Managing Non-Work Related Computing within an Organization: The Effects of Two Disciplinary Approaches on Employees' Commitment to Change

This study compares the effectiveness of two approaches, punitive consequence and logical consequence, to change employees’ non-work related computing (NWRC) behaviors in the workplace. Employees’ affective commitment to change (change by desire), normative commitment to change (change by obligation), and continuance commitment to change (change by cost-benefit comparison) were compared. A between-subject scenario-based experiment was conducted to test the model. The results revealed that employees’ affective and normative commitment to change were significantly different between punitive consequence approach and logical consequence approach. Logical consequence approach was more effective than punitive consequence approach in inducing affective and normative commitment to change. However, there was no significant difference between the two disciplinary approaches in terms of inducing continuance commitment to change. Since previous literature had shown that affective and normative commitment to change may lead to stronger level of behavioral support, our results suggests that logical consequence approach may be a more effective disciplinary approach to change employees’ NWRC behaviors.