BackgroundHow do the police officers perceive health risk, psychological distress, and work stress during the COVID-19 outbreak in China? This study explores the health risk perception, work stress, and psychological distress of police officers who worked at the front line to implement lockdown measures.Materials and MethodsWe conducted a large-scale field survey (N = 5,611) with police officers sample in the northwestern part of China from February 29 to March 7, 2020. Independent-sample T-test and ANOVA were used to analyze whether there are differences in health risk perception, work stress, and psychological distress between different groups. The regression analysis was employed to figure out the factors that influence police officers’ psychological distress.ResultsResults showed a gender difference in perceiving work stress among police officers. Also, police officers with chronic disease perceived higher health risks, more psychological distress, and higher work stress. Additionally, police officers above 45 years old significantly perceived higher health risks than young officers did. It also revealed that working hours contribute to police officers’ health risk perception, psychological distress, and work stress. Finally, our results highlight that age, working hours, chronic disease, health risk perception, and work stress significantly contribute to police officers’ psychological distress.ConclusionOur research verifies that there is a gender difference in perceiving work stress among police officers. Police officers with ongoing medical issues and above 45 years old suffer more during the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Our research suggests that the government should pay more attention to their physical health and mental health. The heavy workload containing the COVID-19 extends police officers’ working hours, causing higher health risks, work stress, and psychological distress. This study contributes to the psychological distress literature and provides a way forward to other countries struggling to contain the COVID-19.

We developed and tested a moderated mediation model of the relationship between authoritarian leadership and employees’ task performance as well as their affective organizational commitment. Analyses of multilevel, multisource, and three-wave data from 99 supervisors and 341 subordinates showed that leader effectiveness evaluations mediated the time-lagged relationship of authoritarian leadership with employees’ task performance and affective organizational commitment. Moreover, when leader capability is high, it mitigates the negative relationship between AL and employees’ outcomes. Furthermore, the leader capability moderates the indirect relationship of authoritarian leadership with employees’ task performance and affective organizational commitment via leader effectiveness evaluation. This study contributes to leadership research and extends our understanding of how and under what circumstances AL is less detrimental to employees’ workplace outcomes.

Purpose Procrastination has become a pervasive phenomenon in the workplace, yet knowledge of its antecedents remains limited. Therefore, this study explains when and why employees procrastinate. As procrastination is an individual intentional behavior to escape potential resource loss by taking actions to relax; this study regards procrastination as resource-protection behavior. Building on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, the purpose of the current study is to explore the direct impact of external situational factors (ie, stressor appraisals) and individual traits (ie, personality) and their interactive effect on workplace procrastination behavior. Participants and Methods The study adopts a quantitative approach and uses two-wave data. Data was collected through the randomized cluster sampling technique and a structured questionnaire survey. The sample consisted of civil servants in an organization located in the Shandong province of China. Received 347 valid questionnaires representing an overall response rate of 87%. The theoretical model was tested through confirmatory factor analysis and regression analyses using Mplus 7.2. Results The results show that hindrance stressor appraisal is positively related to procrastination, whereas challenge stressor appraisal is negatively related to procrastination. Neuroticism had a positive relationship with procrastination, while conscientiousness had a negative relationship with procrastination. Conscientiousness moderates the relationship between challenge stressor appraisal and procrastination such that the relationship is salient under high conscientiousness. Conclusion Overall, our study suggests that procrastination is affected by personal traits and workplace stressor appraisals. This study makes potential contributions to employees’ procrastination literature by and its understanding within the job procrastination knowledge base. Also, this study confirms the comprehensive reach and applicability of the COR theory developed by scholars such as Hobfoll (1989). In practically, the research benefits organizations by providing suggestions for managing employees’ procrastination behavior.

Procrastination is a prevalent phenomenon in organizations, yet limited knowledge is available on how situational antecedents influence it. Based on the conservation of resource theory, we explore how and when perceived red tape influences public sector employees’ procrastination behavior. Using survey data of 751 public sector employees from China, we revealed that perceived red tape is positively associated with procrastination behavior, and role overload partially mediates the relationship between perceived red tape and procrastination behavior. Employees’ perceived overqualification augments the relationship between role overload and procrastination. Further, the moderated mediation model test illuminates that the indirect effect of perceived red tape on procrastination through role overload depends on perceived overqualification, which means that higher perceived overqualification amplifies the indirect effect. Our research enriches the literature on public sector employees’ procrastination behavior.

How leaders influence followers have been a hot topic in both research and practice. Yet, prior studies have primarily focused on the impact of one leadership style, while overlooking how a leadership role may influence behavioral expressions of leaders. Particularly, being a leader means having to face time demands and workload pressure, and thus, busyness becomes a common phenomenon for leaders. Focused on perceived leader busyness, we had examined how it may influence employee interactions with leaders and how those interactions influenced leader evaluations of the performance of followers. Based on sensemaking theory, we propose that when followers have a high level of perspective taking, they are more likely to take avoidance behavior when perceiving leaders as of high busyness. Further, when followers engage in interaction avoidance behavior, leaders may consider followers as hiding errors or intentionally concealing their work process, which reduces positive evaluations (i.e., task performance and conscientiousness evaluation) while enhancing negative evaluation (i.e., deviance behavior) toward followers. We conducted two studies. Study one was conducted with a 25 participants interview and data of 297 employees to show scale validity of perceived leader busyness. Study two was conducted with 377 employees and their direct supervisors. Applying the complex modeling method, we found that followers with low-level perspective taking are less likely to engage in interaction avoidance behavior, even when perceiving leaders as high busyness; interaction avoidance behavior of followers has a positive relationship with counterproductive behavior evaluation of leaders, but a negative relationship with conscientiousness behavior evaluation. This study enriches the dyadic interactions between leaders and followers. In addition, it also shows the burden of perspective taking.