How does organizational culture affect employees' mental health during COVID-19? The mediating role of transparent communication.

BACKGROUND: Over the years, the workplace landscape has significantly evolved, demanding an optimal psychological approach to establish an environment that values individual work and health. A firm's culture inspires it to adopt business practices that enable its employees to live healthier lives. OBJECTIVE: The study aims to measure the mediating relationship of transparent communication between organizational culture and mental health in the Pakistani healthcare industry. The study also explores the relationship between organizational culture and mental health. METHODS: The study collected primary data via purposive sampling from the healthcare employees of Pakistan between March and May 2022. The study's sample size consists of 509 respondents from the healthcare industry sector, and the research used Smart PLS software to measure the relationship through bootstrapping and algorithms. RESULTS: Organizational culture has a positive effect on the employee's mental health. The study has found significant positive mediation of transparent communication and moderation of organizational trust between organizational culture and mental health. CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 pandemic has deteriorated workers' mental health, causing considerable changes in the healthcare sector. Positive mental health at work is a critical factor that improves the working environment. As such, this study highlights the importance of mental health in the workplace setting. It extends the literature in the context of the healthcare industry, thus supporting employees' well-being. The findings suggest a significant relationship between an organization's culture and mental health. This study suggests the theoretical and practical implications for policymakers' and researchers' perspectives concerning employees and organization culture.

An Empirical Study on Cyber Ostracism and Students' Discontinuous Usage Intention of Social Networking Sites during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mediated and Moderated Model

A sudden change in a person's social life, such as the adjustments caused by COVID-19, can raise social and psychological issues, with people's loneliness and boredom affecting their physical and mental well-being. Cyber ostracism (CO) refers to scenarios in which people feel that others are ignoring them over the internet, e.g., on social networking sites (SNSs) (such as Facebook and Twitter), and placing little importance on their thoughts. The study investigates the mediating role of anger between CO and discontinuous usage intention (DUI) and the moderating role of growth belief. Data were collected during three different periods from 517 Pakistani university students. Statistical procedures were conducted using a Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS). The study results reveal that anger mediates the relationship between CO and DUI of SNSs;moreover, growth belief moderates the relationship.

Education Beats at the Heart of the Sustainability in Thailand: The Role of Institutional Awareness, Image, Experience, and Student Volunteer Behavior

The grim effects of COVID-19 have widely obstructed every sector of life, and the education sector is not an exception. The physical meeting restrictions, lockdowns, social distancing, and movement control orders increased the dropouts of students in educational institutes. These dropouts compromised the contribution of the educational sector to the gross domestic product (GDP) and worsened the economic situation. The spike of COVID-19 shaped a curve of fears, and students are clueless as to how to mitigate its affects. Therefore, this study proposes an implication of a rare phenomenon termed as student volunteering behavior. Student volunteering behavior has the capacity to turn existing students into advocates of the institute, a great assistance to attract potential students and bring back the dropout students. This study suggests that educational institutes in Thailand should provide a better experience to students, strengthen the institute's image, and make students aware of their services. Their memorable experiences of institutional services will enhance students' loyalty and urge them to exhibit volunteering behavior. The result of this study indicates significant fallout of institute experience and image to student loyalty and to the student volunteering behavior. However, the study unveiled insignificant results of the relationship between institute awareness to the student loyalty and student volunteering behavior. Furthermore, the study proposes directions for further studies based on the rarer limitations.

Tertiary students maintaining control over depression, anxiety, and stress during the pandemic—An emerging market perspective

The higher education sector was affected by this pandemic, managing enduring challenges since early 2020. Institutions of higher learning (IHL) are prepared to address unsurmountable challenges to ensure that students are not deceived and are being given the proper nurture, coupled with adherence to syllabuses. Simultaneously, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused unscrupulous pressure on students of these institutions. The psychological waves are creating mammoth consequences, affecting the beneficiaries of the higher education system and their families. In recent years, with limited studies on psychological impact among tertiary students on a cross-country basis, general self-efficacy, and the degree of coping strategies, we were motivated to investigate the degree of depression, anxiety, and stress (DAS), among this cohort of students encompassing the pre-university/Diploma, 1st–4th-year undergraduate, and postgraduate students from private universities in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Southern Africa, and China, representing the emerging economies. A cross-sectional survey was conducted, followed by quantitative analysis. The objective of this study was to recognize whether there is a relationship between the psychological impact of DAS and the coping strategies adopted by the undergraduate students responding during the lockdown. The findings of this study revealed that with a sample size of 397, DAS lacked any severe impact on students across gender, country, household income, and level of education. DAS was established to be well managed with a coping strategy and self-efficacy established. This study resulted in a deeper understanding of DAS among undergraduates in emerging economies and their degree of coping behavior, providing a glimpse of the approach of millennials to handle DAS during the pandemic.

How Did Work-Related Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Hamper Healthcare Employee Performance during COVID-19? The Mediating Role of Job Burnout and Mental Health.

The study objective was to examine the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the performance of healthcare employees. The study was informed by a theoretical framework that incorporates different psychological issues (i.e., stress, depression, and anxiety) that influence healthcare workers' performance through the mediating roles of job burnout and mental health. The study data was gathered through structured questionnaires from 669 participants working in the healthcare sector in Pakistan. A structured equation modeling (SEM) technique was used for data analysis and hypothesis development. It was found that stress, depression, and anxiety positively affected healthcare employees' job performance during COVID-19. Psychological factors had a positive and significant impact on job burnout and mental health. Job burnout and mental health mediated the relationship between stress, anxiety, depression, and employee performance. The ongoing repercussions of COVID-19 include their impact on employee performance in the healthcare sector. Healthcare worker performance is critical to fostering industrial economic growth. Elevated levels of stress, depression, and anxiety have profoundly exacerbated employee mental health issues. COVID-19 has created challenging working conditions in organizations requiring that they address the growing psychological issues which impact negatively on worker performance.

Psychological and Behavior Changes of Consumer Preferences During COVID-19 Pandemic Times: An Application of GLM Regression Model.

The life we considered normal was disrupted due to measures taken to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. Quarantine, isolation, social distancing, and community containment have influenced consumer behavior and contributed to the rapid development of e-commerce. In pandemic times, even those unfamiliar with the online environment have had to adapt and make acquisitions in this new manner. Hence, we focused our research on measuring the perception of consumers on how the restrictive measures imposed to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus had influenced their decision to buy a product or service from the online environment, given that purchases are highly subjective and influenced by cumulative effects of economic, social, psychological and behavioral factors. Our paper comes with additional insights from the literature. It adds empirical evidence that reveals that the number of transactions and the value per transaction increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights that online purchases will continue as such even after the pandemic.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 Safety Measures for Sustainable Tourism: The Mediating Effect of Tourist Trust

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is continuing to have severe effects on tourism-related industries, as safety precautions have become essential to follow. Based on this, this study aims to explore the role of perceptions of the tourist of safety in tourism destination choice with the mediating effect of tourist trust (TT) in the context of the Chinese tourism sector. In addition, this study considers improvements to safety measures for sustainable tourism and the benefits of the technology transformation in the travel industry because of COVID-19. For this study, a quantitative approach was used, and data were collected through convenient sampling. The questionnaire was measured on a 5-point Likert scale, and a cross-sectional approach was adopted for data analysis. The findings of this study show that the effect of the perceived safety of the social environment, perceived safety of facility and equipment elements, perceived safety of human elements, perceived safety of management elements, and perceived safety of natural environments is significant and positive on the tourist destination choice (TDC). In addition, TT is a significant mediator between these elements and TDC. Furthermore, this study concluded that COVID-19 had increased travel anxiety, with particularly negative effects on the Chinese tourism sector, but that the adoption of perceived safety measures could be beneficial in regaining TT for traveling, eventually giving tourists confidence in choosing their traveling destination.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers' psychological and mental health: The moderating role of felt obligation.

BACKGROUND: The ravages of COVID-19 have created a worldwide emergency in healthcare units. Under these circumstances, the perception of an infection threat is primarily affecting the employees' performance in reducing contagion effects. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to develop substantial measures of support for healthcare employees to maintain adequacy in job performance. METHODS: Data were collected from state-owned hospitals in Pakistan to test the current study's proposed model. We applied structural equation modeling through a partial least square regression in addition to the blindfolding approach in Smart-PLS. Confirmatory factor analysis was also employed to measure the study's validity. RESULTS: The current study's findings show that the perception of a threat from COVID-19 and the inadequate protective measures have influenced frontline healthcare workers' performance levels. The mediating path of depression symptoms indicated the threat of COVID-19 and the absence of protective measures as potential determinants of poor performance. However, an employee's ability to feel obligated toward their job duties reduces the effect of depression on employee performance. CONCLUSION: The current model highlights an individual's feelings of obligation to maintain their performance level by minimizing the effect of depression and professional anxiety. The present study extensively described the psychological constraints healthcare workers are facing during the current pandemic. Current research addressing healthcare employees' mental health is vital for better prevention and control during pandemic circumstances. The current study's findings extend the emerging understanding of employee psychology in such circumstances.

Signifying the Relationship between Fear of COVID-19, Psychological Concerns, Financial Concerns and Healthcare Employees Job Performance: A Mediated Model.

The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has undoubtedly created immense health problems in the global healthcare sector. Apart from its impact on physical health, it has devastatingly affected the psychological well-being of individuals. Based on Affective Events Theory (AET), the current study aims to contemplate the relationship between Fear of COVID-19 (CVF), psychological concerns (PC), and financial concerns (FC) while considering the impact on the healthcare employees' job performance (JP). Moreover, this study investigates the mediating role of job anxiety (ANX), stress (ST), and depression (DEP). The data were collected through an online structured questionnaire (Google Forms) from 489 employees working in the healthcare centers of Pakistan. The structured equation modeling (partial least square) approach is adopted for data analysis. The study results showed that Fear of COVID-19, psychological and financial concerns positively and significantly affect healthcare workers' job performance. Depression, anxiety, and stress mediated the relationship between Fear of COVID-19, psychological concerns, financial concerns, and job performance. The study theoretically and practically contributes to the existing literature on psychological and mental health by providing a better understanding of the individual variables that affect employees' job performance.

Factors affecting business school students’ performance during the COVID-19 pandemic: A moderated and mediated model

The COVID-19 pandemic has directly influenced higher education by converting traditional face-to-face (F2F) learning to blended learning (BL). Because of this dramatic change in the academic environment, it is essential to evaluate student views and preferences and how the BL setting affects their academic performance. Therefore, the current research aims to investigate the relationship between Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) constructs (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and facilitating condition) and student academic performance through student attitude. We also examined the moderating role of trust in technology between UTAUT constructs and student performance. The study uses a sample of 1050 business management university students for mediation/moderation analysis using the Hayes Bootstrap technique. The results demonstrate that student attitude mediates the relationship between UTAUT constructs and student academic performance, with trust in technology strengthening the relationship. The study offers implications for universities and policymakers.

The Perception and Degree of Adoption by Urbanites towards Urban Farming

Malaysia is not shielded from the issues of food insecurity. Despite economic progression over the past few years, food insecurity is continuing to affect several vulnerable groups (Orang Asli, elderly, students, B40). It is a growing concern that should not be taken lightly, especially with the recent rise in food prices coupled with low income among vulnerable groups and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. As cities develop and expand, they stretch out and occupy former farmlands forcing farms to stop operating or move further off from the city centre. New trends like urban farming are slowly emerging, which have the potential to be a solution to the developing crises of food insecurity. This research aims to determine how relevant each of the factors, ‘confidence’ (CF), ‘societal’ (SC), ‘pleasantness’ (PL), and ‘naturalness’ (NT), are towards adopting (AD) the idea of urban farming and, if relevant, among which has the most positive impact. A mixed-method approach was used to obtain quantitative and qualitative data. One hundred and thirty-three responses were recorded and used (a significant sample size according to the G-power software). The validity and reliability of the data were also tested to affirm their quality and relevance according to the factors. The main findings revealed that ‘pleasantness’ and ‘confidence’ were strong factors for adopting urban farming, in line with Cohen’s R Square of more than 32%, which signifies a high impact toward influencing adoption. In addition, qualitative analysis shows that while positive outcomes complemented the quantitative study, practical constraints were highlighted. These constraints were space, time, supply chain, resources, tools, community and government support. Hence, this study provides two significant contributions to regulators and policymakers on urban farming (further explained in the discussions section).

Assessing the Importance of Psychosocial Factors Associated With Sustainable Organizational Development During COVID-19.

Involvement in sustainable development is a voluntary activity. Organizations apply the principles of sustainable development only when they identify several benefits. These benefits are identified, especially with the financial ones. The involvement of organizations in sustainable organizations has different intensity levels. These intensity levels are influenced by psychosocial factors (PF), attitudes toward organizational risks, and organizational and urban policies. The present paper identifies the key psychological factors involved in applying organizational sustainability principles within organizations. For this research, five groups were created for in-depth interviews with key people from Romania's innovative companies. To identify the importance of the framework analysis factors, the Delphi method was used, in which 20 experts from different fields of activity were involved. Following the rounds involved in the Delphi method, the ranking of PF on four levels of importance was accepted, based on planned behavior and reasoned action theory. These levels were correlated with the intensity levels of involvement in sustainable development. The entire market study was conducted during COVID-19, which significantly impacted specific directions. As a result, it could be observed that motivation, learning attitude, behavior, and intention to take precedence are essential in the organizational sustainability approach.