Sajid Bashir

The novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic caused a global medical emergency. Nurses working in COVID-19-designated tertiary care hospitals in Pakistan were particularly at risk. It is important to investigate compliance with safety measures among nurses to ensure their safety at the workplace. This study examines the role of fear of COVID-19 in determining compliance with safety measures, with the mediating role of safety consciousness. The data were collected from 722 nurses through a questionnaire using a cross-sectional study design. The results provide new insights into nurses’ safety literature by showing that the fear of COVID-19 and a positive safety climate have led to increased compliance with safety measures among nurses. The study suggests that improving the safety climate and addressing the fear of COVID-19 can enhance safety compliance and make the workplace safer for nurses.

This study was conducted to investigate (a) impact of Paradoxical Leadership Behavior (PLB) on employee creativity, (b) the mediating roles of employee exploration and exploitation in the above mentioned relationship, and (c) the moderating role of employee mindfulness in influencing the mediation effects. Data were collected from 262 respondents using a questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was used and the results indicate that employees working under a paradoxical leadership show more creativity by engaging in explorative and exploitative work activities. However, employee’s mindfulness does not moderate the proposed relationship. Implications and limitation of the study have been discussed.

Purpose: The success of projects is a major challenge for information technology (IT) project-based businesses (PBOs). Employees' negative emotions (NE) disrupt the employees' usual work activities by creating obstacles to routine operations. Organizations should take steps to lessen these NE. The current study assessed the mediating role of NE and the moderating influence of employee mindfulness in the association between despotic leadership (DL) and IT project success (PS).Design/methodology/approach: Time-lagged data were collected from 341 employees working in various IT-based project organizations in Pakistan using purposive sampling.Findings: Results were consistent with the authors' hypothesized framework, as DL increases employees' NE, which in turn negatively affects IT PS. In addition, mindfulness plays a buffering role in mitigating the damaging impact of DL on NE.Originality/value: Previous researchers focused on the positive aspects of leadership and its influence on PS and paid limited attention to the dark leadership style. The authors' study's findings help understand how project-based organizations can reduce employees' NE.

Although traveler risk perception is a widely used term in the hospitality and tourism literature, the pandemic related risk perception of tourist destination lacks a clear conceptualization and measurement. This study develops and validates a six item scale to measure Covid-19 risk perception of travel destinations. The scale is developed using multiple data collection methods including interviews, focus group, and survey questionnaires. The exploratory stage involved in-depth interviews and the subsequent quantitative stage gathered data through a survey questionnaire. The scale offers a framework for future empirical research on Covid-19 risk perception that will shape tourism decisions in years to come. Implications for hospitality industry and limitations are also discussed.

In this study, we considered the reverse causality of the technology acceptance model, specifically in the post-COVID-19 scenario. We propose a theoretical model that considers the impact of technology acceptance behaviors after COVID-19 over the beliefs of a user in terms of perceived ease of using technology and its usefulness. More specifically, we suggested that acceptance of technology post-COVID-19 may have influenced many technology-related individual factors such as computer efficacy, mastery experience, and self-regulated learning of users, while using technology that in turn may have affected beliefs of users about ease of using technology. Such an effect is ultimately reflected in the belief of technology usefulness and favorable post-COVID-19 attitude of users toward using technology. We further extend our model to identify mastery orientation of individuals that may moderate the relationship between technology acceptance behaviors and favorable attitude toward using technology in the post-COVID-19 scenario. Both practical and theoretical implications of this perspective are discussed.

Purpose: Using signaling theory and the literature on psychological contracts, the authors investigate how leaders' personalities shape their followers' perceptions of the type of psychological contract formed. They also suggest that leaders' personalities impact their followers' perceived contract breach. Furthermore, the authors propose that power distance orientation in organizations acts as an important boundary condition that enhances or exacerbates the relationships between personality and contract type and personality and perceived breach.Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected through multiple sources in Pakistan from 456 employees employed in 102 bank branches. Multilevel moderated path analyses provided reasonably good support for our hypotheses.Findings: The leaders' personalities impacted the relational contracts of their followers in the cases of extraversion and agreeableness, whereas neuroticism had a significant relationship with the followers' formation of transactional contracts. Similarly, agreeableness, neuroticism and conscientiousness had significant relationships with perceived breach. Finally, the power distance of the followers aggregated at a group level moderated the personality-contract type and personality-perceived breach relationships.Research limitations/implications: This research advances understanding of psychological contracts in organizations. More specifically, it shows that the personality of leader would have profound impact on the type of contract their employees form and the likelihood that would perceive the breach of contract.Originality/value: This research extends existing personality-psychological contract literature by examining the role of leaders' personalities in signaling to employees the type of contract that is formed and the perception of its breach. The role of power distance organizational culture as a signaling environment is also considered.

Supervisor phubbing occurs when supervisors use their mobile phone during an interaction with a subordinate. This study explores the effects of supervisor phubbing on employees’ organization-based self-esteem with a specific focus on subordinates’ experience of social exclusion. Drawing on data from a sample of 407 respondents, the study findings show no direct relationship between perceived supervisor phubbing and organization-based self-esteem. However, employees who perceive their supervisor as using a phone more frequently during interpersonal interactions with them reported higher feelings of social exclusion during these interactions, which, in turn, predicted lower organization-based self-esteem. The study also examined the facilitating effect of power distance between supervisors and employees, which was partially supported. The implications of these findings for organizational policy are discussed.

This study proposed protégé’s ego-resiliency as a parsimonious predictor of perceived mentoring. Uncertainty-avoidance and collectivism orientations were hypothesized as boundary conditions of this relationship. An additive multiple moderation model was developed using conservation of resource theory. Data were collected from 193 employees of a large Southeast Asian commercial bank. Results of structural equation modeling indicated that protégé’s ego-resiliency was positively related to perceived mentoring. This positive relation was stronger for protégés who held weaker uncertainty-avoidance orientations and was stronger for those who held collectivistic orientations. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

We examined leaders’ Big Five personality traits as the antecedents and followers’ in‐role and innovative performance behaviors as outcomes of paradoxical leader behavior (PLB) in people management. We also examined the moderating effect of followers’ psychological capital on PLB and its relationship with followers’ outcomes. We drew on the trait theory of leadership, social learning theory, and the conservation of resources theory to derive our hypotheses. We tested our predictions with a sample of 131 managers and 609 followers. By and large, we found support for our predictions. More specifically, leaders’ traits of extraversion and openness to experience were positively related to followers’ PLB ratings. Conversely, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism among leaders were negatively related to followers’ PLB ratings. PLB in turn was positively related to followers’ in‐role and innovative performance behaviors. Followers’ psychological capital was found to moderate the relationship between PLB and followers’ in‐role performance such that the relationship was stronger when followers’ psychological capital was high than when it was low . The implications of these findings were discussed.