When does breach not lead to violation? A dual perspective of psychological contract in hotels in times of crisis

Implicit psychological contract (PC) represents the dynamic employee-employer relationship, and unlike explicit human resource (HR) practices, PC is an underexplored topic in the crisis management literature. By capturing the dual perspective of hotel employers and employees through interviews, this study investigates the content of PCs and breaches of PCs during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The study identifies salient dimensions of employer obligations such as safety assurance and of employee obligations such as personal protection. While employees emphasized the transactional contracts to protect their individual interests, the employers tried to balance the transactional and relational contracts. The study proposes a dynamic PC breach model that indicates contract breaches lead to varied responses through a complex interpretation process. In general, the study suggests that ensuring mutual consideration is the best way for hotel employees and employers to pull through a crisis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Tackling Covid-19, the Singapore Way

The Singapore government's strategy of managing the COVID-19 crisis in its first year was built upon its experience of handling the SARS crisis in 2003. The strategy showcased extensive capacities to test, trace, isolate, treat, and limit the importation of cases. Implementation was impressive at first, delivering results that were internationally admired. An emphasis on building social responsibility through transparent communication and the use of technology has also overall been successful. To keep the economy afloat and ready to thrive in postpandemic times, the government allocated approximately $100 billion in a budget that was business- and employer-centric, consistent with neoliberal globalization. Where the government failed was in its handling of the disease outbreaks in migrant worker dormitories, which it seemed not to have anticipated even though there had been warnings from civil society activists. Opportunistically, the PAP called for early parliamentary elections, arguing that a PAP government with a strong mandate was what successful management of this "crisis of a generation” required. Since Singaporeans are often thought to be risk-averse, there was an expectation of a landslide victory for the PAP with voters taking a "flight to safety” and supporting the only government they had ever known in this dominant-party system. Instead, the PAP lost significant vote share and 10 seats including two multi-member "group representation constituencies” were lost to the opposition. If these results reflected what voters thought of the government's performance in managing the COVID-19 crisis, they may well point more specifically to public dissatisfaction with immigration policy and the dormitories fiasco. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.

The stories of Siddhartha and Captain Tom: Lifetimes apart but connecting us together

This chapter will explore how stories during the Covid-19 pandemic offered the potential to help us re-connect with our human nature. Through the lens of a biblical parable and the story of the Buddha the author draws out parallels with the story of 'Captain Tom' and why this story during the pandemic crisis seemed to capture the imagination of the world. The chapter explores how personal stories can give readers strength because of their imaginative capacity to help to connect with others, conveying a truth that story can make accessible. It considers how story can help bring balance to an over-emphasis on the intellect alone and restore us to emotional health through connecting with existential nature and vulnerability. In the spirit of storytelling, the author begins by sharing a story and parable from the bible to set the scene of this chapter. The Covid-19 story helps to get in touch with our lost vulnerability, particularly those of us living in the western world who can immerse ourselves in consumerism, creating the illusion we are in control of our lives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Ensuring quality control in a COVID-19 clinical trial during the pandemic: The experience of the Inserm C20-15 DisCoVeRy study.

SETTING: Health measures taken during the pandemic deeply modified the clinical research practices. At the same time, the demand for the results of the COVID-19 trials was urgent. Thus, the objective of this article is to share Inserm's experience in ensuring quality control in clinical trials in this challenging context. OBJECTIVES: DisCoVeRy is a phase III randomized study that aimed at evaluating the safety and efficacy of 4 therapeutic strategies in hospitalized COVID-19 adult patients. Between March, 22nd 2020 and January, 20th 2021, 1309 patients were included. In order to guarantee the best quality of data, the Sponsor had to adapt to the current sanitary measures and to their impact on clinical research activity, notably by adapting Monitoring Plan objectives, involving the research departments of the participating hospitals and a network of clinical research assistants (CRAs). RESULTS: Overall, 97 CRAs were involved and performed 909 monitoring visits. The monitoring of 100% of critical data for all patients included in the analysis was achieved, and despite of the pandemic context, a conform consent was recovered for more than 99% of patients. Results of the study were published in May and September 2021. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: The main monitoring objective was met thanks to the mobilization of considerable personnel resources, within a very tight time frame and external hurdles. There is a need for further reflection to adapt the lessons learned from this experience to the context of routine practice and to improve the response of French academic research during a future epidemic.

Management of pharmacovigilance during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis by the safety department of an academic sponsor: Lessons learnt and challenges from the EU DisCoVeRy clinical trial.

The current COVID-19 pandemic was an exceptional health situation, including for drug use. As there was no known effective drug for COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic, different drug candidates were proposed. In this article, we present the challenges for an academic Safety Department to manage the global safety of a European trial during the pandemic. The National Institute for Health and Medical Research (Inserm) conducted a European multicenter, open-label, randomized, controlled trial involving three repurposed and one-in development drugs (lopinavir/ritonavir, IFN-ß1a, hydroxychloroquine, and remdesivir) in adults hospitalized with COVID-19. From 25 March 2020 to 29 May 2020, the Inserm Safety Department had to manage 585 Serious Adverse Events (SAEs) initial notification and 396 follow-up reports. The Inserm Safety Department's staff was mobilized to manage these SAEs and to report Expedited safety reports to the competent authorities within the legal timeframes. More than 500 queries were sent to the investigators due to a lack of or incoherent information on SAE forms. At the same time, the investigators were overwhelmed by the management of patients suffering from COVID-19 infection. These particular conditions of missing data and lack of accurate description of adverse events made evaluation of the SAEs very difficult, particularly the assessment of the causal role of each investigational medicinal product. In parallel, working difficulties were accentuated by the national lockdown, frequent IT tool dysfunctions, delayed implementation of monitoring and the absence of automatic alerts for SAE form modification. Although COVID-19 is a confounding factor per se, the delay in and quality of SAE form completion and the real-time medical analysis by the Inserm Safety Department were major issues in the quick identification of potential safety signals. To conduct a high-quality clinical trial and ensure patient safety, all stakeholders must take their roles and responsibilities.

Extreme spillovers between insurance tokens and insurance stocks: Evidence from the quantile connectedness approach

This study examines potential tail spillovers between insurance tokens and conventional stocks using the quantile connectedness approach by Ando et al. (2018).  In particular, this study explores static and dynamic spillovers at lower and upper tails of the return distribution. In line with previous studies, tokens and conventional stocks within the insurance market may show positive but low connectedness levels. Furthermore, our findings confirm a higher sensitivity of the insurance system at both tails of the distribution in comparison with the median (Q = 0.50). As expected, dynamic connectedness measures change over time, intensifying at the extremes of the distribution. This finding is confirmed by the robustness test that consists of analyzing the RTD (Relative Tail Dependence) measure, as we reject the symmetric response, since its values are clearly different from zero in most of the sample period. These results are of interest to portfolio managers, as the findings will allow them to suggest adjustments to investment portfolios according to the evolution of the dynamic spillovers found.

Claustro-agoraphobia in times of Covid-19: On the problem of making analytic contact when using the telephone and internet for analysis during the coronavirus pandemic

During the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, telephone and internet analysis often became a temporary necessity. The author, who works with German- and English-speaking patients in Berlin, shows how some patients refused to return to the normal analytic setting even when the risk of infection was very low. She assumes that these patients and some analysts, in their countertransference, seemed to be drawn into a specific psychodynamic constellation where the remote setting offered a particular illusion in which both the fears of closeness and fears of separation can simultaneously be defended. She shows that under these conditions, unnoticed by patient and analyst, symbolic communication may break down, leading to a standstill in the analytic process. She describes this as a sort of psychic retreat, which becomes filled with idealized projections, whilst negative and frightening aspects of the transference situation remain split off and are deposited in the "non-telephone space". The chapter is based on her experience with telephone and internet analysis during the coronavirus epidemic. It is clear that analysis by telephone and internet analysis, tend to bring to fore the non-symbolic, concrete thinking tendencies in patients' personalities. Thus, the analysis tends to come to a standstill through these modes of communication. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

ASHAs in India – The Unsung Corona Warriors

This case study outlines the struggle that Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) encountered at the grassroots level in India while combating the spread of the corona virus. Due to misinformation and a lack of specific knowledge, rural communities began to mistrust government workers attempting to track the spread of the pandemic, resulting in instances of physical and verbal abuse. The impact on many ASHAs, who provided a vital frontline health service, was very negative. A communication strategy had to be adopted to avoid a worsening situation. Seema Barma (Block ASHA coordinator) had the job of providing a sustainable solution for managing the uncertainty in an effective manner and to rebuild public trust in authorities, and health workers including ASHAs. Students will learn how to formulate an effective communication strategy for dealing with such a pandemic crisis situation in a developing nation with specific reference to India. © 2022 NeilsonJournals Publishing.

COVID-19 in Tunisia: Mapping and Documenting the Impacts on Those on the Margins

Since the 2011 uprisings, Tunisia has been going through a delicate political transition while the socio-economic context is continuously deteriorating. Our analysis focuses on the exceptional period of the lock down (from the 20th of March 2020 to mid-June 2020). With a large portion of the population deprived of their daily informal jobs, the collateral damages of the coercive measures were immediately visible in Tunisia. By critically engaging with how the coronavirus was politically managed in Tunisia, we propose to map and document plural impacts of the pandemic contextualizing this crisis for specific groups of population and territories: Tunisia's young population from hinterland regions (symptomatic of the 2011 uprising and the territorial division) and illegalized sub-Saharan migrants. By focusing on precarious, invisibilized and marginalized groups, we question processes of politization of socio-economic claims under the circumstantial constraints of the pandemic. Besides, this period (re-)activates new forms of civil society mobilization as well as cooperation through solidarity. In a nutshell, the effects of COVID-19 allow us to observe the transformations in the Tunisian post-revolutionary context through a much broader lens. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Primary preservice teachers' exploration of possible selves through narrated metaphors during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study examines how primary-level preservice teachers (PSTs) in an online asynchronous course (co-)constructed and (re)negotiated their professional identities through the use of metaphors in online asynchronous courses in the U.S. By using metaphors and narrating their lived experiences in relation to their chosen metaphors, participants expressed their desired and feared identities. Their metaphorical expression of identities reflects the complex interplay between participants' construction of their possible selves within the temporal, social, and spatial context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Individual and collaborative metaphor-based reflections provided a reflective space for PSTs to explore professional becoming and future possibilities at the interface between their sense of agency and their situated temporal, spatial, and social context, even within asynchronous online teacher education courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Research Papers in Education is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Economic policy and economic research in Brazil during the pandemic

How did the COVID-19 crisis impact the field of economic policy and research in Brazil? In a country where inequality is among the highest in the world and the economic situation of the poor was steadily worsening, one could expect a radical shift towards welfare policies to protect income and jobs. Yet economic debate is far from reaching a consensus on the need for fiscal measures;it remains highly polarised among politicians and opinion makers. This chapter analyses economic policy and research in Brazil before and during the pandemic, focusing on the debate between economic austerity and welfare policies. It argues that COVID-19 has brought to the surface many concerns that were already haunting economic debate, such as the current fiscal rule (spending ceiling rule) revision and the increase in public debt. At the same time, it consolidated the fields of economic development and social economics as being among the priorities of Brazilian scholars. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Social media and the pandemic. The movement unaware

The massive diffusion of social media has produced disintermediation and it has changed the way in which users inform themselves and participate in public debate. On the other hand, users show a tendency to interact with information that adheres to personal choices and previous opinions. This propensity is "exploited" by algorithms that manage and sort communication on social media, increasingly producing a polarized audience. The essay shows the outcomes of these dynamics by focusing on the communications structure related to the pandemic. In this sense, social media constitute a risk because they convey out-of-control access to unreliable information and because they can result in the absence of correct information, if not in a problem for democracy. On the technical level, at least three complex reticular structures are identified that evolve following different directions, emerged from three sequentially monitored lemmas (no-mask, covid-19, greenpass). Further considerations concern the increasingly dense interweaving between online communication and the genesis of protest movements with evanescent, single-issue structures.

The impact of crises on changes in the determinants of business operation and development

Initially, it was assumed that the impacts of different types of crises are very diverse, and they be-come apparent both in the behaviour of individual elements of geographic space (natural, social, economic, and cultural) and different scales of spatial systems (from the global and continental scale to the scale of country groups and individual states to regional and local systems). Against this background, the present paper out-lines and analyses the origins and intensification of the contemporary climate, pandemic, and military crises. The crises have different origins, appearing under the influence of evolutionary processes of natural changes (climate crisis), as a result of violent events occurring under the influence of violent natural phenomena (tectonic movements), and conscious or unconscious human activity. Analysing the crises at different scales of spatial systems suggests they do not function independently but instead mutually overlap in terms of both their causes and effects. In the final section of the paper, an attempt is made to model the interrelationship of crisis phenomena and identify them through an example of population migration processes taking place under their influence.

Digital transformation of the business models of Chinese sporting goods enterprises in the post-COVID-19 era: a knowledge-management perspective

Purpose: From a knowledge-management perspective, this paper aims to analyze the digital transformation of the business models of traditional Chinese sporting goods companies in the context of the pandemic crisis and to explore the role of their digital transformation in coping with the crisis. Design/methodology/approach: Using theoretical sampling, typical sporting goods companies are selected for case studies. We provide an in-depth analysis of how these companies achieve high performance levels through the digital transformation of their business models in the post-COVID-19 era and discuss the key role of knowledge management in this achievement. Findings: Focusing on the challenges faced by Chinese sporting goods enterprises during the pandemic crisis from the knowledge-management perspective, we find that through the digital transformation of their business models, enterprises can improve their knowledge-management capabilities, enhance their flexibility to respond to sudden crises and maintain a higher level of corporate performance. Research limitations/implications: This paper has significant implications for sporting goods companies wishing to achieve high corporate performance through the digital transformation of their business models in the post-COVID-19 era. Future research should address the dynamic mechanism of the digital transformation of business models to improve enterprise knowledge-management capabilities and the impact mechanism of knowledge-management capabilities on interenterprise organizational resilience. Originality/value: This paper proposes specific strategies in the process of the digital transformation of business models that are essential for improving enterprises' internal and external knowledge-management capabilities. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The tension between centralized politics and citizen participation: The case of the pandemic crisis management in Turkey

More than two years have passed in which worldwide efforts have been made to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control. In addition to the purely "technical" measures taken, the manner in which these measures are implemented has been and continues to be the focus of considerations in the global public debate, with country-specific political structures playing a decisive role. The latter are characterized in Turkey by highly centralized framework conditions, which have manifested themselves even more clearly under pandemic conditions. The criticism of these conditions, which has always existed and focuses primarily on insufficient citizen participation in decision-making processes, is currently being carried out even more deeply than usual. In this chapter, an attempt will be made to show the substantive points of this criticism that run in the field of tension between centralized politics and citizen participation within the framework of the pandemic management, in connection with its impact on human rights. © 2023 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

A business retrieval model using scenario planning and analytics for life during and after the pandemic crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has fundamentally changed the way we live and work forever. The business sector is forecasting and formulating different scenarios associated with the impact of the pandemic on its employees, customers, and suppliers. Various business retrieval models are under construction to cope with life after the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis. However, the proposed plans and scenarios are static and cannot address the dynamic pandemic changes worldwide. They also have not considered the peripheral in-between scenarios to propel the shifting paradigm of businesses from the existing condition to the new one. Furthermore, the scenario drivers in the current studies are generally centered on the economic aspects of the pandemic with little attention to the social facets. This study aims to fill this gap by proposing scenario planning and analytics to study the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on large-scale information technology-led Companies. The primary and peripheral scenarios are constructed based on a balanced set of business continuity and employee health drivers. Practical action plans are formulated for each scenario to devise plausible responses. Finally, a damage management framework is developed to cope with the mental disorders of the employees amid the disease.Copyright © 2021 The Author(s)

The COVID-19 pandemic and the European Union: politics, policies and institutions

The COVID-19 pandemic posed unprecedented challenges to the European Union (EU) and its member states. In the EU, health policy competence has been and remains largely with member states. However, faced with a major external crisis, which more or less affected all member states at the same time, the EU developed a framework within which the member states (and their subnational units) could respond together to the crisis. This introductory article to the Special Issue 'The COVID-19 Pandemic and the European Union,' briefly examines how EU institutions, policies and politics were affected by the crisis. Contrary to earlier crises, the EU responded speedily and effectively this time around. The EU has become increasingly important in crisis management, in part due to the nature of transboundary crises. The EU proved itself to be a good crisis manager on some dimensions, but certainly not on all. The crisis created momentum for collective action and for fast decision-making, even though the legitimacy of some these actions has been subject to limited public scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of European Public Policy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Learning from the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications from Governance Capacity and Legitimacy

This paper examines the crisis management learning by the Norwegian government after the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on types of learning based on the concepts of governance capacity and legitimacy. Using unique interview data with 36 elite administrative and political executives in Norway, the study finds varied learning by the involved actors, and most learning about coordination between ministries and agencies, which are amplified by the lack of knowledge related to analytical capacity. The study contributes to advance the analytical understanding of crisis management learning and provides insight into what a high performing government in the pandemic attempts to learn. © 2023, The Author(s).

SAFETY CHALLENGES AND CRISIS COMMUNICATION IN HUNGARIAN BUSINESS HOTELS DURING COVID-19

The aim of the study is to examine the means used by 4-star domestic business hotels to motivate tourists to visit during the coronavirus epidemic, to carry out an investigation of these hotels' attempts to preserve their image and to ascertain their main safety messages before, during and after the crises. In the framework of the empirical research, in-depth interviews were conducted with the staff responsible for crisis communication in the examined hotels;as a supplementary investigation, the authors also reviewed their Facebook pages and websites as crisis communication interfaces. The coronavirus epidemic did not negatively affect the image of hotels, and its preservation was achieved through communication and participation in movements. After the pandemic, safety became the main topic;the most important messages are that the guest is safe in the hotel, the regulations are followed, hygiene is taken care of, and the guest can count on them. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] A tanulmány célja annak vizsgálata, hogy a hazai négycsillagos üzleti szállodák a koronavírus-járvány első két hulláma alatt milyen eszközökkel motiválták a turistákat látogatásra, mit tettek ebben az időszakban az imázs megőrzése érdekében, illetve mi a fő üzenetük a biztonság vonatkozásában a krízis előtt, közben és után. Az empirikus kutatás keretében a szerzők mélyinterjúkat készítettek a vizsgált szállodák kríziskommunikációért felelős munkatársaival, kiegészítő kutatásként egy kvantitatív és kvalitatív tartalomelemzés során a Facebook-oldalakat és weboldalakat mint kríziskommunikációs felületeket nézték át. A vizsgált szállodák különböző eszközökkel ösztönözték az üzleti utazókat foglalásra. A koronavírus-járvány nem érintette negatívan a szállodák imázsát, ennek megőrzését folyamatos kommunikációval és mozgalmakban való részvétellel kívánták elérni. A vizsgált szállodák kommunikációjában jelentős változások történtek. A pandémia megjelenését követően a biztonság lett a fő témakör, a legfontosabb üzenet, hogy a vendég biztonságban van a szállodában, betartják a szabályokat, odafigyelnek a tisztaságra és higiéniára, illetve a szálloda nyitva van és a vendég számíthat rájuk. (Hungarian) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Vezetéstudomány / Budapest Management Review is the property of Corvinus University of Budapest and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Comparison of the Impacts of the Financial Crisis and the Covid-19 Pandemic Crisis on Selected Financial Indicator of Construction Companies

In the past, there have been several major and minor economic crises in global society. The financial crisis in 2008 was one of the biggest economic crises since the Great Depression in 1928. The crisis was a direct result of the decline in liquidity in global financial markets that arose in the United States as a result of the collapse of the US housing market. The Covid-19 pandemic crisis stunned all aspects of society and saw dramatic effects on society's socio-economic spectrum. The paper analyzes the effects of selected crises on the profitability of sales. The research analyzed data from companies that belong to the TOP 100 construction companies operating in Slovakia and their activities began before 2008. The data used in the survey were obtained from the annual reports of selected companies and publicly available economic portals. The aim of the paper is to compare the profitability of sales and results of selected construction companies in three periods, namely during the financial crisis in 2008, in 2014, which can be specified as a transitional period, or the market stabilized after the financial crisis and the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The survey will result in conclusions and future recommendations that will help eliminate the adverse effects of future crises on the activities of construction companies. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.