Death Reflection and Employee Work Behavior in the COVID-19 New Normal Time: The Role of Duty Orientation and Work Orientation

Shilong Wei,Judit Oláh,Wenxia Zhou,Yuting He,József Popp

doi:10.3390/su132011174

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a destructive affair for both workplace and community. However, with the strengthen of global anti-pandemic measures, COVID-19 becomes the norm and there is an increased trend for people to reflect on life or death. Moreover, regardless of its facilitating role in advancing organizational behavior (OB) study, very few studies empirically examine the effects of death reflection in the work domain. Drawing on the generativity theory, we identify how death reflection influences employees’ in-role and extra-role performance under the COVID-19 pandemic. A longitudinal study is performed by using multi-source data from 387 employees in China. Our results reveal that the COVID-19-triggered death reflection is associated with the stronger in-role performance and organizational citizenship behaviors. We find that duty orientation is the mechanism that can explain the effects of the COVID-19-triggered death reflection on employees’ work behaviors. Furthermore, employees who reflect on death with high (vs. low) career and calling orientations tend to have higher in-role and extra-role performance, while employees who reflect on death with low (vs. high) job orientation are likely to have lower in-role and extra-role performance.

Highlights

Employees are reminded of their impermanence by various affairs occurring inside and outside the organization [1]
We proposed that duty orientation mediates the relationship between COVID-19triggered death reflection and job performance (IRP, OCBI, OCBs towards the organization (OCBO)) (Hypothesis 2)
In Hypotheses 3b, 4b, and 5b, we proposed that the indirect effects of COVID-19-triggered death reflection on job performance (IPR, OCBI, OCBO) via duty orientation are stronger when career orientation and calling orientation are high or job orientation is low than when career orientation and calling orientation are low or job orientation is high

Summary

Introduction

Employees are reminded of their impermanence by various affairs occurring inside and outside the organization [1]. These reminders of mortality result in self-protection [2,3], leading to strong anxiety, huge stress, and absenteeism from work [4] They may trigger reflection about death and significance of life, facilitating more contributions to others and organizations [5]. Though the tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic has a significant detrimental effect on people’s working life and behaviors, with the advent of the coronavirus vaccine, the COVID-19 pandemic seems to become the norm and people are learning how to coexist with COVID-19 At this moment, people have gone through changes in mind and cognition [9], for example, reduced level

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Conclusion