PurposeBased on conservation of resources theory, the present study aims to investigate the negative leadership style (i.e. despotic leadership) and its influence on a key dimension of project success (i.e. project efficiency) directly and indirectly via employees’ job stress. Moreover, this study also aims to investigate the moderating role of resilience on the relationship between despotic leadership and employees’ job stress.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a time-lagged design and collected data via purposive sampling technique from 342 information technology project employees. Data were analyzed using SPSS 25 and AMOS 24.FindingsThe findings are in line with the proposed relationship, as despotic leadership negatively influences project efficiency via employees’ job stress and resilience plays a vital role in mitigating the effects of despotic leadership on employees' job stress.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study provide direction to information technology firms to develop strategies to decrease employees’ stress and increase project efficiency.Originality/valueThis study extends the literature on leadership and information technology projects by examining how despotic leadership influences project efficiency via employees’ job stress. Negative leadership exists in organizations but has not yet been empirically explored; this study finds that it increases subordinates’ stress level and ultimately influences project efficiency.

Occupational health researchers have begun to realize that the psychological well-being of healthcare workers who are providing treatment against COVID-19 is deteriorating. However, there is minimal research conducted on it, particularly in the context of leadership. The current study aims to fill this important gap by identifying critical factors that can enhance the psychological well-being of healthcare workers. We proposed that safety specific transformational leadership enhances psychological well-being among healthcare workers, and COVID-19 perceived risk mediates this relationship. Furthermore, the safety conscientiousness of healthcare workers was proposed to be a boundary condition that enhances the negative relationship between safety-specific transformational leadership and COVID-19 perceived risk. Data were collected from healthcare workers (N = 232) treating COVID-19 patients in the hospitals of Pakistan through well-established adopted questionnaires. The discriminant and convergent validity of the data was tested through confirmatory factor analysis by using AMOS statistical package. The mediation and moderation hypotheses were tested by using PROCESS Macro by Hayes. The results showed that safety specific transformational leadership enhances psychological well-being among healthcare workers, and COVID-19 perceived risk mediates this relationship. Moderation results also confirmed that safety conscientiousness moderates the relationship between safety specific transformational leadership and COVID-19 perceived risk. This study offers implications for both researchers and practitioners.

Knowledge hiding has become an alarming issue for the organizations. Knowledge hiding is an employee’s intentional attempt to conceal knowledge requested by others at the workplace. Employee knowledge hiding significantly influences an organization’s effective functioning. This research is an attempt to extend previous work on antecedents of knowledge hiding. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, it is proposed that receiving poor treatment by organizations in the form of organizational dehumanization creates psychological distress among employees toward the organization. Distress among workers in turn intervenes the path and increases the likelihood of engaging in knowledge hiding behaviors. An employee’s felt obligation for constructive change (FOCC) may moderate the relationship between organizational dehumanization and employee psychological distress. Data for the current study were collected from 245 employees of the telecommunication sector in three-time lags. The results support the direct and indirect effect of organizational dehumanization on employee knowledge hiding behaviors through the mediation of psychological distress. The results also support the moderation of FOCC between organizational dehumanization and psychological distress. Furthermore, the findings of the study may help organizational practitioners and managers about the value of effective organizational climate and practices for better organizational functioning through knowledge sharing and providing insight into undesirable repercussions of organizational dehumanization. Implications for organizations and practitioners are discussed.

Since the dawn of history and civilization human beings have suffered colossal losses due to natural and anthropogenic causes of various types, scales and dimensions. Floods and earthquakes of relatively recent past exposed the degree and vulnerability of Pakistan in general and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) in particular. This study aimed to evaluate the capacity, affectivity and weakness of Pakistan Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) and compare and contrast it with the standards of Asian Development Bank (ADB). Data obtained through comprehensive questionnaires were processed through SPSS to determine the most important and least important five factors affecting disaster management in this specified region. The data analysis results of this study revealed and concluded that Pakistan Disaster Management Authority has yet to reach to a level where it is seen as a successful and effective organization that has the ability and capacity to deal with the mega disaster caused by natural and anthropogenic agents/sources.

This study extends prior research on the relationships between personality constructs and types of psychological contracts by exploring how the Big Five traits predict balanced psychological contracts. Further, we determine whether epistemic curiosity and rule-following behavior are key mediators of the proposed relationships. We tested our proposed hypotheses using three-wave time-lagged data from 469 respondents. The results indicated that openness to experience was positively associated and both conscientiousness and neuroticism were negatively associated with balanced contracts. Extraversion and agreeableness were not associated with balanced contracts. We also established the mediating role of epistemic curiosity in the relationships between personality traits and balanced contracts, but there was no support for the mediating role of rule-following behavior in the present study. These findings have important implications for managers and organizations in terms of selecting the right person for a job (person-job fit) and ensuring employee retention (person-organization fit), hence having a bottom-line effect on firm performance. Future research directions are also discussed.