COVID-19 stressors and stress appraisals: Empirical evidence from Taiwan

COVID-19 has spread to more than 120 countries worldwide since the initial large-scale outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and the quarantine measures taken to prevent the spread of infection and control the pandemic have seriously impacted the global economy and organizational operations. T...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of stress management 2024-07
Main Authors: Kao, Kuo-Yang, Pan, Li, Hsu, Hao-Hsin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chinese Cultural Groups
COVID-19
Employee Attitudes
Female
Human
Male
Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Perceived Stress
Stress
Theories
Threat
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Summary:COVID-19 has spread to more than 120 countries worldwide since the initial large-scale outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and the quarantine measures taken to prevent the spread of infection and control the pandemic have seriously impacted the global economy and organizational operations. Taiwan is one of the few places with relatively few cases in 2020, but it had a greatly increased number of cases in 2021. Building upon the transactional theory of stress, this study investigated whether COVID-19 stressors in 2021 influenced employees’ stress appraisals (e.g., challenge and threat appraisals) and boundary conditions of the effect of COVID-19 stressors on organizational citizenship behavior. Two-wave data were collected from 374 supervisor–employee dyads, and online survey questionnaires were conducted in Taiwan from May to June 2021; particularly, the increase in confirmed cases of COVID-19 was the highest in this period. The findings indicated that COVID-19 stressors were significantly associated with challenge appraisals rather than threat appraisals. Furthermore, the findings indicated that a direct effect of COVID-19 stressors on challenge appraisals and an indirect effect of COVID-19 stressors on organizational citizenship behavior (via challenge appraisals) were strengthened when supervisors’ COVID-19 adaptive practices were high. This study mainly contributes to the existing stress literature by clarifying that new COVID-19 stressor can be a challenge stressor rather than a threat stressor in different countries and workplace contexts. The theoretical and practical implications of the research findings are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: journal abstract)
ISSN:1072-5245
1573-3424
DOI:10.1037/str0000333