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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 10 November 2020

Smita Goorah, Jayrani Cheeneebash, Ashvin Gopaul and Satish Ramchurn

Background: Fear has been a common response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic throughout the world. In Mauritius, the outbreak of COVID-19 has been an…

Abstract

Background: Fear has been a common response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic throughout the world. In Mauritius, the outbreak of COVID-19 has been an exceptional occurrence requiring stringent confinement of the population. In this study, we have explored people’s reactions to COVID-19 during confinement, with emphasis on fear and the impact of news on the level of fear.

Methods: An anonymized online survey was carried out during confinement. Participation was voluntary. Participants reported fear level on a scale from 1-10, where no fear scored 1 and maximum fear scored 10. Participants reported the impact of news on their fear level on a scale of 1-10, where 1 represented no impact and 10 represented maximum impact. Participants reported the status of information received about COVID-19 on a scale of 1-10 where 1 represented no information on COVID-19 and 10 represented maximum information on COVID-19.

Results: The self-rated level of fear during confinement had a mean of 5.09 with 95%CI [4.70, 5.47]. This increased to a mean of 6.39 with 95%CI [6.00-6.78] at the prospect of confinement being lifted. The difference was statistically significant (paired-sample T-test, p<0.001). With regard to the impact of news on fear of COVID-19, the mean for local news was 5.97 with 95%CI [5.59, 6.34] whereas that of worldwide news was 6.86 with 95%CI [6.50, 7.23]. Worldwide news had a more significant impact (paired-sample T-test, p<0.001). The information score about COVID-19 had a mean of 5.12 with 95%CI [4.71, 5.53].

Conclusions: Participants experienced a moderate level of fear of COVID-19 during confinement which increased at the prospect of confinement being lifted, implying that people felt safer during confinement. Their fear was influenced more by international news than by local news. Overall participants reported that they were moderately well informed about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Details

Emerald Open Research, vol. 1 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2631-3952

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 14 April 2023

Christopher Raymond and Paul R. Ward

This chapter explores theory and local context of socially constructed pandemic fears during COVID-19; how material and non-material fear objects are construed, interpreted and…

Abstract

This chapter explores theory and local context of socially constructed pandemic fears during COVID-19; how material and non-material fear objects are construed, interpreted and understood by communities, and how fears disrupt social norms and influence pandemic behavioural responses. We aimed to understand the lived experiences of pandemic-induced fears in socioculturally diverse communities in eastern Indonesia in the context of onto-epistemological disjunctures between biomedically derived public health interventions, local world views and causal-remedial explanations for the crisis. Ethnographic research conducted among several communities in East Nusa Tenggara province in Indonesia provided the data and analyses presented in this chapter, delineating the extent to which fear played a decisive role in both internal, felt experience and social relations. Results illustrate how fear emotions are constructed and acted upon during times of crisis, arising from misinformation, rumour, socioreligious influence, long-standing tradition and community understandings of modernity, power and biomedicine. The chapter outlines several sociological theories on fear and emotion and interrogates a post-pandemic future.

Details

The Emerald Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions for a Post-Pandemic World
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-324-9

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 June 2023

Abdul Samad Kakar, Aervina Misron, Rauza, Natanya Meyer and Dilawar Khan Durrani

The fear of COVID-19 has been identified as a significant predictor of adverse work-related outcomes. Grounded on conservation of resource theory, this study examines the impact of

Abstract

Purpose

The fear of COVID-19 has been identified as a significant predictor of adverse work-related outcomes. Grounded on conservation of resource theory, this study examines the impact of fear of COVID-19 on faculty members' job turnover intention (TI) and job insecurity, as well as the relationship between job insecurity and TI. Additionally, the authors investigate job insecurity as a potential mediating variable between the fear of COVID-19 and TI.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from faculty members (n = 226) working in Pakistan's public sector universities and analysed through PLS-SEM using SmartPLS software.

Findings

The results indicated that fear of COVID-19 was positively and significantly associated with both TI and job insecurity. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that job insecurity has a positive correlation with TI. In addition, the study's findings endorsed the mediating role of job insecurity between fear of COVID-19 and TI.

Practical implications

The study highlights the importance of addressing the fear of COVID-19 and job insecurity among faculty members, as they are significant predictors of TI. The findings suggest employers should prioritise providing a safe work environment and reducing uncertainty to retain their workforce during the pandemic.

Originality/value

This study adds to the literature as it conceptualises the indirect mechanism that links fear of COVID-19 to TI and job insecurity and provides practical implications that may reduce faculty members' TI.

Details

International Journal of Educational Management, vol. 37 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-354X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 May 2023

Garima Saini, Sanket Sunand Dash and Anurag Tiwari

Healthcare workers’ (HCWs’) job-related high exposure to Covid-19 virus arouses fear of Covid-19 among them. Based on the Theory of Mind (ToM), the study predicts that fears will…

Abstract

Purpose

Healthcare workers’ (HCWs’) job-related high exposure to Covid-19 virus arouses fear of Covid-19 among them. Based on the Theory of Mind (ToM), the study predicts that fears will lead to negative psychological (psychological distress) and behavioral (withdrawal intentions) outcomes. ToM is also used to identify social intelligence as a means to counter fear of Covid-19 on heightened psychological distress and increased withdrawal intentions.

Design/methodology/approach

To investigate the study design, a sample of 262 HCWs, including doctors, nurses and technicians, were surveyed using standardized questionnaires.

Findings

As predicted, Covid-19 fear led to increased withdrawal intentions with heightened psychological distress partially mediating the relationship. The alleviating role of social intelligence on the effects of Covid-19 was supported as high social intelligence reduced HCWs’ turnover intentions, with decreased psychological distress partially mediating the relationship.

Originality/value

Given the universality of the Theory of Mind (ToM), the findings of this study are likely to be generalizable to all pandemics. The study results support the increased application of ToM in organizational settings and have both theoretical and practical implications for health administrators. Based on study results, health administrators are exhorted to develop ToM-based mental models to understand and deal with the fear of contagious diseases. Health administrators can also increase HCWs’ social intelligence to deal with the negative perceptual and behavioral outcomes arising from the emotions aroused by the nature of their work.

Details

International Journal of Manpower, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-7720

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 July 2022

Sadia Shaheen, Sehar Zulfiqar, Bashir Ahmad and Muhammad Ahmad-ur-Rehman

Fear of COVID-19 is a new workplace hazard that has made drastic changes at workplaces globally. Based on the conservation of resource (COR) theory, this research investigates the…

Abstract

Purpose

Fear of COVID-19 is a new workplace hazard that has made drastic changes at workplaces globally. Based on the conservation of resource (COR) theory, this research investigates the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and employee engagement. Furthermore, this study examines the moderating role of emotional stability in the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and employee engagement.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected using self-administrated questionnaires from bank employees located in different cities of Pakistan. PROCESS macro by Hayes et al. (2017) was used to analyze 267 valid responses.

Findings

Consistent with the hypotheses of this study, fear of COVID-19 was negatively associated with employee engagement. In addition, the moderating role of emotional stability was confirmed in the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and employee engagement. The findings of this study support the notion that fear of COVID-19 can be considered a workplace stressor that affects employee engagement. By contrast, emotional stability acts as a personal resource with a buffering effect.

Research limitations/implications

This study investigates only the moderating mechanism in the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and work engagement. A self-reported questionnaire was used to collect the data. For future studies, other sources can be used to reflect the actual situation.

Originality/value

This study is currently relevant because of the sudden occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic that has mentally and emotionally challenged the service employees. Unlike most prior studies, which investigated the impact of fear of COVID-19 on the health sector professionals, this study investigated the impact on the bank employees. Moreover, this study is among the first to provide insights on the role of employee's personality to maintain positive work attitudes during uncertain circumstances from COVID-19.

Details

International Journal of Emerging Markets, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-8809

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 September 2022

Gaurav Deep Rai and Saurabh Verma

Principally, this study aims to test a conceptual framework of the moderating influence of fear of COVID-19 on the following hypothesized relationships (1) quality of work life…

Abstract

Purpose

Principally, this study aims to test a conceptual framework of the moderating influence of fear of COVID-19 on the following hypothesized relationships (1) quality of work life and bankers' commitment, (2) the mediating spillover effect of job satisfaction in the quality of work life (QWL) and affective commitment relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

A quantitative cross-sectional research design is adopted on 318 bankers chosen from four prominent Indian cities. The mediation model is tested through SPSS, PROCESS macro, and AMOS. Conditional process modeling is also administered to test the moderating effect of fear of COVID-19.

Findings

The results suggest that the positive effect of QWL on commitment is completely mediated through job satisfaction. Further, the fear induced by COVID-19 negatively moderated the positive direct relation of QWL with commitment and the positive mediating spillover effect of job satisfaction.

Originality/value

The present research is virtually the first to introduce fear of COVID-19 as a psychological construct, to test a moderated mediation model for implications to organizational behavior and human psychology theory and practice. In coalescence of the need satisfaction, spillover, and COR theories, the authors postulate that as spillover between the domains of an individual's life (work, social, financial, personal, and overall life satisfaction) occurs, such effect is calibrated (augmented or attenuated) by the degree of risk/threat/depletion of their resources in the quest for attaining higher valued resources (overall life satisfaction). The moderated mediation mechanism is suggested for replication in other avenues for greater generalizability.

Details

International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, vol. 72 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1741-0401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2022

Ghulame Rubbaniy, Ali Awais Khalid, Abiot Tessema and Abdelrahman Baqrain

The purpose of the paper is to investigate co-movement of major implied volatility indices and economic policy uncertainty (EPU) indices with both the health-based fear index and…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to investigate co-movement of major implied volatility indices and economic policy uncertainty (EPU) indices with both the health-based fear index and market-based fear index of COVID-19 for the USA and the UK to help investors and portfolio managers in their informed investment decisions during times of infectious disease spread.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses wavelet coherence approach because it allows to observe lead–lag nonlinear relationship between two time-series variables and captures the heterogeneous perceptions of investors across time and frequency. The daily data used in this study about the USA and the UK covers major implied volatility indices, EPU, health-based fear index and market-based fear index of COVID-19 for both the first and second waves of COVID-19 pandemic over the period from March 3, 2020 to February 12, 2021.

Findings

The results document a strong positive co-movement between implied volatility indices and two proxies of the COVID-19 fear. However, in all the cases, the infectious disease equity market volatility index (IDEMVI), the COVID-19 proxy, is more representative of the stock market and exhibits a stronger positive co-movement with volatility indices than the COVID-19 fear index (C19FI). This study also finds that the UK’s implied volatility index weakly co-moves with the C19FI compared to the USA. The results show that EPU indices of both the USA and the UK exhibit a weak or no correlation with the C19FI. However, this study finds a significant and positive co-movement of EPU indices with IDEMVI over the short horizon and most of the sampling period with the leading effect of IDEMVI. This study’s robustness analysis using partial wavelet coherence provides further strengths to the findings.

Research limitations/implications

The investment decisions and risk management of investors and portfolio managers in financial markets are affected by the new information on volatility and EPU. The findings provide insights to equity investors and portfolio managers to improve their risk management practices by incorporating how health-related risks such as COVID-19 pandemic can contribute to the market volatility and economic risks. The results are beneficial for long-term equity investors, as their investments are affected by contributing factors to the volatility in US and UK’s stock markets.

Originality/value

This study adds following promising values to the existing literature. First, the results complement the existing literature (Rubbaniy et al., 2021c) in documenting that type of COVID-19 proxy matters in explaining the volatility (EPU) relationships in financial markets, where market perceived fear of COVID-19 is appeared to be more pronounced than health-based fear of COVID-19. Second, the use of wavelet coherence approach allows us to observe lead–lag relationship between the selected variables, which captures the heterogeneous perceptions of investors across time and frequency and have important insights for the investors and portfolio managers. Finally, this study uses the improved data of COVID-19, stock market volatility and EPU compared to the existing studies (Sharif et al., 2020), which are too early to capture the effects of exponential spread of COVID-19 in the USA and the UK after March 2020.

Details

Studies in Economics and Finance, vol. 40 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1086-7376

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 19 September 2022

Sarah Chiumbu, Nkosinothando Mpofu and Konosoang Sobane

Fear appeals are persuasive messages that attempt to arouse fear to motivate or influence behaviour change and are widely used in health promotion. This chapter analyses how fear

Abstract

Fear appeals are persuasive messages that attempt to arouse fear to motivate or influence behaviour change and are widely used in health promotion. This chapter analyses how fear appeal messaging was used by the Namibian and South African mainstream print media to communicate COVID-19 during the two countries’ main waves of the pandemic. Specifically, we examine the framing strategies that the media used to persuade behaviour change. Mainstream media has enormous potential to influence health-related behaviour and perceptions. Therefore, it is compelling to examine the mainstream media’s framing of COVID-19. This study draws on framing theory to examine media frames and the use of fear appeal in the coverage of COVID-19 in the top English-language newspapers in the two countries. We argue in this chapter that using fear appeals in public health communication by the media may be counterproductive as a tool of persuasion.

Details

COVID-19 and the Media in Sub-Saharan Africa: Media Viability, Framing and Health Communication
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-272-3

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 August 2022

Moustafa Mohamed Nazief Haggag Kotb Kholaif, Xiao Ming and Gutama Kusse Getele

This research aims to profoundly investigate the post-COVID-19's opportunities for customer-centric green supply chain management (GSCM) and perceived customer resilience by…

Abstract

Purpose

This research aims to profoundly investigate the post-COVID-19's opportunities for customer-centric green supply chain management (GSCM) and perceived customer resilience by studying the correlation between fear-uncertainty of COVID-19, customer-centric GSCM, and the perceived customers' resilience. Moreover, to examine how the perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities moderates the relationship among the variables.

Design/methodology/approach

In this study partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was adopted on a sample of 298 managers and customers in the Egyptian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) market for data analysis and hypotheses testing.

Findings

Preliminary results indicate that the fear-uncertainty of COVID-19 positively affects customer-centric GSCM. Also, external CSR moderates the association between fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 and customer-centric GSCM. However, internal CSR does not moderate this relationship. Customer-centric GSCM has a significant positive impact on the perceived environmental and social resilience. However, it has an insignificant effect on the perceived financial resilience. Also, customer-centric GSCM has a significant mediation outcome on the relation between fear-uncertainty of COVID-19 and the perceived environmental and social resilience. However, this relation is insignificant regarding the perceived financial resilience.

Practical implications

Managers could develop a consistent strategy for applying CSR practices, providing clear information and focusing on their procedures to meet their customer needs during COVID-19. Governments and managers should develop a consistent strategy to apply customer-oriented green practices to achieve customers' resilience, especially during the pandemic.

Originality/value

Based on the “social-cognitive,” “stakeholder” and “consumer culture” theories, this study shed light on the optimistic side of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it also brings the concepts of social responsibility, resilience and green practices back into the light, which helps in solving customers' issues and help to achieve their resilience.

Details

International Journal of Emerging Markets, vol. 18 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-8809

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 July 2021

Abdallah Alsaad and Manaf Al-Okaily

This study explores the acceptance of protection technology, namely, exposure detection apps, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Unlike other situations, the context of the…

Abstract

Purpose

This study explores the acceptance of protection technology, namely, exposure detection apps, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Unlike other situations, the context of the pandemic is characterized by large levels of threat and fear which largely affect the human decision-making process. To identify such characteristics, this study investigates the acceptance of exposure detection apps from the perspective of protection motivation theory (PMT). It examines how the perceived risk of Covid-19, perceived fear of Covid-19, self-efficacy, response efficacy and protection motivation interact to predict the acceptance of exposure detection apps.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 306 Jordanian participants, and structural equation modelling was used for data analysis.

Findings

The results reveal that acceptance of these apps is triggered by the perceived risk of Covid-19, which increases the experienced level of fear. The latter then initiates a compelling desire or motivation to protect oneself by using the recommended adaptive response (exposure detection app). The results show that an increased level of self-efficacy and perceived efficacy of exposure detection apps also contribute to the development of protection motivation and later the intent to use exposure detection apps.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the technology acceptance domain by developing a context-driven model of the key characteristics of pandemics that lead to different patterns of technology acceptance. The key components in designing effective marketing campaigns to prompt the use of exposures detection apps are discussed.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 35 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

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