Exploring the pandemic's potential effects on workers' collectivist values, prosocial behaviors, and attitudes toward mistreatment

Abstract

The global COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the way we live and work in the short-term, but history suggests that the crisis may also exert deeper, longerlasting effects. With the aim of providing preliminary insight into this possibility, we theoretically construct and empirically test hypotheses for how exposure to COVID-19 stimuli (e.g., reading or watching media coverage, observing relief efforts) relates to the deep-seated values that guide workers' attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, we build from prior work to posit that exposure to COVID-19 stimuli is positively associated with workers' self-transcendent prosocial values, which motivate prosocial behaviors directed toward society as a whole (i.e., charitable donations) and coworkers (i.e., helping). Extend the extant literature, we further argue that exposure to COVID-19 stimuli will be positively associated with conservation values emphasizing selfrestraint, submission, protection of order, and harmony in relations, which in turn influences workers' willingness to tolerate mistreatment by authorities (i.e., abusive supervision, authoritarian leadership, exploitation). Evidence from 2,929 full-time Chinese employees tracked for nearly 2 months and a diverse sample of 310 workers in the United States generally support our arguments, but also provide insight into potential cultural nuances.

The role of perceived workplace safety practices and mindfulness in maintaining calm in employees during times of crisis

“…It is not just a stressor for a few but most employees (Yan et al, 2021). In the COVID‐19 context, workers become anxious and depressed when they do not exactly know which actual risks they may get because COVID‐19 is a mostly uncontrollable and unpredictable global crisis with continuing changes and causes shifts in individuals' deep‐level values (Dryhurst et al, 2020; Li et al, 2021). Furthermore, prior studies have highlighted the importance of researching the effects of the perceived health risks of a pandemic on employees in various settings, such as in the hotel industry (Vo‐Thanh et al, 2021a, 2021b) and the healthcare sector (Deressa et al, 2021).…”

“…The items were rated on a five‐point scale ranging from one (totally disagree) to five (totally agree) for CV19PHR, PWSPs, mindfulness, and JP and from one (never) to five (very often) for burnout. We also added eight control variables, including demographic variables (age, gender), job‐related variables (seniority, contract type, working mode change), and organization‐related variables (ownership, organizational size, type of industry) to examine how they could affect dependent variable because previous studies have linked these variables to employee work outcomes (Lee, 2021; Li et al, 2021; Mihalache & Mihalache, 2021; Sasaki et al, 2020; Yuan et al, 2021).…”

“…Working during COVID‐19, employees may also encounter concerns regarding social gaze. COVID‐19 is an intricate problem that is not only a medical issue but also affects society as a whole (Dryhurst et al, 2020; Li et al, 2021). Employees feel a sense of uncertainty and extreme stress due to COVID‐19, an uncontrollable and widespread phenomenon compared with the stress experienced in other high‐risk workplace environments and everyday life.

The impact of COVID‐19 on my psychology and performance is different from that of my usual high‐risk working context because of the unpredictability and uncontrollable nature of COVID‐19.

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“…Unlike previous pandemics, such as Ebola or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), COVID‐19 is asymptomatic and has a high mortality rate. When faced with a disaster causing many deaths, workers become more appreciative of life and adopt more prosocial behaviors toward society and coworkers (Grant & Wade‐Benzoni, 2009; Li et al, 2021). COVID‐19 is also a more chronic episode that will trigger relatively long‐term impacts on employee attitudes and behaviors and “cool,” enduring changes to intrinsic values of individuals, compared with acute cases (e.g., terrorist attacks) that often cause “hot,” relatively short‐term impacts (Grant & Wade‐Benzoni, 2009; Li et al, 2021).…”

Greening work–life balance: Connecting work, caring and the environment

“…Work on this conceptualisation of sustainable care systems began before the Covid-19 pandemic, which has highlighted inequalities in our care systems that could be better understood, and perhaps improved or rectified, if this model of a sustainable care system was applied to rethink how people and environmental care is supported in our society. In early stages of the pandemic when many countries globally were restricting movement and travel, through increased pro-social behaviours (Li et al, 2021), there were reports of increased bird life in urban areas and less pollution in waterways. However, these positives sit alongside increasing inequalities in society caused by the pandemic, and society's response to it.…”