Impacts of customer incivility and abusive supervision on employee performance: a comparative study of the pre- and post-COVID-19 periods

ESG activity recognition enhances organizational commitment and service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior among insurance call center staff

Service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior refers to service workers' helping, cooperating, sharing, and donating actions that benefit others at a cost to themselves. Based on ethical climate theory, this research investigates whether corporations adopting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) management enhance service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (SO OCB) among service employees. A total of 230 surveys were collected from call center workers in the insurance industry, and STATA 14.0 was used to analyze the 204 responses with useable data. The results show that employees' recognized ESG activities enable SO OCB through organizational commitment. Additionally, ESG activity recognition has a positive relationship with self-efficacy and empowerment, which helps service employees regulate external expectations. Thus, this finding is significant for call center workers experiencing emotional labor. Furthermore, the results suggest that firms can contribute to employees' SO OCB by practicing ESG activities. Firms should inform employees of their ESG management efforts as employees' recognition of an ethical climate can enhance their willingness to perform service-oriented behavior. Finally, ESG activity recognition can increase employees' organizational commitment, an important predictor of employee satisfaction and negative turnover rates.

Are algorithmically controlled gig workers deeply burned out? An empirical study on employee work engagement

BACKGROUND

With the emergence of the gig economy as a new economic form, the influence of algorithmic technology control on gig workers' perceptions and engagement has become a topic of academic concern. This study explores the emotional impact of perceived algorithmic control on gig workers and how it affects their work engagement.

METHODS

This study takes gig workers as the research object to build a structural equation model. Based on the background of gig economy and the Job Demands-Resources model, this paper constructs a mechanism model of the influence of perceived algorithmic control on the work engagement of gig workers. The research data in this paper are collected by questionnaire, and the research hypothesis is tested by the SEM structural model.

RESULTS

The gig workers in this study believed that perceived algorithmic control positively affects employee work engagement. In addition, burnout was positively correlated with employee work engagement. Burnout played a partial mediating role in the relationship between perceived algorithmic control and employee work engagement. And flow experience played a moderating role through the indirect effect of burnout on employees' work engagement.

CONCLUSION

Perceived algorithmic control causes burnout among gig workers, but strong algorithmic technology support provides them with rich work resources that can help them meet their work needs. That is, the gig workers may still demonstrate a high level of work engagement even if they experience burnout symptoms.

Service Employees' Mindfulness and Job Crafting amid COVID-19: The Roles of Resilience, Organizational Health Climate, and Health-Oriented Leadership

Due to changes in the work environment resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, service employees' behavior, that proactively reshapes the content and meaning of work (i.e., job crafting), is increasingly important. We identified mindfulness as a key individual trait contributing to job crafting in the pandemic context. The purpose of our study was to examine the mediating effect of resilience on the relationship between mindfulness and job crafting, and the moderating effects of perceived organizational health climate and health-oriented leadership on the mindfulness-resilience relationship. We administered two-wave online surveys to 301 South Korean service employees after the onset of COVID-19 (January 20, 2020). Data for mindfulness, resilience, perceived organizational health climate, and health-oriented leadership were collected via participants' self-report in March, 2020. One month later (April, 2020), we obtained their self-ratings of job crafting. Results showed that resilience mediated the relationship between mindfulness and job crafting. The positive relationship between these two variables was more pronounced when perceived organizational health climate was high than when it was low. Perceived organizational health climate further moderated the indirect effect of mindfulness on job crafting through resilience.

Government support, employee motivation and job performance in the COVID-19 times: evidence from Turkish SMEs during the short work period

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the effect of government support (short work allowances – SWA) on SME employees' job performance and employee motivation perceptions, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey data were collected from 2,781 employees working in SMEs registered to Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization (SMEDO) in Turkey. The relationships were assessed through structural equation modeling with bootstrap estimation.

Findings

The results support the proposed framework illustrating the positive effect of government support on employees' perceived motivation and job performance. Findings indicate that employee motivation has exhibited a mediating effect between government support and job performance. Another important finding is that, contrary to the classical understanding of Herzberg's two-factor theory, SWA system was able to perform as a motivating factor during the pandemic by meeting the hygiene needs.

Research limitations/implications

Since this is a cross-sectional research study, causal inferences cannot be derived from the research results.

Originality/value

There is a lack of empirical study on SME employees' perceptions on the government support during the pandemic, especially on the perspectives of emerging economies are infrequent. Turkey's case is unique in terms of providing insights on how perceived employee motivation is increased by the government supports (SWA) in Turkey, and how this motivation mediates the job performance perceptions. Besides, the impacts of government support are mostly studied at the firm or macro-levels, this study's unit of analysis is at individual level. Regarding the criticism from the motivation perspective of two-factor theory, COVID-19 context and its impact on the motivation needs have not been elaborated before. This article starts new discussions on how crisis contexts influence individual motivator factors.

Abusive supervision and employee creativity: the mediating role of passion for inventing and the moderating role of financial incentives and innovative culture

Based on work passion model and the substitutes for leadership perspectives, this study examines the process linking abusive supervision to employee creativity by focusing on the mediating influence of employees' passion for inventing and the moderating influence of financial incentives and innovative culture. Data were obtained from 191 subordinates and their direct supervisor in China. We tested hypotheses using hierarchical multiple regression analyses. The results revealed that abusive supervision was negatively related to employee creativity, and employees' passion for inventing mediated the relationship between abusive supervision and employee creativity. Furthermore, financial incentives weakened the negative relationship between abusive supervision and employees' passion for inventing, while innovative culture could not change the above relationship. This study enriches the understanding of how abusive supervision is related to employee creativity by introducing the emotional mechanism and provides practical implications for reducing the harm of abusive supervision.

Workplace Mistreatment and Health Conditions Prior and during the COVID-19 in South Korea: A Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND

This study examined the relationship between workplace mistreatment, including discrimination, abuse, and overworking, and health problems among full-time workers prior to and during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in South Korea.

METHODS

We analyzed data from the 2017 and 2020-2021 Korean Working Conditions Surveys, including the final sample of 44,425 participants. Multiple logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between workplace mistreatment and health problems among workers by gender. Interaction analysis was conducted to establish the association between the COVID-19 pandemic and health problems related to mistreatment. The occupational, demographic, and socioeconomic backgrounds were adjusted.

RESULTS

We found a significant association between workplace mistreatment and health problems, including headaches, eyestrain, and anxiety. The association increased after the COVID-19 pandemic: "discrimination" (men (OR 2.26, 95% CI 1.93-2.65), women (OR 2.73, 95% CI 2.36-3.17)); abuse (men (OR 5.42, 95% CI 2.87-10.23), women (OR 4.70, 95% CI 3.12-7.08)); and overworking: men (OR 2.36, 95% CI 2.01-2.77), women (OR 3.52, 95% CI 2.68-4.61). The interaction indicates an increased incidence of people having health problems due to workplace mistreatment (OR 1.03, 95% CI 1.00-1.06) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

CONCLUSION

Statistically, employees who experience workplace mistreatment have worse health conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the job environment and increased the association between workplace mistreatment and health problems. To eliminate the health problems related to workplace mistreatment, it is necessary to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on work and employee health conditions.

Investigating employees' deviant work behavior in the hotel industry during COVID-19: Empirical evidence from an emerging country

Employees in the hotel industry are among the most vulnerable groups that have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Anchored on the general strain theory, transactional theory of stress and coping, and theory of justice, this study investigates the mechanism through which hotel employees' perceived job insecurity affects their deviant work behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey method was used to collect three-wave sample data from 988 hotel employees in popular tourist destinations in Vietnam. Multivariate data analysis reveals a positive relationship between perceived job insecurity and deviant work behavior, and this relationship is mediated by psychological distress. Furthermore, abusive supervision positively moderates the association between psychological distress-deviant work behavior and the indirect influence of perceived job insecurity on deviant work behavior through psychological distress. These findings are useful for hotel managers seeking to manage and develop employees in a global health crisis such as COVID-19.

Do Organizational Health Climates and Leader Health Mindsets Enhance Employees' Work Engagement and Job Crafting Amid the Pandemic?

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many health- and stress-related symptoms among employees, surprisingly few studies have assessed the effect of a health-promoting organizational climate or leadership on employee work outcomes. To fill this gap, our research proposed and tested a moderated mediation model involving perceived organizational health climate (POHC), leader health mindset (LHM), work engagement, and job crafting. Our propositions were tested using two-wave data collected from 301 South Korean employees. As predicted, POHC was positively related to employees' job crafting, and this relationship was mediated by work engagement. Moreover, the positive relationship between POHC and work engagement and the indirect effect of POHC on job crafting through work engagement were more pronounced when LHM was high than when it was low. These findings support the job demands-resources model and social exchange theory and have implications for helping employees maintain their work attitudes and behavior in times of crisis.