Title [The spillover effect of online vigilance on employees’ absent-mindedness and creative behavior: A coping mechanism] 1. Introduction Smartphones have become an integral part of human life, leading to the phenomenon of online vigilance or a constant awareness of web communication and online interaction. This practice diverts employees' focus, making them absent-minded during working hours and decreasing their creativity, ultimately reducing their productivity. The problematic use of smartphones makes employees blind in viewing current tasks, affecting their efficiency and wasting organizational resources. Therefore, it is important to investigate the implications of online vigilance on IT managers' mental and creative behavior. This study aims to examine the relationship between online vigilance and creative behavior through the mediation of absent-mindedness and the moderating role of perceived behavioral control. The conservation of resource theory suggests that technological stressors deplete employee cognitive resources, which may reduce their work-related creativity and engagement. Therefore, perceived behavioral control can help to protect mental resources by reducing the negative influence of online vigilance on absent-mindedness. This study contributes to the theory and literature by adding new knowledge to the relationship between online vigilance and creative behavior and its effect on workplace outcomes. It also provides practical contributions for organizations to track employee performance and better plan procedures for employees' high performance 2. Literature review Online Vigilance affecting the Creative Behavior Online communication offers various rewards, satisfying inherent needs, and providing readily accessible online communication and knowledge incentives for every area of life (Reinecke et al., 2018; Klimmt et al., 2017). Online vigilance, a learned trait, includes aim-sloping, inspired actions and focus, and subsequent action and media exposure, and can be adaptable or maladaptive (Reinecke et al., 2018). It has the ability to foster or hinder well-being, depending on various mechanisms (Reinecke et al., 2018). However, constant connectedness (online vigilance) can lead to absent-mindedness and distraction from pleasing moments (Shin & Shin, 2016), and adversely affects cognitive and physiological well-being, damaging the work-to-family environment. Online vigilance causes technostress, a modern adaptation disease, leading to the inability to focus on a single problem, increased irritability, and a feeling of lack of control (Ab Ghani et al., 2017). To foster well-being, continuous exposure to pleasing contents, diversions from displeasing practices, and fulfilling social needs could be effective (Johannes et al., 2018). Mediating Role of Absentmindedness Absentmindedness is a state of inattentiveness to ongoing tasks and of losing control of their present objectives. It involves the inability to focus on information, resulting from a lack of effortful consideration control (Blume et al., 2019). Forgetfulness and mind-wandering are similar concepts to absentmindedness, where mind-wandering is a form of task-irrelevant considerations that can adversely impact well-being (Johannes et al., 2018). Mind-wandering is generally correlated with a decline in job efficiency and task performance, as simple tasks require less attentional resources, leaving more space for task-disconnected thinking. Creative Behaviour for IT professionals: Creative behaviour has been defined as “The individual’s actions to generate, introduce and implement beneficial novelty in the organization”. In this study, innovative behaviour is a great strength of employees, which engages employees in the creative process and also leads them towards innovation, which is one of the important factors for IT managers’ survival in a service industry (Iqbal et al. 2020). Moderating role of Perceived Behavioral Control. The Planned Behavior Theory (TPB), introduced by Ajzen (1991), is a widely recognized paradigm for interpreting behavior in the field of social psychology. TPB is based on the idea that behavior is determined by behavior intentions, which are functions of independent TPB constructs, such as attitudes, subjective norms, and Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC). PBC, described as "a perception of a person to perform a behavior of interest with ease or difficulty," is considered to be the most contentious construction in TPB, partly because of the inconsistency in its effect on intent and partly because of the inconsistency in its conceptualization and operationalization (Vamvaka et al., 2020). The idea of PBC has been introduced to deal with circumstances where people can lose full volitional influence over the behavior of concern. The reasoned-action approach suggests that behavioral intention is the most significant indicator of behavior, and perceived behavioral control depends on the confidence and precision of perceptions. The concept of PBC has led many researchers to substitute it with self-efficacy in their studies, as PBC and self-efficacy are essentially identical constructions (Vamvaka et al., 2020). Additionally, Perceived behavioral control is segregated into the "Perceived self-efficacy" or the perceived stability, and Perceived self-efficacy can be calculated in terms of the perceived complexity and perceived confidence. 3. Conclusion In conclusion the literature review highlights the complex relationship between online vigilance, absent-mindedness, creative behavior, and perceived behavioral control. It emphasizes the potential negative impact of online vigilance on employees' cognitive resources and well-being, as well as the importance of perceived behavioral control in mitigating these consequences. The review also underscores the significance of fostering creative behavior in the workplace, particularly for IT managers in the service industry. 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