DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS OF INTENSIVE SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE ON DEVIANT WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR

Recently the level of workplace deviance has increased thereby compelling practitioners and scholars to find appropriate solutions to handle this issue. Therefore, this research intends to investigate the association between intensive social media usage, technostress, and workplace deviance in the software houses of Pakistan. This study is quantitative in nature and data was collected using a convenient sampling technique from the web developers working in the software houses in Pakistan, having sample size three hundred and seventy-five. Furthermore, in order to test the hypothesized Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used. The findings of this study showed a significant and positive association between a) intensive social media usage and workplace deviance, b) intensive social media usage and technostress, and c) technostress and workplace deviance. Results further showed that technostress mediates between the relationship of intensive social media usage and workplace deviance. This study is novel in nature and shows that the intensive social media usage lead towards enhancing technostress levels of individuals, eventually, escalating workplace deviance