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This cross-sectional study investigates the online education intention of undergraduate students in the largest and oldest public university in Bangladesh during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under convenient sampling, 843 undergraduate students with rural and urban backgrounds participated in an online self-administered questionnaire. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was employed to examine the hypothesized relationships. We found that students' online class intention is significantly influenced by their attitude towards online classes (AOC), perceived usefulness (PU), and facilitating conditions (FC). We further identified that external antecedents have significant indirect effects on the outcome variables. Our findings provide new insights and contribute to a learners' community on online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study extends the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to depict the factors influencing undergraduate students' intention to attend online classes (IOC) during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The world has been struck by multiple crises that crippled the socio-economy of nations in the past. The impact of these crises was so significant that they initiated numerous policy changes worldwide. The radical crises in this context refer to the Spanish flu, the Asian financial crisis, the global financial crisis, and the current COVID-19 pandemic. Due to their small capital structure with limited resources and fragile nature, SMEs were severely impacted by these crises. Many SMEs were forced to close down their business operations. Somehow, the remaining SMEs managed to persist and survive through the crises. Moving forward, SMEs can better prepare for future crises by understanding and learning from the predicaments of these past crises. Consequently, SMEs must also be adaptive to new business environments and responding promptly to crises by realigning their strategies to achieve business sustainability in the long term. © 2021, IGI Global.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions of students to stay indoors and adapt to the new normal, namely distance learning at home, placing online learning in the spotlight. However, students' motivation for online learning and its effectiveness in skill development during the COVID-19 pandemic has not been widely studied. This study examined the relationship between students' fear of COVID-19 and students' social presence in online learning while investigating the parallel mediating role of student psychological motivation and cognitive problem-solving skills related to online learning. The participants were 472 university students in Malaysia and Pakistan. An online data collection technique using Google Forms was employed. Faculty members of the universities were asked to share the survey with their students. Moreover, using a snowball sampling technique, students were requested to share the survey with their friends. SPSS Statistics (Version 21) was employed to do preliminary data analysis, AMOS (Version 21) software was used to conduct confirmatory factor analysis using a maximum likelihood estimation, and Hayes' PROCESS model was used to examine proposed hypotheses. The results show that only cognitive problem solving mediates the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and students' social presence in online learning in Malaysian samples. In Pakistan, cognitive problem solving and psychological motivation mediate the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and students' social presence in online learning. The study found that developing cognitive problem-solving skills and providing psychological motivation could enhance their engagement with online learning.
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Nowadays, the COVID-19 pandemic has led Malaysian educators to experience more significant burnout due to job demands. This paper is an effort to examine the reasons that caused burnout among Malaysian educators. A total of 413 Malaysian educators participated in the study. This study’s findings revealed that PSC has a significant negative relationship with hindrance demands and burnout, whereas both challenge and hindrance demands have insignificant positive relationships with burnout. Furthermore, the study showed that two variables—challenge demands and hindrance demands—played significant mediators in the relationship between PSC and burnout. As a result, it is concluded that PSC can reduce the unfavorable characteristics of hindrance demands and burnout among Malaysian educators. This paper’s findings are valuable to academics and experts who wish to minimize the burnout pervasiveness among Malaysian educators. © 2021 by De La Salle University.
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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Penang Island hoteliers cannot perform their job to meet the customers’ expectations due to their high job demands. Hence, this paper intends to examine the predictors of job performance among Penang Island hoteliers. Furthermore, the paper intends to investigate the potential role of challenge demands and hindrance demands as mediating variables. A total of 107 hoteliers from Penang Island hotels participated in the study. The study results showed that psychosocial safety climate and challenge demands possess a significant positive relationship with job performance, whereas psychosocial safety climate has a significant negative relationship with hindrance demands. Moreover, hindrance demands were found to serve as a significant mediator on the relationship between psychosocial safety climate and job performance. The study’s findings are to help practitioners who wish to increase job performance among hoteliers in Malaysia. © 2021 by De La Salle University.
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Purpose This paper aims to deliberate the significant impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It also discusses SMEs' practical approaches to capitalise on the renewed opportunity in the new normal by expanding their businesses regionally and globally. This paper also discusses the tactical and strategic interventions SMEs need to take to charge forward. Design/methodology/approach The resource-based view of the firm (Barney, 1991) is used to explain how SMEs develop a sustainable competitive advantage in the new normal. The resource-based view focuses on the link between strategy and firm internal resources. Drawing from the resource-based view of the firm, internal analysis of the resources that are regarded as sources of competitive advantage controlled by the SMEs is imperative in today's business environment. Based on the resource-based view theory, this paper focuses on reinventing SME's strategies in the new normal to foster sustainability. Findings Post-COVID-19 pandemic, SMEs must essentially be dynamic, forward-looking and transformational in capturing the regional and global markets' opportunities. They need to sharpen their internal competencies and realign their effective business strategy in seizing the vast opportunities in the international markets. Practical implications How SMEs respond to COVID-19 has important implications for subsequent performance in the new normal. This study focuses on the different potential SMEs' reactions to COVID-19 and how their strategy affects SMEs performance and fosters sustainability in the new normal. Social implications The sustainability of SMEs is critical for the nation's socio-economy. This study offers a holistic view of how SMEs respond to their challenges and help them choose the right business options. Originality/value This paper's contents are solidly based on accumulated evidence, observation and critical arguments on the impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that caused numerous challenges faced by the SMEs, with a specific focus on SMEs operating in Malaysia.
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Purpose: The current study is an examination of the effects of psychosocial safety climate on work engagement, organisational commitment and to mediate job resources in Malaysian research universities (RUs) during pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: The population of this study consisted of full-time lecturers who work in Malaysian RUs at least a year. A sampling technique was used to select the respondents for this study. A total of 1,000 questionnaires were administered to respondents from 5 Malaysian RUs with 484 usable questionnaires were returned, giving a response rate of 48.4%. Findings: The present study’s objective is to examine psychosocial safety climate’s (PSC) effect, job resources on work engagement and organizational commitment. The study also aims to test the mediating roles of job resources on PSC’s relationship, work engagement and organizational commitment. It is interesting to note that the relationship between PSC and work engagement was not significant. Research limitations/implications: Although the present study had contributed to the existing literature, the present study’s result cannot be generalized. Suggestions for future research include an attempt to conduct a study over three-time points that looks at both the employee’s perspective, managerial perspective and organizational perspective within the workplace. All correlation and cross-sectional studies identified the need for a comprehensive three-wave study to examine the model’s longitudinal effects accurately. Practical implications: The finding shown that university is suggested to apply higher PSC to allow their management discover more ways to increase the adequate job resources to support lecturers in RUs and in improving their work engagement and organizational commitment. Originality/value: The integration of PSC in academicians of Malaysian RUs provides a novel perspective. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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The DeLone and McLean (D&M) information systems (IS) success model seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of IS success by identifying and explaining the relationships among their most critical dimensions of success. Many studies have offered important insights into this model. Nevertheless, regarding the e-learning body of knowledge, D&M research remains to be systematically reviewed comprehensively. E-learning refers to the use of information technology to disseminate knowledge for education and training. With today's e-learning boom necessitated for the most part by COVID-19, its adoption has become increasingly mandatory. Thus, a systematic review should help focus and accelerate future research. This study systematically reviews, compiles, analyzes, and synthesizes the D&M model studies in the e-learning context. This review adopts automatic and manual search methods to collect related studies from 2010 to 2020. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 92 primary studies are identified. The findings show that most of reviewed studies were conducted in the education field. The success category was the most highly investigated area from among the selected studies. Most studies developed a hybrid/extended model. Additionally, this study also identified gaps in the literature and recommends seven potential future areas requiring further investigation, such as conducting studies to examine the net benefits at the organizational level of analysis. To that end, the findings of this systematic review study provide an impactful contribution through offering a holistic review of the current state of D&M model studies in an e-learning context, providing an essential reference for scholars in this field.
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Purpose: The study's objective is to examine the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) social media news (SMN) on work boredom (WB) and task performance (TP). The study proposes that psychological well-being (PWB) and depression mediate the relationship between COVID-19 SMN, WB and TP. Design/methodology/approach: The data for this research was collected from white-collar employees of two Asian countries, Pakistan (study 1, n = 167) and Malaysia (study 2, n = 118), was collected using an online survey during strict movement control order (MCO), work from home, at the beginning of the year 2020. Findings: In both studies, the PWB of employees mediated the relationship between COVID-19 SMN and their WB. On the other hand, depression only mediated the relationship between COVID-19 SMN and WB in Pakistan. PWB only mediated the relationship between COVID-19 SMN and TP in study 2. Depression only mediated the relationship between COVID-19 SMN and TP in study 1. Research limitations/implications: A couple of limitations worth noting are that the study adopted a cross-sectional approach. Thus, the sample size is not large in both counties. Because of the outbreak, limited employees agree to be part of an online survey. The scope of the study also restricts the authors to collect data during MCO, when employees were forced to work from home. In Pakistan, MCO began on 20th March and ended on 30th April, while in Malaysia, MCO started on 18th March and ended on 12th May. This also limits the study's claim of generalizability. Practical implications: The practical implication of the study is to guide practitioners of both Pakistan and Malaysia in developing strategies that help them understand that employees having PWB look for growth and challenging opportunities even during pandemic situations;employers can leverage it to deal with external threats like COVID-19 because improving the PWB can improve TP and reduce WB. The interesting results highlighted the fact that high TP not necessarily means everything is fine with employees, when the uncertainty level is high, employees may be performing well due to fear and depression instead of work motivation. Thus, employers should be more vigilant during a pandemic situation. This study also helps policymakers understand that the overall economic situation affects the individual employee’s state of mind and work behavior. Originality/value: The paper contributes to scare literature on COVID-19 and SMN and illustrates employees' work behavior when forced to work from home during the MCO. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.