The Effect of Cyberbullying on Stress and Productivity of Remote Employees During COVID-19

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to enhance our understanding of cyberbullying from a conservation of resources perspective with the goal of advancing theory and providing practitioners with information aimed at well-being interventions. We examined perceived stress as an explanatory mechanism of the relationship between cyberbullying and work productivity in remote workers. Information exchange frequency and quality were considered as potential resources that were hypothesized to mitigate this indirect effect. A sample of 269 adults in the United States who were working remotely as a result of COVID-19 were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. The results of this time-lagged study indicated that cyberbullying did indeed exhibit an indirect effect on productivity via stress. However, contrary to expectations, this indirect effect was stronger for those with higher information exchange quality rather than lower information exchange quality. The indirect effect was unaffected by information exchange frequency. We encourage future scholars to dig deeper into when resources may be detrimental to employee well-being. We also encourage practitioners to consider ways to reduce both cyberbullying and worker stress with interventions such as technology etiquette training and careful planning of information exchange.