Journal of Engineering, Project, and Production Management, 2026, 16(7), 2026-0047
From Job Boredom to Procrastination: A Serial Mediation Analysis of Job Crafting and Cyberloafing
1 Assistant
Professor, Business Administration Department, Applied College, King
Khalid University, Khamis Mushait 61421, Asir Region, Saudi Arabia,
E-mail: aaothmaan@kku.edu.sa
2 Assistant Professor, Department
of Business Administration, Faculty of Commerce, Port Said University,
Port Said 42511, Egypt, E-mail: samah.mohamed@com.psu.edu.eg
3 Assistant Professor, Management
Information Systems Department, Al-Baha Private College of Science, Al-Baha
City 65724, Saudi Arabia, E-mail: rabaa@bpcs.edu.sa
4 Assistant Professor, Department
of Business Administration, Faculty of Commerce, Port Said University,
Port Said 42511, Egypt, E-mail: doctorabasma018@com.psu.edu.eg
(corresponding author).
5 Assistant Professor, Department
of Management and Business Technology, Faculty of Management Technology
and Information Systems, Port Said University, Port Said 42511, Egypt,
E-mail: mohamedsobhy@himc.psu.edu.eg
6 Assistant Professor, Business
Administration Department, Faculty of Commerce, Menoufia University,
Menouf 32511, Menoufia, Egypt, E-mail: ahmed.noureldeen.m2l@gmail.com
7 Senior Lecturer, Business
Administration Department, Faculty of Commerce, Damietta University, New
Damietta City 34517, Damietta, Egypt, E-mail: soliman_rakha@du.edu.eg
Project Management
Received May 7, 2026; revised August 12, 2026; accepted August 12, 2026
Available online August 30, 2026
Abstract: This research investigates how job boredom relates to workplace procrastination among Saudi Arabian healthcare workers, with job crafting serving as a sequential mediator of the relationship between job boredom and cyberloafing. Both Job Demands-Resources (JD-R), which serves as the central theoretical lens, and Conservation of Resources (COR), which supports a secondary theoretical account of resource-building and resource-conservation processes, are used to guide this investigation. Using cross-sectional survey data from 394 hospital staff and through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), the results indicate that job boredom negatively predicts job crafting and positively predicts cyberloafing. In turn, job crafting reduces both cyberloafing and procrastination, whereas cyberloafing increases procrastination. The direct effect of job boredom on procrastination is not significant; instead, its influence operates fully through indirect pathways. Specifically, job crafting and cyberloafing function as sequential mediators, indicating that reduced proactive resource-building behaviors increase reliance on avoidance behaviors, ultimately leading to task delay. These findings advance a process-based understanding of employee disengagement by showing how job crafting and cyberloafing sequentially connect job boredom to workplace procrastination within a unified explanatory framework. The results highlight the adverse associations between job boredom and work-related results. Practically, the results underscore the importance of fostering job crafting and managing cyberloafing to mitigate procrastination and enhance performance in high-pressure work settings.
Keywords: Job boredom; job crafting; cyberloafing; workplace procrastination; healthcare sector; serial mediation; Saudi Arabia.
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Citation: Osman, A., Gouda, S., Malik, R., Elhariry, B., Aboueldahab, M., Noureldeen, A., and Rakha, S. (2026). From Job Boredom to Procrastination: A Serial Mediation Analysis of Job Crafting and Cyberloafing. Journal of Engineering, Project, and Production Management, 16(7), 2026-0047.
