Global employees and exogenous shocks: considering positive psychological capital as a personal resource in international human resource management

While positive psychological capital (PsyCap) is a significant antecedent of favorable work outcomes, it is unclear whether this is true for global employees during an exogenous shock. Applying conservation of resources theory, we found that, under conditions of crisis-induced role novelty, global employees leveraged PsyCap to follow a resource-gain route to job satisfaction, whereas their ability to mitigate resource loss was limited. We differentiate among global employees, finding that role novelty compensated for lower PsyCap in motivating job engagement for those with higher travel obligations. Our results stress the importance of PsyCap in international human resource management scholarship and practice. © 2023

The potential of virtual global mobility: implications for practice and future research

Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic has forced global organizations to adopt technology-driven virtual solutions involving faster, less costly and more effective ways to work worldwide even after the pandemic. One potential outcome may be through virtual global mobility (VGM), defined as the replacement of personal physical international interactions for work purposes with electronic personal online interactions. The purpose of this article is to establish VGM as a theoretical concept and explore to what extent it can replace or complement physical global work assignments. Design/methodology/approach This perspectives article first explores advantages and disadvantages of global virtual work and then discusses the implementation of VGM and analyses to what extent and how VGM can replace and complement physical global mobility. Findings Representing a change of trend, long-term corporate expatriates could become necessary core players in VGM activities while the increase of the number of global travelers may be halted or reversed. VGM activities will grow and further develop due to a continued rapid development of communication and coordination technologies. Consequently, VGM is here to stay! Originality/value The authors have witnessed a massive trend of increasing physical global mobility where individuals have crossed international borders to conduct work. The authors are now observing the emergence of a counter-trend: instead of moving people to their work the authors often see organizations moving work to people. This article has explored some of the advantages, disadvantages, facilitators and barriers of such global virtual work. Given the various purposes of global work the authors chart the suitability of VGM to fulfill these organizational objectives.

Building-level wastewater surveillance using tampon swabs and RT-LAMP for rapid SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection

Wastewater surveillance for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA has demonstrated useful correlation with both coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and clinical testing positivity at the community level. Wastewater surveillance on college campuses has also demonstrated promising predictive capacity for the presence and absence of COVID-19 cases. However, to date, such monitoring has most frequently relied upon composite samplers and reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) techniques, which limits the accessibility and scalability of wastewater surveillance, particularly in low-resource settings. In this study, we trialed the use of tampons as passive swabs for sample collection and reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP), which does not require sophisticated thermal cycling equipment, to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater. Results for the workflow were available within three hours of sample collection. The RT-LAMP assay is approximately 20 times less analytically sensitive than RT-droplet digital PCR. Nonetheless, during a building-level wastewater surveillance campaign concurrent with independent weekly clinical testing of all students, the method demonstrated a three-day positive predictive value (PPV) of 75% (excluding convalescent cases) and same-day negative predictive value (NPV) of 80% for incident COVID-19 cases. These predictive values are comparable to that reported by wastewater monitoring using RT-qPCR. These observations suggest that even with lower analytical sensitivity the tampon swab and RT-LAMP workflow offers a cost-effective and rapid approach that could be leveraged for scalable building-level wastewater surveillance for COVID-19 potentially even in low-resource settings.

Within- and between-Day Variability of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Municipal Wastewater during Periods of Varying COVID-19 Prevalence and Positivity

Wastewater surveillance of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA is being used to monitor Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) trends in communities;however, within- and between-day variation of SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentration in primary influent remains largely uncharacterized. In the current study, grab sampling of primary influent was performed every 2 h over two 24-h periods at two wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in northern Indiana, USA. The recovery efficiency of endogenous SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater was confirmed to be similar to the recovery efficiency of the process control, bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV). Recovery-corrected SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations in primary influent indicate diurnal loading patterns and confirm monitoring dependent on grab samples should target daytime periods with high fecal loading. Importantly, manual compositing performed at the WWTP resulted in concentrations that were consistently lower than grab sample averages indicating potential bias. Uncorrected, recovery-corrected, and pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV)-normalized SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations demonstrated an ordinal agreement with increasing clinical COVID-19 positivity but not COVID-19 cases. In areas where geolocated COVID-19 case data are not available, the COVID-19 positivity rate could provide a useful county-level metric for comparison with wastewater. Nonetheless, large variation both within- and between-days may preclude robust quantitative analyses beyond correlation.