The conflicting impact of COVID-19’s health and economic crises on helping
Journal article
Shoss, Mindy, Horan, Kristin A., DiStaso, Michael, LeNoble, Chelsea A. and Naranjo, Anthony. (2021). The conflicting impact of COVID-19’s health and economic crises on helping. Group and Organization Management. 46(1), pp. 3-37. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601120968704
Authors | Shoss, Mindy, Horan, Kristin A., DiStaso, Michael, LeNoble, Chelsea A. and Naranjo, Anthony |
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Abstract | Helping behaviors are considered critical for business and societal recovery in light of economic crises and natural disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic that has both economic and health disaster elements. However, because the current COVID-19 pandemic has both of these elements, it is unclear how helping may be impacted. Economic crisis research suggests that such events are associated with less helping, whereas disaster research suggests that such events are associated with greater helping. We pair the event system theory (Morgeson, F. P., Mitchell, T. R., & Liu, D. (2015). Event system theory: An event-oriented approach to the organizational sciences. Academy of Management Review, 40(4), 515-537) with these two logics (economic downturn and disaster) to suggest that health and economic threats within the COVID-19 pandemic operate with potentially opposing forces on helping-related outcomes. To test these ideas at a macro-level, we examined internet search volume for recession, COVID-19, and interest in helping. At a micro-level, we examined the relationships between work- hour insecurity and perceived job-related COVID-19 risk—two salient COVID-19-related economic and health threats—and helping customers and coworkers. Consistent with economic crisis logic, macro-level concern about recession was negatively associated with interest in helping. Moreover, at the individual level, work-hour insecurity negatively predicted helping coworkers. Consistent with disaster logic, at the individual level, perceived job-related COVID-19 threat was positively associated with helping coworkers and negatively associated with helping customers. These findings suggest that the specific feature of the COVID-19 event system (economic versus health) and the target (organizational insiders versus outsiders) matter for shaping helping behavior. These findings have implications for helping during crises that involve economic and/or disaster elements. |
Keywords | COVID-19; helping; Google Trends; work-hour insecurity; recession |
Year | 2021 |
Journal | Group and Organization Management |
Journal citation | 46 (1), pp. 3-37 |
Publisher | SAGE Publications |
ISSN | 1059-6011 |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601120968704 |
Scopus EID | 2-s2.0-85093940425 |
Research or scholarly | Research |
Page range | 3-37 |
Funder | National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention |
Publisher's version | License All rights reserved File Access Level Controlled |
Output status | Published |
Publication dates | |
Online | 26 Oct 2020 |
Publication process dates | |
Accepted | 02 Oct 2020 |
Deposited | 04 Aug 2022 |
Grant ID | T42OH008438 |
https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/8y13v/the-conflicting-impact-of-covid-19-s-health-and-economic-crises-on-helping
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