ABSTRACT
In the present study, we seek to understand how public sector employees that go to work to perform essential duties for the society and the economy cope with the fear of COVID-19 and maintain their motivation, energy, and enthusiasm for their work. We hypothesized that because employees are motivated to protect their health, an increase in daily fear of COVID-19 would be related to a daily increase in coping behaviors in the form of job crafting, which would consequently be related to employees' daily motivation. Data were based on 64 tenured employees working in public service organizations during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2021), who completed a quantitative diary for five consecutive workdays (N = 320 occasions). Results from multilevel analysis indicated that fear of COVID-19 had an indirect effect on work engagement through only one dimension of job crafting, seeking job resources. The study contributes to the ongoing theoretical extension of the beneficial role of job crafting by suggesting seeking social resources as an effective coping strategy for fear of COVID-19.
ABSTRACT
With the COVID-19 pandemic recognized as a major threat to human health is of paramount importance to improve the vaccination uptake of the future COVID-19 vaccine. The study extended the health belief model (HBM) using insights from trait theory and events systems theory, to examine the role of beliefs in predicting intentions to be vaccinated against COVID-19, when a vaccine becomes available. Employees from Greece (N = 1006) participated from October 1 to November 5, 2020, in an anonymous online factorial survey experiment. Measures of dispositional optimism, faith in intuition, risk-taking propensity, and acquiring resources mindset were included as individual difference variables. Multilevel modeling techniques were used for data analyses. Components of HBM had significant effects on intentions to vaccinate. Two-way interactions between severity and susceptibility beliefs and three-way interaction among perceived severity, susceptibility, and perceived benefits were detected. In line with the events systems theory, a critical event moderated beliefs' effects on intention to vaccinate. Acquiring resources mindset emerged as important individual difference that positively related to intentions. The model explained 59 per cent of the variance in vaccination intentions. The study highlighted interaction effects among the HBM components and how critical events may moderate belief effects.