Using robots at work during the COVID-19 crisis evokes passion decay: Evidence from field and experimental studies.

The growing trend of introducing robots into employees' work lives has become increasingly salient during the global COVID-19 pandemic. In light of this pandemic, it is likely that organisational decision-makers are seeing value in coupling employees with robots for both efficiency- and health-related reasons. An unintended consequence of this coupling, however, may be an increased level of work routinisation and standardisation. We draw primarily from the model of passion decay from the relationship and clinical psychology literature to develop theory and test a model arguing that passion decays as employees increasingly interact with robots for their work activities. We demonstrate that this passion decay leads to an increase of withdrawal behaviour from both the domains of work and family. Drawing further from the model of passion decay, we reveal that employees higher in openness to experience are less likely to suffer from passion decay upon more frequent interactions with robots in the course of work. Across a multi-source, multi-wave field study conducted in Hong Kong (Study 1) and a simulation-based experiment conducted in the United States (Study 2), our hypotheses received support. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Working through an "infodemic": The impact of COVID-19 news consumption on employee uncertainty and work behaviors.

Uncertainty is a defining feature of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, because uncertainty is an aversive state, uncertainty reduction theory (URT) holds that employees try to manage it by obtaining information. To date, most evidence for the effectiveness of obtaining information to reduce uncertainty stems from research conducted in relatively stable contexts wherein employees can acquire consistent information. Yet, research on crises and news consumption provides reasons to believe that the potential for information to mitigate uncertainty as specified by URT may break down during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Integrating URT with research on crises and news consumption, we predict that consuming news information during crises-which tends to be distressing, constantly evolving, and inconsistent-will be positively related to uncertainty. This in turn may have negative implications for employee goal progress and creativity; two work outcomes that take on substantial significance in times of uncertainty and the pandemic. We further predict that death anxiety will moderate this relationship, such that the link between employees' news consumption and uncertainty is stronger for those with lower levels of death anxiety, compared to those with higher levels. We test our theorizing via an experience-sampling study with 180 full-time employees, with results providing support for our conceptual model. Our study reveals important theoretical and practical implications regarding information consumption during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).