Introduction: Today, the importance of human resources in various processes is recognized as an important factor. Human resources is a capital that is recognized as a valuable driving force in all different organizations. The use of internet resources by employees in today's organizations is an undeniable phenomenon. In addition to positive functions such as improving efficiency, improving productivity, and improving communication, these resources have also found non-functional uses, which includes employees' cyberloafing. Cyberloafing is one of the emerging phenomena in modern organizations, and a significant number of employees in different types of organizations spend part of their working time through cyberloafing. The purpose of present research was to investigate the role of workplace ostracism on cyberloafing behavior with mediating role of emotional exhaustion in employees of Sports and Youth departments in Golestan province.
Method: The research method is descriptive and survey. The statistical population of the study included all employees of the sports and youth departments of Golestan province, 228 people. The total number of samples was used to select the samples. Of this number, 216 people completed and returned the questionnaires in full. Therefore, the number of research samples for data analysis was 216 people. For collecting research data, Ferris et al. (2010) workplace ostracism questionnaire, Schaufeli et al. (2002) emotional exhaustion questionnaire, and Moody and Siponen (2013) Cyberloafing behavior questionnaire were used. Also, descriptive and inferential statistics methods were used for data analysis.
Results: The results of the study showed that workplace ostracism had a significant effect on the emotional exhaustion of the employees of Sports and Youth departments. Another part of the research results showed that workplace ostracism had a positive and significant effect on the workplace cyberloafing behavior. The effect of emotional exhaustion on employees of Sports and Youth departments' workplace cyberloafing behavior was positive and significant. Finally, the results showed that the effect of workplace ostracism on the employees of Sports and Youth departments' workplace cyberloafing behavior with the mediating role of emotional exhaustion is significant.
Discussion: Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that the feeling of ostracism in employees of Sports and Youth departments can have negative attitude and behavioral consequences such as emotional exhaustion and their cyberloafing behavior in the workplace.