ABSTRACT
The COVID 19 pandemic hit on a global scale: more than 219 countries were affected. Governments are struggling to raise awareness regarding the need to get vaccinated. Efforts have been made relentless since 2019 to prevent the infection globally. How to increase the vaccine acceptance rate proved to be a challenging task for governments since vaccination is the only efficient measure to efficiently protect people from disease. According to various studies, it is necessary to vaccinate about 90% of the population to create herd immunity and decelerate the transmission of the virus. According to the numbers published by the Romanian Health Ministry (January, 2022), 40.9% of the population got vaccinated. In terms of age segments, about 35% of people between 19 and 25 years of age had at least one dose of vaccine while the new variant of COVID (Omicron) spreads and infects about 25.000 each and every day (as of January, 2022. We all need to better understand why some people prefer to vaccinate while others oppose to vaccination. The focus is on raising the vaccination rate and therefore, public health officials and governments work on finding the strategy to impact people so that they decide to vaccinate. While vaccination questions trust in government officials, strategies and policies, recent studies (Hui 2020) show that in times of crisis such as the COVID 19 pandemic is also a matter of leadership and leadership authenticity. Some evidence found in the literature suggests that authentic leadership is increasingly in demand (source). Therefore, we looked into the issue of authentic leaders – what are the traits, skills, and behaviors that people associate with authentic leadership in the specific context of (COVID) crisis leadership. The research methodology is based on the construction of a questionnaire structured on types of questions related to what authentic leadership means in relation with the present pandemic. The second part of the questionnaire looked into the beliefs and behaviors of our respondents toward vaccination. Data were collected and analyzed. The model of authentic leadership that emerged and the formulated hypotheses were tested followed by a statistical analysis, interpretation and conclusions. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research is to present and analyze the evolutions of Internet Banking in the conditions of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic crisis in Romania throughout 2020 considering the typology of respondents in correlation with their needs and requirements for the characteristics and types of Internet Banking services available. The research design was based on a statistical analysis both quantitative and qualitative, following the motivational and attitudinal changes in the use of Internet Banking services as a result of the manifestations of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic crisis. As a primary tool, it was a questionnaire consisting of a series of questions of a general nature, but also directed to the purpose of the research, in a total of 25 questions. The questions asked to achieve the purpose of the research concerned: the influencing factors regarding the use of Internet Banking before and during the pandemic, the restrictions imposed by the bank as a result of the pandemic crisis that influenced the use of Internet Banking, the types of Internet Banking services most often used before and during the pandemic, as well as the level of money spent on Internet Banking and electronic devices used for this purpose. The results presented by the authors as a result of the research undertaken highlighted as factors with a positive influence on the use of Internet Banking during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic crisis in Romania in 2020 as: avoiding the queues at the bank counter, availability 24/7 of this service, time economy, and restrictions imposed by the banks while as factors with negative influence were shown to be the problems related to access to this type of service: limited internet access, technical problems, long time to complete transactions, security issues. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.