Ahmadreza Karimi Mazidi

Purpose: Employer branding leverages the organization’s image to attract and retain talent. However, the mechanisms linking employer brand to organizational turnover intention among skilled frontline employees (FLEs) remain underexplored. This study aims to examine the moderating and serial mediating roles of job-related factors in employer branding effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach: Integrating social exchange theory with job embeddedness and job engagement, this study developed a comprehensive retention framework for the hospitality industry. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling, it analyzed time-lagged data from a convenience sample of talented FLEs. The study recruited participants from 30 leading Iranian organizations, purposively selected across three hospitality sectors. Findings: Bootstrapping confirmed that job embeddedness and engagement serially mediate the relationship between employer brand and turnover intention. Furthermore, embeddedness significantly moderated the association between engagement and turnover intention. However, it had no direct effect on turnover intention, nor did it moderate the initial employer brand–engagement relationship. Practical implications: Rather than using employer branding solely as a direct retention tool, practitioners may adopt a sequential intervention strategy that strengthens job embeddedness before deploying engagement initiatives. Engagement investments can then target highly embedded, talented FLEs to maximize retention returns. Originality/value: This study advances talent management research by explaining talent retention through the synergistic mechanisms of job embeddedness and engagement. It further extends existing paradigms by testing these relationships in a unique context: a hospitality sector navigating both post-pandemic recovery and severe international sanctions.

Purpose: Knowledge workers thrive in environments that match the intensity of their expertise. When assigned to non-knowledge-intensive roles, these individuals may exhibit counterproductive behaviors, such as cyberloafing. This research investigates job embeddedness as a contextual factor shaped by workplace alignment, integrating the theory of interpersonal behavior (TIB) with job embeddedness theory (JET) to develop a unified conceptual framework. The primary objective is to examine how embedded knowledge workers respond behaviorally when employed in organizations perceived as misaligned with their professional standards. Design/methodology/approach: A multi-wave longitudinal investigation was conducted with 414 public-sector knowledge workers. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and hierarchical moderated multiple regression (HMMR) were employed to test the research model. Findings: The results indicate that among embedded knowledge workers, person–job and person–organization misfits predict cyberloafing via sequential mediators. Additionally, moral justification significantly moderated the link between intention to cyberloaf and actual behavior. Findings suggest that knowledge workers unable to exit low-alignment environments may adopt cyberloafing as a self-regulatory coping mechanism to preserve identity coherence. Originality/value: Like a loose hat ill-suited to its wearer, the current research illuminates how embedded knowledge workers in non-knowledge-intensive organizations (NKIOs) experience misfits that drive cyberloafing. Combining TIB and JET to explore sequential mediation mechanisms and a boundary condition, this investigation empirically reframes cyberloafing, exposing a hidden cost of poor fit.

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the possible negativity of job embeddedness in developing countries. Operationally, the study aimed to configure the relationship between job embeddedness and cyberloafing with respect to both contextual (job satisfaction) and individual (internet addiction) factors.Design/methodology/approach: Incorporating the conservation of resources theory and reactance theory into the theory of job embeddedness, the present study adopted a resource-based approach to job embeddedness to examine its main and moderated effects on cyberloafing in a three-way interaction model. With the focus on public organizations, 500 administrative employees from an Iranian university were surveyed using self-reporting measures, and the collected data were analyzed using partial least squares–structural equation modeling and hierarchical moderated multiple regression.Findings: As predicted, job embeddedness was positively associated with cyberloafing; however, in contrast with predictions, job satisfaction had no inverse impact on the job embeddedness–cyberloafing relationship, and its role was limited to neutralizing the increasing effect of internet addiction.Practical implications: Consideration should be given to how job embeddedness interacts with contextual and individual moderators to affect cyberloafing. In particular, this study implicated some practical procedures to provide employees with on- and off-the-job resources and avoid fighting over the organization's resources. Additionally, this study provides insights into embeddedness-satisfaction interplay to provide employees with propitious work conditions in line with organizational productivity.Originality/value: There is little research on the association between job embeddedness and counterproductive work behaviors, and the findings are inconsistent. A review of the literature revealed no study addressing cyberloafing implications of job embeddedness. This study expands the literature by theoretically and empirically correlating job embeddedness and cyberloafing in a non-western developing country. Accordingly, the significance of this study is its capability in mitigating cyberloafing behaviors by promoting the adverse job embeddedness.