This study examines the factors associated with time theft in Kyrgyzstan, an understudied region in this context. The proposed model investigates Dark Tetrad traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism), situational variables (loneliness, workplace boredom, social media addiction, and pay satisfaction), and demographic factors as potential influences on time theft. Data were collected online from 236 white-collar employees in Kyrgyzstan. The findings indicated that narcissism significantly affected all three dimensions of time theft (classical, technological, and social). Among the situational variables, workplace boredom was identified as the strongest predictor for all three dimensions of time theft. Significant effects were also observed for social media addiction and pay satisfaction. Males showed higher involvement across all three dimensions of time theft. The study suggests directions for future research and practical applications. Employers are advised to monitor Dark Tetrad traits more closely. There is a need to provide engaging, challenging tasks to reduce time theft.

Purpose —Workplace gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse that causes employees to doubt their perceptions and abilities. When enacted by supervisors, its impact is amplified due to power asymmetries. This study examines workplace gaslighting in Pakistan’s service sector and investigates the mediating role of episodic envy in linking gaslighting to time theft and psychological withdrawal behaviors. Study Design/Methodology/Approach—Grounded in Affective Events Theory (AET), the study conceptualizes episodic envy as an affective response through which gaslighting influences employee behavior. A three-wave, time-lagged survey design was employed with service sector employees in Pakistan (N = 480), with 2–3 week intervals between waves. Gaslighting was measured at Time 1, episodic envy at Time 2, and time theft and psychological withdrawal at Time 3 using self-reported measures. Data were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS, and mediation was tested through bootstrapping. Findings —Results support the proposed relationships. Workplace gaslighting is positively associated with episodic envy, which in turn is linked to increased time theft and psychological withdrawal. Bootstrapped indirect effects confirm the mediating role of episodic envy in these relationships. Practical Implications —The findings highlight supervisor gaslighting as a critical interpersonal stressor in service organizations. Preventive strategies such as leadership screening, respectful communication training, and clear reporting mechanisms are recommended. Additionally, fostering psychological safety and reducing harmful social comparisons may help mitigate negative behavioral outcomes. Originality/Value —This study adds to the existing research by examining workplace gaslighting in a non-Western context and by identifying episodic envy as a key mediating mechanism. On the assumptions of AET, this study emphasizes affective responses, offering a more nuanced understanding of how gaslighting translates into withdrawal and deviant behaviors. Limitations include reliance on self-reported data and restricted causal inference

Purpose - The society is just awakening to the negative effects of occupational stigma, which hinders both personal and organizational growth. In a developing country like Pakistan, some of the jobs and professions are traditionally considered stigmatized due to age-old prejudices. Although in the big cities, things are changing, the managers fail to fathom in what ways the stigma affects the workforce, what the negative outcomes are, and how to confront and handle such complex psychological situations effectively at the workplace. Design/methodology/approach - Data were collected from a sample of 587 employees as members of recognized stigmatized professions in six major urban centers in Pakistan using a purposive sampling technique and were rigorously examined for hypothesis testing. Findings - Occupational stigma affects the employee's behavior in such a way that an employee only has their work done in a lackadaisical manner. He shies away from work, and this pattern is further intensified by the presence of such psychological traits as self-denial. Originality/value - This study further progresses the literature on occupational stigma by identifying the relationship with stigma outcomes and a boundary condition whereby an employee is already vulnerable to society's biased impact on their work.

Abstract Economic stress encompasses various interconnected factors, including job insecurity and the emerging concept of global occupation insecurity. This study investigates how global occupation insecurity (a) differs from and (b) relates to quantitative job insecurity. Moreover, the research examines the associations between global occupation insecurity and indicators of happiness, health, and performance. Using a cross-sectional ( N Study 1 = 205) and a three-wave sample ( N Study 2 = 213) from Germany, the findings reveal that global occupation insecurity is distinct from quantitative job insecurity, yet individuals experiencing higher levels of global occupation insecurity also perceive greater quantitative job insecurity. Moreover, global occupation insecurity is linked to subjective career success and various workplace behaviors, including in-role performance, organizational citizenship behavior, counterproductive work behavior, and time theft. Contrary to expectations, no significant relationship was found between global occupation insecurity and physical health. The results emphasize that global occupation insecurity captures unique aspects of employees’ experiences beyond traditional job insecurity, particularly regarding workplace behavior. This research contributes to the literature by highlighting the unique role of global occupation insecurity in shaping employee experiences. The practical implications underscore the need for targeted interventions to address diverse perceptions of insecurity among workers, thereby promoting sustainable career development and enhancing organizational effectiveness. These findings highlight the importance of strategic workforce planning and proactive communication in mitigating the adverse effects of economic stressors in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Purpose Despite its growing prevalence, the outcomes and mechanisms of time theft remain underexplored. Drawing on social cognitive and self-perception theories, this study proposes a moderated dual-path model explaining how time theft can both hinder and foster organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) intentions. Design/methodology/approach A 2-wave survey was conducted among 380 employees in China to empirically test the proposed model. Hierarchical regression was used to test the hypotheses. Findings Results revealed a dual mechanism: time theft reduced OCB intentions via psychological entitlement but enhanced them via guilt. Notably, efficiency promotion motive moderated these diametric effects, mitigating the entitlement-mediated deterioration while amplifying the guilt-mediated amelioration. Practical implications Organizations should recognize the moral ambivalent nature of time theft and tackle it with nuanced strategies. Understanding the underlying motives of time theft might help to deal with its paradoxical influences. Originality/value This study challenges the view of time theft as purely harmful by revealing its opposing effects on OCB intentions. Integrating social cognitive and self-perception theories, it explains the moral ambivalence of time theft through two mechanisms – moral compensation and moral disengagement. By incorporating efficiency-driven motives, the study broadens the motivational understanding of time theft and offers a nuanced perspective on workplace deviance and prosocial intentions.

This commentary argues that bureaucratic time theft is a form of postcolonial governance that extracts citizens’ time, energy, and dignity through redundant administrative procedures rooted in colonial mistrust. Using higher education as a key site, it shows how such systems sustain structural inequality and proposes pathways to escape this “iron cage” through trust-based and transparent institutional reform.

摘要： 备选是指最终被组织安排承担某项任务或角色, 但并非该任务或角色首选的员工, 近年来逐渐受到学者关注。然而现有研究却忽视了任务分配情境下备选对员工自身态度和行为的影响。本研究基于社会信息加工理论和联想命题评价理论, 采用情境实验(研究1)和三阶段问卷调查(研究2), 探讨了任务分配情境下备选对员工行为的“双刃剑”效应及边界条件。研究结果表明, 当上级发展性反馈水平高时, 备选会激发和谐型激情, 进而引发主动担责行为; 当上级发展性反馈水平低时, 备选会引起工作拖延倾向, 进而发生时间窃取行为。研究结论为大众更加客观、辩证地认识备选提供参考和借鉴。

The Face Recognition Attendance System Web App was created to make the attendance management procedure more efficient.This system is effective in enrolling attendance since it can recognize faces immediately and automatically so no external assistance is needed.To utilize the online application, no technical knowledge is necessary, which enables self-registration and self-authentication.This feature enhances system functionality where facial recognition technologies, identify specific features of an individual's face and match it with saved data.The system also ensures efficient identification and accurate detection of attendance even in complex lighting or backgrounds.Security measures including encrypted transfer and storage of data are employed to safeguard the confidential data.This proposed technology addresses common issues such as time theft, human error, and time loss caused by legacy systems by digitizing the attendance process.Its advanced and web-oriented nature enables ease of installation and expansion to support institutions and corporations.

Purpose Time theft is a widespread and costly workplace deviant behavior. Based on social information processing theory, the authors build a multilevel model to explore when and how team-level high involvement work systems (HIWSs) could effectively reduce time theft behavior. Specifically, this study aims to propose that HIWSs relate to employee time theft through the mediating effect of psychological empowerment and the moderating role of team-level organizational identification. Design/methodology/approach Through a three-wave field survey, this study successfully collected data from 396 employees and their 87 direct supervisors working in different industries in an eastern province of China. Findings The results suggest that HIWSs reduce employee time theft via psychological empowerment, and team-level organizational identification strengthens the indirect effect. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by introducing HIWSs as a human resource management-related antecedent of time theft. It also identifies psychological empowerment as a key mediator that links HIWSs to employee time theft and reveals the moderating role of organizational identification in the relationship.

Time theft has been a major issue in organizations that can affect performance and workplace dynamics. However, most previous studies have attributed the creation of time theft to external stimuli, overlooking the individual’s subjective initiative. This study investigates the interplay between Machiavellianism, moral disengagement, laissez-faire leadership, time theft, and gender differences within these interactions in terms of individual subjective initiatives. Data were collected from 350 employees in Chinese enterprises through a two-stage cross-sectional design and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The findings demonstrate that Machiavellianism is positively associated with time theft (falsifying working hours and manipulating the speed of work), with moral disengagement mediating this relationship. Laissez-faire leadership intensifies the relationship between Machiavellianism and moral disengagement, thereby exacerbating time theft. Gender differences emerged, males demonstrate a stronger association between Machiavellianism and falsifying work hours. By integrating self-presentation and moral disengagement theories into organizational ethics, this research underscores the proactive influence of individual traits on unethical behavior. It further highlights the pivotal role of leadership styles in ethical decision-making, advocating for balanced leadership strategies to mitigate workplace deviance.

Employee time theft is a prevalent negative work behavior in telework contexts. Empowering employees to work independently can be an effective strategy for managers to prevent employee time theft while working from home (TTWH). However, a growing body of research has questioned whether, in all cases, empowering leadership is beneficial. Thus, the primary goal of this research is to provide greater insight into both why empowering leadership may be an effective leadership style to prevent employee TTWH and when empowering leadership may not be effective but instead promote employee TTWH. Applying a social exchange perspective, I develop a theoretical model that incorporates a beneficial mediating effect and a detrimental moderating effect between empowering leadership and employee TTWH. On the one hand, telework employees who experience leader-bestowed benefits (i.e., empowerment) are more satisfied in their job and therefore respond positively to empowering leadership by engaging in less TTWH (beneficial mediating effect). On the other hand, if telework employees experience high levels of job ambiguity, they are likely to perceive their leader as passive and unhelpful and therefore respond negatively to empowering leadership by engaging in more TTWH (detrimental moderating effect). I found support for these predictions in both a time-lagged field study (Study 1) and a scenario-based experiment (Study 2). Taken together, these findings reveal the double-edged nature of empowering leadership by demonstrating that it has the potential to prevent and promote employee negative work behavior in telework contexts. Implications for future research and professional practice on empowering leadership are discussed.

Time theft, defined as employee engagement in non-work-related activities during work hours, imposes significant organizational costs; however, its underlying causes remain largely underexplored. This study addresses this theoretical gap by examining the combined influence of Dark Triad personality traits (psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism) and key situational factors (general loneliness, social media addiction, and workplace boredom) on three distinct dimensions of time theft: classic, technological, and social. The analysis, based on survey data from 264 private and public sector employees in Sakarya, Turkey, revealed that psychopathy and Machiavellianism initially correlated strongly with classic and technological time theft. Nevertheless, their predictive ability was significantly attenuated when situational variables were introduced into the full regression model. Specifically, workplace boredom and social media addiction emerged as robust predictors, exerting a dominant influence over the Dark Triad traits. Neither narcissism, general loneliness, nor standard demographic variables demonstrated a significant relationship with any dimension of time theft. The paper concludes by discussing the conceptual implications of these findings within Turkey's traditional collectivist culture and proposing avenues for future research and practical intervention strategies.

Ebullient supervision, a leadership style characterized by enthusiasm, positivity, and a fun work environment, is gaining recognition for its influence on employee outcomes. Drawing on conservation of resources and social exchange theories, this study examines the effects of ebullient supervision on psychological distress, commitment to organizational career, and employee time theft, with psychological distress serving as a mediator. Time-lagged data were collected in two waves from 238 full-time employees across industries in the United States. The study employed regression and mediation analysis via PROCESS in SmartPLS, importance-performance map analysis (IPMA), and necessary condition analysis (NCA). The results show that ebullient supervision significantly reduces psychological distress and enhances commitment to organizational career, with an overall negative effect on time theft. Psychological distress negatively predicts commitment to organizational career and positively predicts time theft. Mediation analysis confirms that psychological distress partially mediates the relationship between ebullient supervision and commitment to organizational career and fully mediates its link with time theft. Findings from IPMA and NCA further support the importance and necessity of ebullient supervision for fostering positive workplace outcomes. The study contributes to leadership literature and offers practical guidance for promoting well-being, reducing deviant behavior, and enhancing career engagement in the workplace.

My coworkers tell me they are paid more than me! The I-EDM model perspective on time theft behaviors

Drawing on social exchange theory, this study intends to investigate the association between supervisor ostracism and employee knowledge sabotage behaviour. The study further examines the serial mediating roles of employee neuroticism and time theft in the link between supervisor ostracism and knowledge sabotage, as well as the moderating influence of leader-member exchange (LMX). We collected time-lagged survey data from three rounds, involving 503 employees working in the service sector in Guangdong Province, China. To analyse the data, we used SEM with Mplus. The results indicate that supervisor ostracism is positively related to employee knowledge sabotage behaviour. Furthermore, employee neuroticism and time theft act as serial mediators of the link between supervisor ostracism and knowledge sabotage. Furthermore, high LMX weakens the positive association between supervisor ostracism and employee neuroticism, as well as the link to knowledge sabotage behaviour.

ABSTRACTExtant research has uniformly highlighted the positive role of extra‐role employee green behavior (EEGB) in promoting organizational sustainability. Consequently, prior studies have predominantly focused on EEGB's antecedents, while its implications for the actors themselves have been largely underexplored. Drawing on the dual feedback loops of moral self‐regulation, we challenge the prevailing assumption that engaging in EEGB is solely beneficial by identifying its potential dark side. Specifically, we propose that EEGB exerts double‐edged effects on employee time theft, contingent on green behavior authenticity. An experimental study with 208 full‐time employees and a two‐phase field study with 412 full‐time employees consistently revealed that EEGB aggravated employee time theft through accumulated moral credits, while conversely reducing time theft through strengthened moral identity. Moreover, we identified green behavior authenticity as a pivotal boundary condition moderating these opposing effects, attenuating the negative pathway while amplifying the positive pathway. Our findings offer significant implications for organizational behavioral ethics research and provide guidance for organizations in fostering EEGB while mitigating its potential ethical risks.

Organizations have long been actively seeking ways to reduce unethical behavior among employees. However, employee time theft is widespread and costly across various industries, and related research remains relatively limited. Therefore, this study employed social exchange theory to empirically investigate how and when work connectivity behavior promotes employee time theft. Drawing on a sample of 330 employees, our findings indicate that work connectivity behavior positively impacts employee time theft by triggering revenge motives among employees. Furthermore, it was discovered that leader-member exchange weakens both the direct effect of work connectivity behavior on revenge motive and the indirect effect of work connectivity behavior on employee time theft via revenge motive. This research developed and elucidated a moderated mediation model, providing valuable insights for both theory and practice.

Purity in Mire: Examining the Impact of Family Motivation on Employee Time Theft from an Impression Management Perspective

Automation in attendance tracking has transformed workplace efficiency and reliability. Smart attendance systems leveraging face recognition technology provide an innovative solution to address traditional challenges such as proxy attendance, time theft, and manual errors. This study examines the implementation and effectiveness of a face recognition-based attendance system at Cognifyz Technologies, Nagpur. By analysing the system's integration process, performance metrics, and employee feedback, the research highlights its impact on operational efficiency, data accuracy, and overall workplace discipline. The findings indicate a significant reduction in attendance discrepancies, enhanced time management, and improved transparency within the organization. The study also addresses challenges such as initial deployment costs, system training, and privacy concerns while exploring strategies to mitigate these issues. Recommendations for optimizing the system's potential include the use of advanced algorithms to handle diverse lighting conditions and integration with payroll systems for seamless functioning. The study underscores the role of technology in modern HR practices and its contribution to creating smarter, data-driven workplaces.

Leader aggressive humor and hospitality employees’ time theft: The roles of ego depletion and self-compassion