COVID-19 Anxiety as a Moderator of the Relationship between Organizational Change and Perception of Organizational Politics in Forestry Public Sector

Pipiet Larasatie,Dodik Ridho Nurrochmat,Triana Fitriastuti,Herry Purnomo,Efi Yuliati Yovi

doi:10.3390/f13020356

Abstract

In addition to an outstanding commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDG) agenda to good governance (goal no. 16), there is an argument that the SDGs can only be achieved through good governance with strong political institutions and processes. In Indonesia, a new era in politics has been marked with the new leadership of Joko Widodo (the current Indonesian President) who has a vision to reform the Indonesian bureaucracy. One of the bureaucratic reform implementations is the merging of the Ministry of Forestry and the Ministry of Environment into the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoE). In this kind of organizational change, employees may have increased perceptions of organizational politics and feelings of uncertainty and anxiety. This effect is suspected to be exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This article, therefore, aims to investigate the effects of organizational change in the public sector. Based on a survey of 112 state civil apparatuses in the forestry sector in Indonesia, we found that organizational change is positively related to employees’ perception of organizational politics. Nevertheless, our most intriguing finding is that the COVID pandemic situation has decreased employees’ perception of organizational politics. This is because political behaviors are difficult to perform in virtual working settings due to reduced face-to-face interaction and limited non-verbal cues.

Highlights

At the beginning of the world’s third millennium, the United Nations (UN) launched eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be met by 2015
Critiques mentioned that the MDGs left behind millions of people, especially the poorest and those disadvantaged because of their sex, age, disability, ethnicity, or geographic location [3]
In addition to an outstanding commitment of the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDG)’s agenda to good governance, there is an argument that the SDGs can only be achieved through good governance with strong political institutions and processes, e.g., [4]

Summary

Introduction

At the beginning of the world’s third millennium, the United Nations (UN) launched eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be met by 2015. Critiques mentioned that the MDGs left behind millions of people, especially the poorest and those disadvantaged because of their sex, age, disability, ethnicity, or geographic location [3]. Following the MDG’s missing targets, the UN members have adopted a shared blueprint of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to achieve 17 major targets, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In addition to an outstanding commitment of the SDG’s agenda to good governance 16), there is an argument that the SDGs can only be achieved through good governance with strong political institutions and processes, e.g., [4] In addition to an outstanding commitment of the SDG’s agenda to good governance (goal no. 16), there is an argument that the SDGs can only be achieved through good governance with strong political institutions and processes, e.g., [4]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion