employees' self-regulation capacity and responses to various tasks
(Baumeister & Vohs, 2016). Recent research examines the resource antecedents in particular. For instance, research
suggests that sleep loss (Wagner et al., 2012), self-regulation (Gokçearslan et al., 2016), and self-control (Restubog
et al., 2011) affect cyberloafing. All these variables are related to individual resource change at the within-person level.
However, less is known regarding how resource change at the interpersonal level (e.g., leadership resources) impacts
employee cyberloafing by shaping individual self-regulatory resources. Because previous research suggests that
responsible leadership plays an essential role in shaping employee self-regulatory resources (Waldman & Balven, 2015),
we will focus on responsible leadership and its impact on employee cyberloafing. Responsible leadership is a type of
values-based leadership defined as a “relationship between leaders and stakeholders who are connected through a
shared sense of meaning and purpose through which they raise one another to higher levels of motivation and commit-
ment for achieving sustainable values creation and social change” (Pless, 2007, p. 438). Responsible leaders emphasize
the values of responsibility. They care about internal and external stakeholders' interests and participation in making
decisions related to inherent organization, social, and environmental responsibilities (Pless, 2007).
To understand the effect of responsible leadership on cyberloafing from the perspective of self-regulatory
resources, we draw upon the conservation of resources theory (COR) (Hobfoll, 1989; Hobfoll et al., 1990; Hobfoll
et al., 2018). COR theory suggests there is a crossover of resources at the dyadic interindividual level from leaders to
employees, so that the leader's values are transmitted to followers for an enhanced level of self-regulatory resources
(Hobfoll et al., 2018). Further, COR highlights a paradoxical principle such that “resource gain increases in salience in
the context of resource loss” (Halbesleben et al., 2014, p. 105). The coexistence of resource gain and resource loss is
important to retain resource balance.
ZHU ET AL. 3

Based on the values-based leadership (Brown & Treviño, 2009; Busch & Wennes, 2012; Majer, 2004) and COR
theory (Halbesleben et al., 2014; Hobfoll, 1989, 2001; Hobfoll et al., 1990), we propose paradoxical mechanisms
through which responsible leadership indirectly affects employees cyberloafing. Our theoretical model is presented
in Figure 1. Specifically, we argue that responsible leaders' values of responsibility and interests of stakeholders
within and outside of organizations (Miska et al., 2014)—will crossover to employee, increasing their sense of respon-
sibility and felt obligation (i.e., a prescriptive belief regarding whether one should be concerned about the organiza-
tion's well-being and help the organization reach its goals) toward organizational goals and objectives (Eisenberger
et al., 2001). This process increases employees' self-regulatory resources to stay on task and avoid cyberloafing
(Hobfoll et al., 2018). However, responsible leaders also encourage employees' participative decision-making and
shared problem-solving about societal and environmental responsibilities (Voegtlin, 2011; Waldman & Balven, 2015),
which is perceived as an expansion of employees' required job duties that will likely result in employee job stress
(Cavanaugh et al., 2000). Job stress refers to individual negative responses to sub-optimal functioning resulted from
job-related influence (Parker & DeCotiis, 1983) and is a core variable in COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989, 2001). Job stress
consumes employees' self-regulatory resources (Wen & He, 2017), the depletion of which is likely to reduce
employees' ability to resist the temptation of cyberloafing (Zhang et al., 2019). Job stress may also stimulate a defen-
sive mode where employees are motivated to preserve resources from further loss by engaging in cyberloafing to
release stress. In sum, responsible leaders could have dual effects (i.e., positive and negative) on employee
cyberloafing through self-regulatory resources enrichment and depletion mechanisms.
Further, we introduce conscientiousness to understand how the impacts of responsible leadership vary as a
function of an individual trait. The COR literature indicates that conscientiousness, as a personal resource, is a key
personality trait impacting individuals' resource gain and loss processes (Halbesleben et al., 2014). Conscientiousness
is associated with tendencies to strive for achievement (Kim et al., 2016), and plays an important role in managing
self-regulatory resources for better performance (Wagner et al., 2012). We argue that employees with high than low
conscientiousness are better at managing and allocating resources toward goal achievement (Halbesleben
et al., 2014) instead of spending their resources (i.e., time and energy) on productivity-draining activities
(i.e., cyberloafing) (Kim et al., 2016) regardless of whether their leaders exhibit responsible leadership. Since they
spend more personal resources to meet job demands, this enhances the impact of responsible leadership on
employee job stress and increases cyberloafing compared to employees with low conscientiousness.
This research provides several critical contributions. First, our study extends the existing research on the situa-
tional antecedents of cyberloafing by looking at the role of responsible leadership. As a complement to the research

FIGURE 1 Theoretical model

4 ZHU ET AL.

on the leadership antecedent of cyberloafing from the ethical perspective (Zoghbi-Manrique-De-Lara & Viera-
Armas, 2017), our examination of responsible leadership brings in the values-based leadership and resource perspec-
tives. Second, this study brings a comprehensive understanding and empirical evidence of responsible leadership and
its dual impacts on employee cyberloafing through psychological mechanisms. Although the positive effects of
responsible leadership have been heavily discussed in the literature (Wang et al., 2015), we speculate that negative
effects of responsible leadership may simultaneously exist, especially considering the psychological mechanisms at
the individual level (Eisenbeiß & Boerner, 2013). By examining the mediating mechanisms of felt obligation and job
stress, our study serves as an initial attempt to explicitly theorize and empirically examine the dual, paradoxical
effects of responsible leadership on employee cyberloafing. Third, the current research expands the COR theory in
leader-subordinate interactions by introducing a paradoxical approach to understand the coexistence of self-
regulatory resources enrichment and depletion through employee felt obligation and job stress. We provide empirical
evidence supporting the paradoxical principle of COR theory, which is briefly reviewed by scholars previously
(Hobfoll et al., 2018). We further introduce individual conscientiousness as a trait boundary condition to explain to
what extent responsible leadership increases or decreases employee cyberloafing by restoring or draining employee
self-regulatory resources.

2 | T H E O R E T I C A L BA C K G R O U N D A N D H Y P O T H E S I S D E V E L O P M E N T

2.1 | Employee cyberloafing

Employee cyberloafing has caused problems in data security and information systems, such as network bandwidth
overload, virus malware introduction, and spyware infection, all of which make the company vulnerable (V. K. G.
Lim, 2002). Prevalent cyberloafing behaviors include instant messaging using personal electronic devices
(e.g., iPhone, iPad, and Android etc.), online shopping, gaming, emailing, and visiting social media, sports, news, and
entertainment sites (Kim et al., 2016; V. K. G. Lim, 2002). A primary reason for employees to engage in cyberloafing
is the lack of self-regulatory resources (Wagner et al., 2012). Previous research mostly uses theoretical frameworks
such as planned behavior theory, general deterrence theory, social learning theory, and relational choice theory to
explain the antecedents of cyberloafing (Weissenfeld et al., 2019), with much unknown from the resource perspec-
tive. In the following section, we will introduce the COR as our conceptual framework.

2.2 | Conceptual framework of the study: COR

The primary tenet of COR is that “humans are motivated to protect their current resources and acquire new
resources” (Halbesleben et al., 2014, p. 1335) to meet external demands (e.g., job demands), attain valued goals
(e.g., task completion), or protect against future resource loss (Halbesleben et al., 2014). The commonly valued
forms of resources include “objects, personal characteristics, conditions, or energies” (Hobfoll, 1989, p. 516).
Relating to employee cyberloafing research in this study, we like to highlight a few key points about COR
theory.
First, in the most recent review article of COR theory, Hobfoll et al. (2018) asserted that COR theory follows
the paradoxical principle regarding the relationship between resource gain and loss processes (Hobfoll
et al., 2018). The resource gain process suggests that people strive to develop resource surpluses to offset the
possibility of future loss (Hobfoll, 1989). The resource loss process indicates that when individuals' resources are
outstretched or exhausted, stress will occur and then individuals are likely to adopt a defensive posture to con-
serve their resources (Hobfoll et al., 2018). These two processes are not mutually exclusive (i.e., either/or); rather,
they coexist and contradict (i.e., both/and). While gaining resources, employees need to spend resources in
ZHU ET AL. 5

completing their tasks, which consumes resources. When employees experience resource loss, they tend to gain
new resources and retain resources for future use and to keep themselves away from severe stress. Resource gain
and resource loss processes occur simultaneously.
Second, as an extension of the within-person resource gain and loss, the recent COR literature also
highlights using the crossover model to explain resource exchange at the interindividual level, which sug-
gests that resources such as psychological states, experiences, and values can be transmitted from one per-
son to another (Hobfoll et al., 2018). Individuals are generally motivated to self-expand regarding
perspectives, identities, and values for future goal achievement (Aron et al., 2001). In the leader-follower
relationship, followers increasingly incorporate their leaders' resources, perspectives, and values into their
own self-concept (Hobfoll et al., 2018). That is to say, leaders' resources will cross over to followers to
shape the follower's resource gain or loss.
Third, Halbesleben et al. (2014) argued that self-regulation resources aided in understanding environmental con-
ditions that affected resource gain or loss. When individuals face self-regulatory resources (e.g., such as energy) loss,
they are motivated to conserve resources (Baumeister & Vohs, 2016). The conservation of energy enriches one's
self-regulatory resources, whereas the diminishment of energy depletes one's self-regulatory resources
(Baumeister & Vohs, 2016). In conditions where employees' self-regulatory resources are replenished, they are more
willing to follow task requirements and engage in less counterproductive work behavior. On the contrary, in condi-
tions where employees' self-regulatory resources are depleted, they lack the energy needed to exert self-regulation
to focus on tasks and goals and are more likely to engage in counterproductive work behaviors. For instance, a
recent study indicates that getting good amounts of sleep replenishes one's self-regulatory resources to help the
individual stay away from cyberloafing behaviors (Wagner et al., 2012). In addition, the COR literature indicates that
conscientiousness, typically seen as a key internal resource, helps individuals better manage other resources
(Halbesleben et al., 2014; Hobfoll et al., 2018), including self-regulatory resources.

2.3 | Responsible leadership as an antecedent of employee cyberloafing

Recently, there is a strong call for business organizations to perform more responsible leadership to meet the
demands of the growing global economy (Starratt, 2008; Wen & He, 2017). Responsible leadership describes the
values-based relational phenomenon between leaders and stakeholders, including external stakeholders such as cus-
tomers and internal stakeholders such as employees (Pless & Maak, 2011). Responsible leadership connects the indi-
vidual level construct of leadership responsibility to the macro-level construct of organizational and social
responsibility (Voegtlin et al., 2012).
Building on the crossover model of the COR theory, we assert that the value of responsibility from responsible
leaders will cross over to employees and thus increase their sense of responsibility to both internal and external
stakeholders (Hobfoll et al., 2018). As such, employees are motivated to regulate their behaviors and focus on
completing tasks. We argue that the crossover of resources (i.e., values of responsibility) contributes to employee
self-regulation resources and stimulates a series of intrinsically driven psychological and perceptual processes
through which employees are more likely to stay focused on unachieved tasks (Baumeister & Vohs, 2016). Hence,
employee self-regulatory resources are enhanced and accumulated to handle the potential clash between staying
on organizational tasks and engaging in cyberloafing. However, the increased attention that responsible leaders
give to employees' participative decision-making and shared problem-solving unintentionally expand employees'
job responsibilities (Voegtlin, 2011; Waldman & Balven, 2015). This results in their increased job stress buffering
their efforts to achieve organizational goals and objectives, which consumes their self-regulatory resources
(Wen & He, 2017). As a result, employees may engage in cyberloafing to release their job stress and prevent fur-
ther resource loss. Thus, responsible leadership is an essential factor influencing employee cyberloafing from the
self-regulatory resources perspective.
6 ZHU ET AL.

2.4 | The mediating effect of felt obligation

Felt obligation describes “a prescriptive belief regarding whether one should care about the organization's well-being
and should help the organization reach its goals” (Eisenberger et al., 2001, p. 42). It is a positive psychological state
that motivates individuals to work hard (Liang, 2014) and spend individual resources (i.e., time and energy) on task
completion. Felt obligation increases individual job engagement (Albrecht & Su, 2012) and lessens employee with-
drawal behaviors such as tardiness and absenteeism (Eisenberger et al., 2001). Recently, Albrecht and Su (2012)
found that felt obligation mediated the relationship between job resources (e.g., autonomy, colleague support, and
performance feedback) and employee engagement. Following the same logic, we argue that felt obligation mediates
the relationship between interpersonal resources (i.e., responsible leadership) and employee cyberloafing.
COR theory asserts that people strive to develop resource surpluses for future use (Hobfoll, 1989). In the
leader-employee relationship, there is a resource crossover between leaders and employees because leaders serve
as an essential source for employees to gain resources (Hobfoll et al., 2018). When the employee expects leaders'
resources such as values will be beneficial to him/herself, he/she will actively learn and internalize the leader's values
into his/her own to enhance resources (Hobfoll et al., 2018). Responsible leaders strive to balance the interests of all
stakeholders (Voegtlin, 2011). They indicate a strong value of responsibility, an important type of resource
(Halbesleben et al., 2014). Employees increasingly incorporate their leaders' values into their own self-concept
(Hobfoll et al., 2018). As such, we argue that responsible leaders' value of responsibility (i.e., responsibility to internal
and external stakeholders) will be passed on to employees and become a psychological resource for them, awakening
employees' sense of obligation (Guo & Yong, 2018; Wen & He, 2017). The increase in employees' sense of responsi-
bility and obligation will help to regulate their behavior and stay focused on job tasks (Abbaas & Ibrahim, 2012).
Hence, employee self-regulatory resources are also enriched in this process. We refer to this process as stage 1 in
Figure 1. We, therefore, argue that responsible leadership will be positively related to employee felt obligation.
When employees sense the obligation to be responsible, they tend to care about and commit to organizational
goals by increasing their efforts at work (Eisenberger et al., 2001). Research indicates that with an increase of felt
obligation, employees experience greater intrinsic work motivation (Fuller et al., 2010) and participate in less coun-
terproductive work behaviors such as tardiness and absenteeism (Eisenberger et al., 2001). We argue that employees
with high felt obligation have more self-regulatory resources, which motivate them to attend to task assignments
and resist temptations such as cyberloafing. We refer to this process as stage 2 in Figure 1. In sum, responsible lead-
ership increases employees' felt obligation through transmitting the values of responsibility (i.e., self-regulatory
resource enrichment); employees with a strong feeling of obligation have more resources to regulate their behaviors
to engage in work and reduce cyberloafing. Hence, the following hypothesis is suggested:

Hypothesis 1. Employee felt obligation will mediate the relationship between responsible leadership and employee
cyberloafing such that responsible leadership is positively related to employee felt obligation, which will in turn
reduce employee cyberloafing.

2.5 | The mediating effect of job stress

Job stress refers to physical, psychological, and behavioral responses in the workplace when employees are unable
to fully coordinate individual needs and environmental requirements (Sauter et al., 1999). Role overload, role conflict,
and role ambiguity are the most common job-related stressors in the workplace (Cavanaugh et al., 2000). Recent
research also points out that leadership impacts employee job stress. For example, abusive leadership depletes
employee cognitive and emotional resources (Zhang et al., 2019).
We assert that responsible leadership is positively related to employee job stress. Responsible leadership not only
focuses on fulfilling economic responsibilities and organizational functioning but also on societal and environmental
ZHU ET AL. 7

responsibilities (Miska et al., 2014). Responsible leaders may ask employees—important internal stakeholders—to iden-
tify external stakeholders' needs, communicate with external stakeholders, or resolve conflicts among stakeholders.
These requests may extend beyond employees' regular job duties and require them to alter their regular work sched-
ules and behaviors, which consume a large number of employees' self-regulatory resources. COR theory suggests that
when individuals' resources are exhausted, stress will occur (Hobfoll et al., 2018). We, therefore, contend that responsi-
ble leadership will increase employee job stress. We refer to this process as stage 1 in Figure 1.
The paradoxical principle argues that in the face of resource loss, resource gain and protection from further
resource loss become more important to keep the balance of energy and reduce the chances of severe stress
(Halbesleben et al., 2014). With an increase in job stress, employees' ability to regulate negative behaviors at
work will decrease (Baumeister & Vohs, 2016). Zhang et al.'s (2019) meta-analytic study suggests that experienc-
ing work stress consumes employee resources and leads to employee counterproductive work behaviors. The
physical, psychological, and behavioral drain may make employees less able to avoid the temptations of engag-
ing in cyberloafing (Wagner et al., 2012). Therefore, stressed employees will take actions to alleviate that stress
and protect against future resource loss by seeking immediate pleasure through online shopping, engaging in
social media, or surfing the Web. Hence, job stress will increase employee cyberloafing. We refer to this pro-
cess as stage 2 in Figure 1. Based on the aforementioned points, we argue that responsible leadership enhances
job stress, which consumes employee self-regulatory resources and causes an adverse effect on employee
cyberloafing.

Hypothesis 2. Employee job stress will mediate the relationship between responsible leadership and employee
cyberloafing such that responsible leadership is positively related to employee job stress, which will in turn increase
employee cyberloafing.

2.6 | The moderating effect of conscientiousness

2.6.1 | Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness, a component of the big five personality model (Goldberg, 1999; Mlacic & Goldberg, 2007),
describes the extent to which individuals are dutiful, hard-working, persevering, self-disciplined, and strive for achieve-
ment (Barrick & Mount, 1991). It is a reliable and universally valid predictor of a variety of significant outcomes in the
work context (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Lin et al., 2015). Among the big five personality traits, conscientiousness is argu-
ably one of the most important factors in the COR theory and stress literature because it is a personal resource all-
owing one to manage multiple demands and allot resources effectively (Halbesleben et al., 2014). In this study, we will
focus on examining the moderating effect of conscientiousness because it fits our theoretical model better. We exam-
ine how responsible leadership affects employee cyberloafing from the resource perspective. Responsible leadership
indicates leaders' value of responsibility, whereas conscientiousness describes the extent to which individual employees
are responsible. Examining the moderation of conscientiousness allows us to understand how the impact of responsible
leadership varies at different levels of individual employee's responsibility.

2.6.2 | Moderation of conscientiousness

Employees with high conscientiousness have a strong sense of responsibility and rich self-regulatory resources
(Barrick & Mount, 1991). Their sense of responsibility and self-regulatory resources are mainly intrinsic driven rather
than derived from responsible leaders. They are less affected by external environmental factors and less sensitive to
leader responsible behaviors. Regardless of whether leaders demonstrate responsible leadership, employees with
8 ZHU ET AL.

high conscientiousness rely on their intrinsic motivation to be obligated to their work; in this case, they naturally
show more resistance to the distraction of cyberloafing. On the contrary, employees with low conscientiousness lack
a sense of responsibility and self-regulatory resources. They lack an intrinsic-driven sense of responsibility but need
to rely on external forces to generate responsible awareness and self-regulatory resources to resist the temptation
of cyberloafing (Wen & He, 2017). Hence, responsible leaders will be more influential in enriching these employees'
sense of obligation and self-regulatory resources. Hence, the following hypothesis is suggested:

Hypothesis 3a. Conscientiousness moderates the positive relationship between responsible leadership and employee felt
obligation, such that this relationship is stronger for employees with a lower level of conscientiousness.

Hypothesis 3b. Conscientiousness moderates the mediated relationship between responsible leadership and employee
cyberloafing via felt obligation, such that the mediating effect is stronger for employees with a lower level of
conscientiousness.

In the stress literature, conscientiousness is one of the most salient trait factors affecting how individuals react
to work stressors (Lin et al., 2015). Employees with high conscientiousness are more likely to focus on their job
duties and direct their personal resources toward fulfilling their high-performance standards (Lin et al., 2015). When
they experience expanded roles or tasks due to responsible leadership, highly conscientious individuals tend to allo-
cate more resources to meet leader demands. Since the total amount of personal resources is finite, their resource
allocation strategy will gradually deplete their personal trait resource and lead to an increased experience of job
stress (Hobfoll, 1989, 2001). Following the paradoxical perspective of COR, resource loss will motivate individuals to
conserve resources (Halbesleben et al., 2014; Hobfoll, 1989). Therefore, employees with high conscientiousness will
engage in cyberloafing to alleviate experienced job stress. In contrast, low conscientious employees, caring less about
work achievement, will not allocate so much of their resources into dealing with those expanded roles or tasks from
responsible leaders. They would suffer less from resource loss and job stress, and thus experience less cyberloafing
behaviors. Hence, we propose the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4a. Conscientiousness moderates the positive relationship between responsible leadership and employee job
stress, such that this relationship is stronger for employees with a higher level of conscientiousness.

Hypothesis 4b. Conscientiousness moderates the mediated relationship between responsible leadership and employee
cyberloafing via job stress, such that the mediating effect is stronger for employees with a higher level of
conscientiousness.

We conducted two studies to test the hypotheses. In Study 1, we surveyed full-time employees working on
computers with a two-wave design. In Study 2, we conducted a quasi-experimental design to strengthen the results
from Study 1.

3 | STUDY 1: METHOD

3.1 | Sample and procedure

Data were collected via the “sojump.com” online platform and the participants consisted of full-time employees
working on computers in China. Five trained researchers recruited participants from their networks through conve-
nient sampling. We sent participants the questionnaire link and briefed them about the aims of the research. Each
participant was paid 10 Chinese yuan (about 1.55 USD) as a motive for their full engagement.
ZHU ET AL. 9

We collected data in two phases to reduce the common method variance problem (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Par-
ticipants reported their perceptions of responsible leadership, conscientiousness, and demographic information. One
month later, participants reported their felt obligation, job stress, and cyberloafing. The surveys were distributed to
360 employees. Among them, 318 (88.33%) responded to the first survey, and of these 318 participants,
218 (66.04%) responded to the second survey. Our analyses included a total of 210 survey observations across Time
1 and Time 2 with complete data (eight were invalid because more than half the data was missing). To investigate
the potential impact of attrition, results of t-tests demonstrated no significant differences in demographic variables,
responsible leadership, and conscientiousness between the Time 2 respondents and nonrespondents (Dooley &
Lindner, 2003). Thus, the data appeared to be missing at random for the focal variables, and the results were unlikely
to be biased by participant attrition. About 52.40% of respondents were male, and 53.60% had received a bachelor's
degree or above. Respondents' average age was 36.74 years old (SD = 9.50), and company tenure was 5.28 years
(SD = 5.52).

3.2 | Measures

Because all measures were initially written in English, we employed a translation and back-translation proce-
dure to translate the surveys from English to Chinese (Brislin, 1970). All measures were rated on a six-point
Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, and 6 = strongly agree) except for employee cyberloafing that was rated on
a five-point Likert scale (from 1 = never to 5 = always) to mitigate common method bias (Podsakoff
et al., 2003).
Responsible leadership was assessed by subordinates using Voegtlin's (2011) five-item measure. A sample item
was, “My direct supervisor weighs different stakeholder claims before making a decision” (α = 0.93). Felt obligation
was measured with five items developed by Eisenberger et al. (2001) and revised by Liang (2014) in China. An exam-
ple item was, “I feel a personal obligation to do whatever I can to help the organization achieve its goals” (α = 0.93).
Job stress was measured using six items from Jiang (2006). An example item was, “I feel that I have too much work
to complete” (α = 0.70). Employee cyberloafing was assessed with V. K. G. Lim's (2002) 11-item measure. An example
item was, “Shop online for personal goods” (α = 0.84). Conscientiousness was measured with 10 items from the
shorter version of the International Personality Item Pool (Goldberg, 1999) and validated by Mlacic and Goldberg
(2007). An example item was, “I am exacting in my work” (α = 0.93).
Control variables: We controlled for demographic variables such as gender, marriage, tenure, age, and edu-
cation, because these variables may be associated with cyberloafing (Jia et al., 2013; V. G. Lim & Chen, 2012).
Previous empirical research indicates that men are more likely to conduct cyberloafing (Baturay &
Toker, 2015; V. G. Lim & Chen, 2012). Jamaluddin et al. (2014) found that younger people engaged in more
cyberloafing. Çınar and Karcıo
glu (2015) found that single, unmarried employees were more likely to engage
in cyberloafing.

3.3 | Data analysis

SPSS 22.0 (SPSS Inc.: Chicago, IL) and Mplus 7.0 (Muthén & Muthén, 2012) were used to analyze data. First, the com-
mon method variance and the discriminant validity of variables were tested by confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs).
Second, we used the bias-corrected bootstrapping through 5000 resamples to test mediations and moderated medi-
ations because of its accuracy and high power in estimating indirect effects (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). Third, we
applied the latent moderated structural equation (LMS) to examine the moderating effect of conscientiousness. LMS
is a useful method of testing the moderating effect in a structural equations model (Kelava et al., 2011) and signifi-
cantly improves the accuracy of parameter estimation (Klein & Moosbrugger, 2000).
10 ZHU ET AL.

4 | STUDY 1 : R ES ULTS

4.1 | Discriminant validity

We conducted CFAs with a five-factor model (responsible leadership, felt obligation, job stress, cyberloafing,
and conscientiousness) and four alternative models to examine variables' discriminant validity. Our proposed five-
factor model performed better than any constrained models (Table 1). Thus, the five factors were distinct from each
other.

4.2 | Common method variance

To diminish common method biases, we collected data at multiple time points and used a rating scale for the depen-
dent variable differing from that of other variables (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Also, the Harman's one-factor test with
exploratory factor analysis and CFA was conducted to test common method biases (Podsakoff et al., 2003). The first
factor accounted for 23.67% of the total variance. The five-factor model performed better than the single-factor
model (4χ 2(10) = 2085.40, p = 0.000) (Table 1).
We further examined the unmeasured latent methods factor model, adding the latent methods factor based on
the theoretical five-factors model (Podsakoff et al., 2003). A comparison of the unmeasured latent methods factor
model (χ 2 = 506.16, df = 263, χ 2/df = 1.98, RMSEA = 0.07, CFI = 0.93, TLI = 0.92) and the five-factor model
(χ 2 = 643.57, df = 289, χ 2/df = 2.23, RMSEA = 0.08, CFI = 0.90, TLI = 0.89) indicated that TLI increased by 0.03
when the latent methods factor was included, which was smaller than 0.05 and indicates that adding a latent
methods factor did not significantly improve the model (Little, 1997). Thus, common method variance was not a
concern.

4.3 | Descriptive statistics and hypotheses testing

Table 2 shows the means, standard deviations, and correlation matrices of the variables in Study 1.

TABLE 1 Results of confirmatory factor analyses in Study 1

χ2 /
Model χ2 df df RMSEA CFI TLI Δχ2 Δdf
Model 1 (hypothesized five-factor model) 643.57 289 2.23 0.08 0.90 0.89
Model 2 (felt obligation and 1421.09 293 4.85 0.14 0.69 0.66 777.52*** 4
conscientiousness combined)
Model 3 (responsible leadership, felt 2111.38 296 7.13 0.17 0.51 0.46 1467.81*** 7
obligation and conscientiousness
combined)
Model 4 (responsible leadership, felt 2310.90 298 7.75 0.18 0.45 0.40 1667.33*** 9
obligation and conscientiousness
combined, job stress and cyberloafing
combined)
Model 5 (single-factor model) 2728.97 299 9.13 0.20 0.34 0.28 2085.40*** 10

Note: N = 210.
***p < 0.001.
 ZHU ET AL.

TABLE 2 Means, standard deviations, and correlations in Study 1

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 Education 4.80 0.90
2 Gender 1.52 0.50 −0.10
3 Age 36.74 9.50 0.10 −0.08
4 Marriage 1.75 0.43 0.08 −0.04 0.30***
5 Tenure 5.28 5.52 0.07 −0.01 0.22** 0.29***
6 Conscientiousness 4.51 0.75 −0.10 −0.10 −0.01 0.18** 0.03
7 Responsible leadership 4.33 0.91 −0.13 −0.14* −0.04 −0.07 −0.20** 0.28***
8 Felt obligation 4.98 0.81 −0.17* −0.01 0.03 0.08 −0.18** 0.38*** 0.35***
9 Job stress 3.70 0.76 −0.06 −0.04 0.05 0.02 0.03 −0.03 0.14* 0.11
10 Cyberloafing 2.22 0.60 0.13 −0.09 0.02 0.05 0.12 −0.10 −0.03 −0.22** 0.16*

Note: N = 210.
*
p < 0.05.
**
p < 0.01.
***
p < 0.001.
11
12 ZHU ET AL.

We conducted SEM using Mplus to test our hypotheses. In order to get the optimal model, we developed an
alternative model by adding a direct path from responsible leadership to cyberloafing based on our theoretical model.
The result shows that both the theoretical model (χ 2 = 785.73, df = 396, χ 2/df = 1.98, RMSEA = 0.07, CFI = 0.90,
TLI = 0.88) and the alternative model (χ 2 = 785.34, df = 395, χ 2/df = 1.99, RMSEA = 0.07, CFI = 0.90, TLI = 0.88) fit
the data well and the change in χ 2 was not significant (Δχ 2(1) = 0.39, p = 0.53). In the alternative model, the path
coefficient from responsible leadership to cyberloafing was not significant (β = 0.05, SE = 0.09, p = 0.54), showing
that adding the direct path from responsible leadership to employee cyberloafing did not significantly improve the
theoretical model. Based on the principle of model parsimony, the theoretical model was preferred over the alterna-
tive model for our hypothesis testing. In addition, concerning the inconsistent causal relationship between
cyberloafing and job stress or burnout established in existing literature (Aghaz & Sheikh, 2016; Koay et al., 2017), we
shifted the causal direction between job stress and cyberloafing in an alternative model to see if cyberloafing empiri-
cally affected job stress rather than the other way around. This alternative model (χ 2 = 786.87, df = 396, χ 2/
df = 1.98, RMSEA = 0.07, CFI = 0.90, TLI = 0.88) had a larger χ 2 value than the theoretical model, and the path coef-
ficient from cyberloafing to job stress was not significant (β = 0.10, se = 0.06, p = 0.09). This suggests the theoretical
model was a better choice in this study. Figure 2 shows the standardized coefficients of the structural paths esti-
mated in the theoretical model.

4.4 | Testing H1

Results showed that responsible leadership was positively related to felt obligation (β = 0.27, se = 0.07, p = 0.000)
and that felt obligation was negatively related to employee cyberloafing (β = −0.24, se = 0.08, p = 0.004). The indi-
rect effect from responsible leadership to employee cyberloafing through felt obligation was significant (indirect
effect = −0.06, bias-corrected bootstrap 95% confidence interval (CI) = [−0.14, −0.02], excluding zero). Thus,
Hypothesis 1 was supported.

–0.12* 0.04

–0.24**
0.27**

0.21**
0.24**

F I G U R E 2 Results of the theoretical model by using Mplus in Study 1.

Note: N = 210. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01. ***p < 0.001. Standardized path coefficients were reported. Control variables
include gender, age, marriage, tenure, and education
ZHU ET AL. 13

4.5 | Testing H2

Results also showed that responsible leadership was positively related to job stress (β = 0.24, se = 0.08,
p = 0.003) and that job stress was positively related to employee cyberloafing (β = 0.21, se = 0.08, p = 0.006).
The indirect effect from responsible leadership to employee cyberloafing through job stress was significant (indi-
rect effect = 0.05, bias-corrected bootstrap 95% CI = [0.01, 0.14], excluding zero). Thus, Hypothesis 2 was
supported.

4.6 | Testing H3a/4a

Results of LMS showed that conscientiousness moderated the relationship between responsible leadership
and felt obligation as hypothesized (β = −0.12, se = 0.06, p = 0.016), such that the positive relationship
between responsible leadership and felt obligation was stronger for employees with lower conscientiousness.
We calculated one standard above and below the mean to plot the interaction effects (Aiken & West, 1991)
(Figure 3). For the high conscientiousness group, responsible leadership had a positive but non-significant
impact on felt obligation (β = 0.16, se = 0.09, p = 0.08), whereas for the low conscientiousness group, respon-
sible leadership had a stronger positive and significant impact on felt obligation (β = 0.44, se = 0.12,
p = 0.000). Thus, Hypothesis 3a was supported. However, the relationship between responsible leadership
and job stress was not moderated by conscientiousness (β = 0.04, se = 0.06, p = 0.537). Thus, Hypothesis 4a
was not supported.

4.7 | Testing H3b/4b

To test Hypothesis 3b and 4b, we followed the bootstrapping-based analytic approach of Edwards and Lambert
(2007). Using Mplus, we examined the first-stage moderated mediation model with conscientiousness as the first-
stage moderator. As shown in Table 3, when conscientiousness was high, the indirect effect of responsible leader-
ship on employee cyberloafing via felt obligation was significant (indirect effect = −0.02, bias-corrected bootstrap
95% CI = [−0.07, −0.002], excluding zero). When conscientiousness was low, however, the indirect effect was

FIGURE 3 Interactive effect of responsible leadership and conscientiousness on felt obligation in Study 1
14 ZHU ET AL.

TABLE 3 Summary of moderated mediation in Study 1

Responsible leadership (X) ! felt obligation (M) ! cyberloafing (Y)

Moderator variable First stage (PMX) Second stage (PYM) Indirect effects (PMX * PYM)
High conscientiousness 0.16 [−0.02, 0.35] −0.15 [−0.27, −0.05] −0.02 [−0.07, −0.002]
Low conscientiousness 0.44 [0.23, 0.71] −0.15 [−0.27, −0.05] −0.07 [−0.14, −0.02]
Differences −0.28 [−0.61, −0.03] 0.00 0.04 [0.01, 0.11]

Responsible leadership (X) ! job stress (M) ! cyberloafing (Y)

First stage (PMX) Second stage (PYM) Indirect effects (PMX * PYM)
High conscientiousness 0.09 [0.01, 0.26] 0.37 [0.14, 3.52] 0.03 [0.01, 0.10]
Low conscientiousness 0.07 [−0.003, 0.30] 0.37 [0.14, 3.52] 0.03 [0.001, 0.10]
Differences 0.01 [−0.15, 0.15] 0.00 0.01 [−0.04, 0.05]

Note: N = 210. Unstandardized path coefficients were reported. Tests of PMX, PYM, and PMX * PYM were based on bias-
corrected confidence intervals derived from bootstrap = 5000. The values in the brackets were 95% bias-corrected
bootstrapping confidence intervals. PMX stands for the path coefficient of variable M on variable X, and PYM stands for the
path coefficient of variable Y on variable M.

stronger and significant (indirect effect = −0.07, bias-corrected bootstrap 95% CI = [−0.14, −0.02], excluding zero).
The difference between the two indirect effects was also significant (Δ indirect effect = 0.04, bias-corrected boot-
strap 95% CI = [0.01, 0.11], excluding zero). Thus, Hypothesis 3b was supported. Results also showed that when
conscientiousness was high, the indirect effect of responsible leadership on employee cyberloafing via job stress was
significant (indirect effect = 0.03, bias-corrected bootstrap 95% CI = [0.01, 0.10], excluding zero). When conscien-
tiousness was low, the indirect effect was also significant (indirect effect = 0.03, bias-corrected bootstrap 95% CI =
[0.001, 0.09], excluding zero). However, the difference between the two indirect effects was not significant (Δ indi-
rect effect = 0.00, bias-corrected bootstrap 95% CI = [−0.04, 0.05], including zero). Thus, Hypothesis 4b was not
supported. The results showed the indirect effect of responsible leadership on employee cyberloafing via job stress
was not moderated by conscientiousness.

5 | STUDY 2: METHOD

Study 2 was conducted with a quasi-experimental vignette design to replicate the findings in Study 1 and bolster the
validity of the theoretical model. The design lets researchers to “include factors that are relevant to the research
question while excluding those that might confound the results” (Aguinis & Bradley, 2014, p. 357). Since we did not
control for the impacts of other relevant leadership behaviors (i.e., ethical, transformational, authentic, and servant
leadership) in Study 1, in Study 2 we examined whether findings were, in fact, in response to responsible leadership
rather than other relevant leadership behaviors. Table 4 shows the means, standard deviations, and correlation matri-
ces of the variables in Study 2.

5.1 | Participant

Students of various business majors from a university in Northern China were recruited to participate in the quasi-
experimental study. They all had part-time or full-time work experience and had taken a strategy class, preparing
them to understand the organizational setting described in the scenario. To ensure students' attention, they were
ZHU ET AL. 15

TABLE 4 Means, standard deviations, and correlations in Study 2

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 Gender 0.17 0.38
2 class 3.72 1.86 −0.06
3 job engagement 3.40 0.75 0.01 −0.31***
4 responsible leadership 0.73 0.45 −0.05 −0.02 −0.04
5 felt obligation 3.89 0.67 0.06 −0.26** 0.54*** 0.14
6 job stress 3.18 0.53 −0.16* −0.04 −0.07 0.19* −0.02
7 conscientiousness 3.71 0.60 0.03 −0.19* 0.42*** −0.07 0.46*** 0.02
8 Cyberloafing 1.59 0.64 0.12 0.07 −0.12 0.07 −0.21* 0.13 −0.15

Note: N = 148.
*
p < 0.05.
**
p < 0.01.
***
p < 0.001.

told that this study was a part of their course assignment, which took 10% of their final grade. Each participant was
also paid 10 Chinese yuan as a motive for their full engagement. In total, 148 students participated, of which
32 (15.54%) were MBA students, 125 (84.46%) were undergraduates. The average age was 21.6 years old
(SD = 2.82), and 83.11% were female.

5.2 | Procedures

The quasi-experiment contains two phases. In Phase 1, participants received a carefully constructed hypo-
thetical scenario where he or she was asked to take the role of an employee in a mobile production company.1
Next, the participant was introduced to his or her manager named Devon.2 Participants were told that Devon
was a manager of the strategy and development department within the company and that Devon was a typical
responsible leader. Participants read a detailed description of Devon that explained Devon's responsible lead-
ership traits and values. Participants were then asked to answer post-hoc questions to identify a responsible
leader. The questions listed defining characteristics of two categories of leadership behaviors: responsible
leadership and other relevant leadership behaviors (i.e., ethical, transformational, authentic, and servant lead-
ership). Participants were asked to choose the description best describing Devon's responsible leadership.
Those who chose the items that described responsible leadership were placed in the responsible leadership
category (group 1, N = 108). Those who chose items that described other leadership styles were placed in the
second category (group 2, N = 40). Thus, the post-hoc questions identified participants who could distinguish
responsible leadership from other relevant leadership behaviors and assumed the role of someone dealing
with a responsible leader versus that of another relevant leader. The above task was completed in the
classroom.
After answering the post-hoc questions, participants received further information concerning the hypotheti-
cal situation. Participants were told that Devon was in the process of hiring an employee that would be instru-
mental in forming the company's development strategy. Participants were told that this position was highly
sought after, and they were to assume the role of an employee very interested in this new opportunity. To
impress Devon, participants were asked to work on two tasks using electronic devices (e.g., tablet, laptop, and
computer). The two tasks included: (1) research and learn about corporate strategy and SWOT analysis; and
16 ZHU ET AL.

(2) use a SWOT analysis format to form a five-year strategic plan (at least one item each for strength, weakness,
opportunity, and threat). The final report was to be submitted to Devon via email. We asked participants to
report the time spent on the tasks, which was 47 min on average.
Phase 2 included a survey containing measures of key variables. When participants submitted the report to
Devon, participants would receive a response email from the hypothetical leader. Devon thanked the participant for
the report and asked if the participant would complete a short survey. The email included a link for an online survey
including measures of felt obligation, job stress, cyberloafing, conscientiousness, job engagement (as a control vari-
able), and demographic information. This, then, completed Phase 2 of the quasi-experiment.

5.3 | Measures

We used the same procedure as we did in Study 1 to translate measures initially written in English into Chinese. We
used the dummy variable (0, 1) to measure responsible leadership. 0 stands for the group failing to perceive Devon's
responsible leadership, while 1 refers to the group accurately perceiving Devon's responsible leadership. We used the
same scale as used in Study 1 to measure felt obligation (Eisenberger et al., 2001; Liang, 2014); however, we slightly
adapted the items to fit the experiment scenario context. An example item was, “I feel a personal obligation to com-
plete this task to help the company accomplish the next 5-year development plan and goal” (α = 0.86). To better mea-
sure job stress in the experimental context, we used four items from Jiang (2006) (e.g., I feel that I have too much work
to complete) and two items from Parker and Decotiis (1983) (e.g., I have felt fidgety or nervous as a result of the pro-
ject) (α = 0.61). We used the same scale to measure conscientiousness as used in Study 1 (Goldberg, 1999; Mlacic &
Goldberg, 2007) (α = 0.84). We chose six items from V. K. G. Lim's (2002) scale appropriate for the experimental con-
text to measure employee cyberloafing. An example item was, “browsed non-job related websites” (α = 0.81).
Control variables: Because previous research indicates that gender impacts individual cyberloafing (Jia
et al., 2013; V. G. Lim & Chen, 2012), we controlled for participants' gender. We also controlled participants' class
section because the experiment was run with participants from different classes taught by the same instructor. Fur-
ther, because individuals with higher job engagement tend to conduct less cyberloafing behavior (Liberman
et al., 2011), we controlled for participants' job engagement. We measured job engagement with five items from
Schaufeli and Bakker (2003); a sample item was, “I am very interested in this task” (α = 0.82).

6 | STUDY 2 : R ES ULTS

6.1 | Discriminant validity

We conducted CFA with a five-factor model (felt obligation, job stress, cyberloafing, conscientiousness, and job engage-
ment) and four alternative CFA models (felt obligation and conscientiousness combined; felt obligation, conscientious-
ness, and job engagement combined; felt obligation, conscientiousness, job engagement, and job stress combined; felt
obligation, conscientiousness, job engagement, job stress, and cyberloafing combined) to examine variables' discriminant
validity. Our proposed five-factor model performed well (χ 2 = 716.24, df = 454, χ 2/df = 1.58, RMSEA = 0.06, CFI = 0.85,
TLI = 0.84) and yielded a better fit than other alternative CFA models. Thus, the Study 2 measures' validity was good.

6.2 | Testing H1

We ran path analyses in Mplus using the group 1 and 2 data. We found that after controlling for participants' gender,
class section, and job engagement, responsible leadership had a significant positive impact on job obligation
(β = 0.17, se = 0.07, p = 0.013); job obligation had a significant negative impact on employee cyberloafing (β = −0.22,
ZHU ET AL. 17

se = 0.09, p = 0.019). The mediation effect of job obligation between responsible leadership and employee
cyberloafing was significant (b = −0.04, bias-corrected bootstrap 95% CI = [−0.10, −0.004], not including zero).
Hence, Hypothesis 1 was again supported.

6.3 | Testing H2

The path analyses results show that responsible leadership had a significant positive impact on job stress (β = 0.17,
se = 0.08, p = 0.028), and job stress had a significant positive impact on employee cyberloafing (β = 0.16, se = 0.08,
p = 0.051). In addition, the mediation effect of job stress between responsible leadership and employee cyberloafing
was significant (b = 0.03, though bias-corrected bootstrap 95% CI = [0.00, 0.09], including zero, bias-corrected boot-
strap 90% CI = [0.003, 0.08], not including zero). Hence, Hypothesis 2 was again supported.

6.4 | Testing H3a and H4a

The interaction term between responsible leadership and conscientiousness had a significant impact on job obligation
(β = −0.30, se = 0.12, p = 0.013), indicating that conscientiousness moderated the relationship between responsible
leadership and job obligation. We calculated one standard above and below the mean to plot the interaction effects
(Aiken & West, 1991) (Figure 4). For the high conscientiousness group, responsible leadership had a positive but non-
significant impact on felt obligation (β = 0.05, se = 0.13, p = 0.69), whereas for the low conscientiousness group,
responsible leadership had a stronger positive and significant impact on felt obligation (β = 0.53, se = 0.14, p = 0.000).
Thus, Hypothesis 3a was supported. However, the interaction term between responsible leadership and conscientious-
ness on job stress was not significant (β = 0.17, se = 0.15, p = 0.27), so Hypothesis 4a was not supported.

6.5 | Testing H3b

As shown in Table 5, when conscientiousness was high, the mediating effect of job obligation between responsible
leadership and employee cyberloafing was significant but weak (indirect effect = −0.03, bias-corrected bootstrap

FIGURE 4 Interactive effect of responsible leadership and conscientiousness on felt obligation in Study 2
18 ZHU ET AL.

TABLE 5 Summary of moderated mediation in Study 2

Responsible leadership (X) ! felt obligation (M) ! cyberloafing (Y)

Moderator variable First stage (PMX) Second stage (PYM) Indirect effects (PMX * PYM)
High conscientiousness 0.15 [−0.05, 0.36] −0.23 [−0.44, 0.002] −0.03 [−0.12, 0.003]
Low conscientiousness 0.43 [0.14, 0.73] −0.23 [−0.44, 0.002] −0.10 [−0.24, −0.02]
Differences −0.28 [−0.53, −0.004] 0.00 0.07 [0.001, 0.18]

Responsible leadership (X) ! job stress (M) ! cyberloafing (Y)

First stage (PMX) Second stage (PYM) Indirect effects (PMX * PYM)
High conscientiousness 0.26 [0.03, 0.52] 0.17 [−0.02, 0.38] 0.05 [−0.001, 0.15]
Low conscientiousness 0.14 [−0.06, 0.35] 0.17 [−0.02, 0.38] 0.02 [−0.01, 0.10]
Differences 0.12 [−0.07, 0.38] 0.00 0.03 [−0.01, 0.11]

Note: N = 148. Unstandardized path coefficients were reported. Tests of PMX, PYM, and PMX * PYM were based on bias-
corrected confidence intervals derived from bootstrap = 5000. The values in the brackets were 95% bias-corrected
bootstrapping confidence intervals. PMX stands for the path coefficient of variable M on variable X, and PYM stands for the
path coefficient of variable Y on variable M.

90% CI = [−0.11, −0.002], not including zero, but bias-corrected bootstrap 95% CI = [−0.12, 0.003], including zero).
When conscientiousness was low, the mediating effect of job obligation between responsible leadership and
employee cyberloafing was significant and stronger (indirect effect = −0.10, bias-corrected bootstrap 95% CI =
[−0.24, −0.02], not including zero). Further, the difference between mediation effects in these two groups
(i.e., conscientiousness low vs. high) was significant (Δ indirect effect = 0.07, bias-corrected bootstrap 95% CI =
[0.001, 0.18], not including zero), indicating that conscientiousness moderated the mediating effect of job obligation
between responsible leadership and employee cyberloafing; thus, Hypothesis 3b was supported.

6.6 | Testing H4b

As shown in Table 5, when conscientiousness was high, the mediating effect of job stress between responsible lead-
ership and employee cyberloafing was not significant (indirect effect = 0.05, bias-corrected bootstrap 95% CI =
[−0.001, 0.15], including zero). When conscientiousness was low, the mediating effect of job stress between respon-
sible leadership and employee cyberloafing was not significant either (indirect effect = 0.02, bias-corrected bootstrap
95% CI = [−0.01, 0.10], including zero). Further, the difference between mediating effects of job stress in these two
groups (i.e., low vs. high conscientiousness) was not significant (Δ indirect effect = 0.03, bias-corrected bootstrap
95% CI = [−0.01, 0.11], including zero), indicating that conscientiousness did not moderate the mediating effect of
job stress between responsible leadership and employee cyberloafing; thus, Hypothesis 4b was not supported.

7 | DISCUSSION

Drawing on values-based leadership (Brown & Treviño, 2009; Majer, 2004) and the COR (Halbesleben et al., 2014;
Hobfoll, 1989), we developed and tested a model demonstrating the coexistence of self-regulatory resources enrich-
ment and depletion in shaping the relationship between responsible leadership and employee cyberloafing. Findings
from a two-wave field study and a quasi-experimental study revealed that responsible leadership reduced employee
cyberloafing by increasing felt obligation (and thus restoring employee self-regulatory resources), but enhanced
employee cyberloafing through increasing job stress (and thus draining employee self-regulatory resources).
ZHU ET AL. 19

Moreover, findings further showed that the mediating effect of responsible leadership on employee cyberloafing via
felt obligation was stronger for employees with lower conscientiousness.

7.1 | Theoretical implications

Our research makes several key theoretical contributions to employee cyberloafing, responsible leadership, and the
conservation of resources literature. First, by showing how responsible leadership affects employee cyberloafing, our
study broadens the extant understanding of the antecedent of cyberloafing from two aspects. To begin with, we
advance the recent research examining self-regulatory resources as an antecedent of employee cyberloafing
(Wagner et al., 2012). Wagner et al.' (2012) research is important to understand how to reduce employee
cyberloafing from the self-regulatory resources perspective, but it only examines one mechanism of COR for self-
resource gain or loss. We presented the coexistence (both/and) of resource gain and resource loss for a comprehen-
sive understanding of the resource antecedent of employee cyberloafing. In addition, we contribute to the research
on leadership and employee cyberloafing by examining how and when responsible leadership affects employee
cyberloafing. Despite that numerous theorists and practitioners in the area of management and organizational
behavior have suggested that leadership behavior is one of the most relevant situational factors in influencing
employees' conduct at work (Ketola, 2010; Zoghbi-Manrique-De-Lara & Viera-Armas, 2017), the impact of leader-
ship on employee cyberloafing has been largely overlooked (see Zoghbi-Manrique-De-Lara and Viera-Armas (2017)
for an exception). Given that responsible leadership shapes individual resources (Waldman & Balven, 2015), we
assert that responsible leadership provides employees an increased sense of responsibility, which simultaneously
enhances their self-regulatory resources through felt obligation and consumes their self-regulatory resources
through felt job stress. In this regard, our research answers the most recent call by Hobfoll et al. (2018), asking schol-
arly efforts to investigate how situational factors affect individual resources.
Second, this study advances our understanding of responsible leadership and its impact on employee behav-
iors. Eisenbeiß and Boerner (2013) proposed that scholars should “explore the double-edged sword effects of
leadership styles to obtain a more realistic picture and a more sophisticated understanding of how these leader-
ship styles work” (p. 64). Recently, several leadership studies have touched upon the negative effect of respon-
sible leadership that may counter its positive impact (Maak et al., 2016; Waldman & Balven, 2015), but there
has been little attempt to empirically examine how the negative effect emerges. With this in mind, our
approach attempts to understand the parallel positive and negative effects of responsible leadership on
employee cyberloafing. By integrating the COR theory and previous studies, we demonstrated that responsible
leadership had paradoxical effects on employee cyberloafing via different mediating mechanisms. The present
study echoes the call from Eisenbeiß and Boerner (2013) to provide a deeper understanding of how responsible
leadership works and what risks it may imply.
Third, while COR provides a useful lens through which to view the double-edged sword effects of responsi-
ble leadership, the current research also expands the COR theory with empirical evidence supporting the para-
doxical principle—the coexistence of resource gain and loss. We found that responsible leadership was an
important source for self-regulatory resource enrichment and depletion. More importantly, our research exhibits
mechanisms regarding how individuals gain, lose, retain, and protect resources. COR literature only explains that
individuals gain new resources and preserve current resources, without clearly demonstrating the specific mech-
anisms regarding how individuals gain new resources and retain current resources. Our work integrates the
resource loss and gain processes by exploring two psychological mechanisms (i.e., felt obligation and job stress)
stimulated by responsible leadership. In addition, our research suggests incorporating conscientiousness into the
COR theory as a key boundary condition to examine whether responsible leadership is resource-generating or
resource-consuming. Specifically, we found that responsible leadership was more likely to restore employee self-
regulatory resources by enhancing job obligation for employees with low than high conscientiousness
20 ZHU ET AL.

(Hypothesis 3b). However, the result failed to support Hypothesis 4b that responsible leadership was more likely
to consume employee self-regulatory resources by increasing job stress for employees with high than low con-
scientiousness. A plausible explanation is that high conscientious employees are intrinsically motivated to take
on work responsibilities (Barrick & Mount, 1991); thus, they do not see leader requirements as a source of job
stress but an alignment with their desire to devote themselves to work rather than cyberloafing. On the con-
trary, employees with low conscientiousness are not intrinsically motivated but driven to work by the responsi-
ble leader; thus, their felt job stress is mainly derived from working with the responsible leader. Although for
different reasons, high versus low conscientiousness does not moderate the impacts of responsible leadership
on employee job stress and cyberloafing.

7.2 | Implications for HRD practice

Our research findings provide several important practical implications that HRD practitioners should pay attention
to. First, responsible leadership can be a useful tool for managing employee cyberloafing. Therefore, HRD practi-
tioners are encouraged to support managers in developing responsible leadership behaviors. They may design leader-
ship training and development programs focusing on responsible leadership-related skills. HRD practitioners can also
communicate to managers that they have an active role in maintaining both internal and external stakeholders' inter-
ests and simultaneously considers social, environmental, and economic sustainability. Further, when developing
responsible leaders, HRD practitioners should bear in mind that there are two sides to responsible leadership and
must equip leaders with strategies to strengthen the benefits of responsible leadership and reduce the negative side
effects of responsible leadership.
Second, because felt obligation and job stress mediate the effect of responsible leadership on employee
cyberloafing, we suggest that HRD practitioners design training programs to enhance employees' sense of responsi-
bility and to release their job stress. To do such, they may integrate the employee assistance program and the train-
ing programs.
Finally, HRD practitioners should heed individual differences when they design training and development pro-
grams. Our research indicates that employees with low conscientiousness lack self-regulatory resources, so they are
less likely to resist the temptation of cyberloafing. As such, HRD practitioners should consider how to customize the
training and development programs to employees with high or low conscientiousness.

7.3 | Limitations and recommendations for future HRD research

Several limitations and future HRD research directions are worth noting. First, in Study 1 the two-wave design still
cannot avoid the issue of common method variance and prevents us from making a robust causal inference. In Study
2, job stress's alpha score (α = 0.61) and the model fit indices of the five-factor CFA model (CFI = 0.85, TLI = 0.84)
were lower than what researchers suggest as acceptable (CFA > 0.90; alpha >0.70; Lance et al., 2006), which indi-
cates the weakness of the validity and reliability of scales used in Study 2. Nevertheless, HRD researchers should
attempt to use a mixed method, longitudinal, and qualitative approaches and scales with stronger validity and reliabil-
ity to replicate our findings.
Additionally, because we did not collect any information about the organizations, we cannot control organiza-
tional level variables such as firm size, age, ownership, and possibly urban–rural location. However, we compared the
results with and without demographic control variables and found that all hypotheses were still supported, which
provides a robust check of the findings. We encourage HRD researchers to test our findings in new workplace set-
tings with different sample characteristics. Looking at these issues from both employee diversity and across a num-
ber of sectors and industries will broaden our understanding and increase the potential for practice-related impact.
ZHU ET AL. 21

Third, we only examined the impact of responsible leadership on employee cyberloafing from the COR perspec-
tive, without exploring the impact of other types of leadership on cyberloafing from other potential theoretical per-
spectives. For instance, self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) asserts that the factors satisfying individuals'
innate needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness can improve employees' intrinsic motivation. Based on
self-determination theory, leadership behaviors meeting these three innate needs will enhance employees' intrinsic
motivation and thus decrease cybrerloafing behavior. McAllister et al. (2017) integrated self-determination theory
and the resource perspective and examined the moderation of perceived resource availability on the relationship
between work passion and job outcomes. HRD researchers can follow McAllister et al.'s (2017) approach—
integrating the resource and self-determination motivation dual perspectives—to investigate factors impacting
cybrerloafing and the mechanisms, which may yield interesting findings and help HRD researchers to build new train-
ing and development programs.
Last but not least, we conducted our studies with Chinese samples. The cultural differences between China and
other national cultures inspire future work to not only replicate the study but also consider its cultural validity. Spe-
cifically, we may collect cross national samples and test the moderation of national cultures. Chinese people demon-
strate the standard both/and mindset, whereas the Western people show more either/or mindset (Li, 2014). Thus,
whether or not paradoxical effects of responsible leadership on cyberloafing derived from the Chinese cultural con-
text can be applied to other cultural context needs our further investigation. As the HRD profession continues to
meet the growing demands of globalization, closely heeding cultural differences among countries in HRD practice
will present new opportunities for HRD research.

ACKNOWLEDGEMEN TS
This study was funded by Beijing Excellent Talents Training Fund: Young Backbone Individual
(2018000020124G166).

E TH I CS S T A TE M E N T
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of
the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amend-
ments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in
the study.

ORCID
Jinqiang Zhu https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4817-2752
Hongguo Wei https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4405-8784

ENDNOTES
1
Due to the page limit, we attached the Phase 1 scenario and Phase 2 measures in Appendix.
2
We named the manager Devon because it was considered as a gender-neutral name, so we could mitigate the gender
impact here. We discussed the possibility of giving the manager a Chinese name given that we collected data in China.
However, to reduce the potential gender impact, we kept the manager's name as Devon.

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ZHU ET AL. 25

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHI ES

Jinqiang Zhu, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Leadership in the Department of Human Resource Manage-
ment, School of Management, Minzu University of China. His work has been published in Asian Business & Man-
agement, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, International Journal of Mental Health
Promotion, Frontiers in Psychology, and other journals.

Hongguo Wei, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at Robert Morris University. She previously worked at the Univer-
sity of Central Oklahoma. She is passionate about studying how to improve employee well-being and create a
better workplace through the lens of emotions and leadership. In particular, her research interests focus on lead-
ership, emotions, workplace relationships, and ethical behavior. Her work has appeared in outlets such as Asia
Pacific Journal of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Management and Organization Review, and Journal of
Management Education, and Frontiers in Psychology.

Hai Li, Ph.D., is a Professor of HR in the Department of Human Resource Management, School of Business, Bei-
jing Normal University. His work has been published in The International Journal of Human Resource Management,
Journal of Managerial Psychology, Frontiers in Psychology, Journal of Chinese Human Resource Management, and
other journals.

Holly K. Osburn, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Management and the chair of the management department
at the University of Central Oklahoma. She heads the 2B Leaders program, an undergraduate leadership devel-
opment program that uses experiential and applied learning to create future business leaders. She is committed
to developing young people so they may become people of impact in their respective communities. Her research
focuses on the areas of leadership, planning, creativity and business ethics. Her work can be found in The Journal
of Creative Behavior, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Creativity Research Journal and The Handbook of
Organizational Creativity.

How to cite this article: Zhu J, Wei H, Li H, Osburn H. The paradoxical effect of responsible leadership on
employee cyberloafing: A moderated mediation model. Human Resource Development Quarterly. 2021;1–28.
https://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21432

APPENDIX A: P HASE 1 SCENARIO IN S TUDY 2

Code number: __________________

Each participant needs to create a code number consisting of initials and year of birth. For instance, the code
number for Thomas Peterson born in 1985 will be TP1985. Please use your code number consistently through the
experiment.
Part 1. The following questions assess your understanding of leadership. Please respond to each question as
required.
1. Which of the following sentences best describes responsible leadership?
Responsible leadership: _____________

a. Inspires employees to enhance performance through vision, empowerment.

b. Considers internal, external stakeholders' interests and social responsibility.
26 ZHU ET AL.

c. Indicates self-awareness and self-regulation for positive organizational outcomes.

d. Demonstrates ethically and normatively appropriate conduct to subordinates.
e. Sacrifices own interests to serve employees' needs and interests.

2. Devon is the head of the strategic development department in a cellphone company. Devon demonstrates respon-
sible leadership behavior. Which of the following best describe his leadership style—responsible leadership:

a. Inspires employees to enhance performance through vision, empowerment.

b. Considers internal, external stakeholders' interests and social responsibility.
c. Indicates self-awareness and self-regulation for positive organizational outcomes.
d. Demonstrates ethically and normatively appropriate conduct to subordinates.
e. Sacrifices own interests to serve employees' needs and interests.

Part 2. Please read the following content and complete the task.
Devon's leadership style is responsible leadership (please recall your choice of responsible leadership on the pre-
vious question). Devon is the head of the strategic development department of Beijing Mobile maker Xiaomi. Now
Devon is recruiting an employee to assist him in developing organizational development strategy. Suppose you are
interested in this position and would like to collaborate with Devon on the following task. Below is a conversation
between you and Devon.

Devon: Hi I am Devon.
Participant: Hi, I am ……
Devon: Congratulations! You were just hired as an employee assisting me in developing organizational development
strategy. Our company is adjusting its next 5-year development plan and forming our strategic plan. I'd like to know
how you see the mission and vision of our company in the next 5 years. We will discuss your ideas at the next corpo-
rate strategy meeting.

Please use your electronic devices (laptops, macs, tablets or iPads) to complete the following task requirement.
1. Learn about what is a SWOT analysis;
2. Use a SWOT analysis to analyze our company's development strategy in the next 5 years, and submit a strategy
report.
While working on this task, please bear in mind that I deeply value responsible leadership. I know you may have
a lot of work to do and this task is beyond your current job responsibilities. I do not expect this to interfere with your
other schedule, so I am looking for you to complete all three requests in 30 min, although you could bring it home
and get it back to me later. Please save a word copy of your report (title: strategy task + code number), submit your
report to my email address: yuyuanlianxi@163.com, and wait for my email confirmation of your completion of
the task.

APPENDIX B : PH AS E 2 MEASURES IN S TU DY 2

Code No: _______________

[Hints: your first, last name initials and year of born].
Part 1. Demographic information

1. Gender
a) Male b) Female
ZHU ET AL. 27

2. Age: _________
3. Marriage: a) Married b) Single c) Divorced d) Spouse deceased
4. Major: ____________________________
5. Which year are you in? _____________________

Part 2. Debriefing of the experiment

Based on your experience of working on the online project from Devon, your new boss of the cellphone Com-
pany, please address the following questions.
1. While finishing the required project online, I ……

Questions 1 = Never 2 = Rarely 3 = Sometimes 4 = Often 5 = Always

1. Browsed non-job related Web sites
2. Browsed general news sites
3. Browsed entertainment related Web
sites
4. Browsed download non-work related
information
5. Checked non-work related email
6. Sent non-work related email

2. How long did it take you to complete the online project, regardless of the time you spent on something irrelevant
(e.g., checking emails, or reading news online)? ___________ Minutes
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
3. While working for this cellphone company, ……

1 = strongly 2 = somewhat 5 = strongly

disagree disagree 3 = disagree 4 = agree agree
1. I feel a personal obligation to
complete this task to help the
company accomplish the next
5-year development plan and goal
2. I do my best to complete this task
to help the company accomplish the
next 5-year development plan and
goal
3. I have an obligation to the
organization to ensure that I
produce high-quality work
4. I owe it to the leader to give 100%
of my energy to organization's goals
while I am at work
5. I would feel guilty if I did not finish
the task well
6. I felt that I have too much task to
complete
7. I felt that the task is overloaded and
cannot get done within the given
time

(Continues)
28 ZHU ET AL.

1 = strongly 2 = somewhat 5 = strongly

disagree disagree 3 = disagree 4 = agree agree
8. I would bring the incomplete tasks
back home
9. I felt that the project would
interfere with my family life
10. I have felt fidget or nervous as a
result of the project
11. I feel guilty when I take time off
from the project
12. I am very interested in this task
13. I find the task that I do full of
meaning and purpose
14. The task inspires me
15. I am proud of the task that I do
16. To me, the task is challenging

4. During my typical workdays, ……

1 = strongly 2 = somewhat 5 = strongly

disagree disagree 3 = disagree 4 = agree agree
1. I am exacting in my work
2. I am always prepared
3. I leave my belongings around
4. I make a mess of things
5. I get chores done right away
6. I often forget to put things back
in their proper place
7. I like order
8. I shirk my duties
9. I follow a schedule