No one is safe! But who’s more susceptible? Locus of control moderates pandemic perceptions’ effects on job insecurity and psychosocial factors amongst MENA hospitality frontliners: a PLS-SEM approach

Abstract

Background The research aimed to formulate and test a model concerning COVID-19 perceptions effects on job insecurity and a set of psychosocial factors comprising anxiety, depression, job burnout and job alienation in the Middle East and North African (hereafter, MENA) regional context. Also, the study attempted to examine whether locus of control can moderate these hypothesised linkages amongst customer service employees working in MENA hospitality organisations. Methods The study is based on a sample of 885 responses to an online survey and Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). Results The main findings show the existence of a significant correlation between COVID perceptions and job insecurity and all psychosocial factors, i.e., more intense COVID-19 perceptions accompany higher levels of job insecurity, anxiety, depression, job burnout and job alienation. Furthermore, our results revealed that, in pandemic time, hospitality customer service employees with external locus of control are more likely to suffer higher alienation, anxiety and depression than those with internal locus of control. Conclusions The research originality centres on the establishment that COVID-19 has a severe negative impact within the hospitality customer service labour force (in the MENA region). These effects were more profound for participants who claimed external locus of control than those with internal locus of control.

Job Insecurity and Intention to Quit: The Role of Psychological Distress and Resistance to Change in the UAE Hotel Industry

“…Previous studies on the role of JI in RTC have examined psychological contract violation as a model to determine the link. According to [ 30 ], the contract model perspective assumes that employees exchange their labor for wages; hence, JI is a violation of the contract between the company and workers. Change comes with a lot of uncertainties, thus making employees’ jobs unpredictable.…”

Protective effects of physical activity on mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…The mediating role of uncontrollability may be related to a shift towards external locus of control [59], which corresponds to perceptions that the outcome of a situation is due to fate rather than their PLOS ONE action or decision [60]. This external locus of control may render participants to be more susceptible to the impact of the pandemic [61]. Indeed, external locus of control is positively correlated with feelings of depression [62], and interestingly, adherence to exercise has also been shown to be linked to external locus of control [63].…”

Modelling Socio-Digital Customer Relationship Management in the Hospitality Sector During the Pandemic Time

“…COVID-19 virus is among the most significant environmental challenges in modern history (He & Harris, 2020;Mahmoud, Reisel, Hack-Polay, & Fuxman, 2021e). The pandemic caused rapid structural and policy-related changes, with significant consequences across diverse social and economic matters (Bartik, Bertrand, Cullen, Glaeser, Luca, & Stanton, 2020).…”

“…Furthermore, while the adaptation of web-based communication technologies, such as Zoom and WebEx, enhanced many companies' ability to maintain operations, these same developments reduced the importance of face-to-face business meetings, the need for business travel, and, therefore, the demand for hotels and air travel services (BBC, 2020). Notably, some of the COVID-19-related changes are expected to become permanent, with long-lasting effects on work-related conditions, societal anxiety, and the structure of personal and commercial interactions (Mahmoud et al, 2021e). The implications of these developments have been previously considered in the literature, indicating that pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions to mobility increased consumer reliance on modern technology (Kumar, Gupta, & Srivastava, 2020;Mahmoud et al, 2021a), thus enhancing the significance of technology-based CRM.…”