Abstract
Background: Since the beginning of 2020, the Corona Virus Disease has broken out globally. This public health incident has had a great impact on the work and life of the public. Aim: Based on the event system theory, this article explored the influence of the “COVID-19” event on emotional exhaustion and deviant workplace behaviors. Methods: This survey’s objects are employees working in Tianjin, Beijing, Hebei affected by the epidemic. Using the questionnaire star, the online platform of the Marketing Research Office of Peking University and “snowball” methods 700 questionnaires were collected. Results: The response rate was 89.71% (n = 700). Female employees are more sensitive to the perceived event strength of the novel coronavirus pneumonia than male employees (F = 10.94, p <0.001); Employees aged 30–40 affected by the epidemic have the highest level of emotional exhaustion (F = 5.22, p < 0.01); A higher education level leads to a higher level of emotional exhaustion (F = 4.74, p < 0.01); The emotional exhaustion is polarized with the annual family income (F = 4.099, p < 0.01). Conclusions: The novelty, disruption, criticality of the Corona Virus Disease event has had a positive impact on the emotional exhaustion of employees in the workplace; Emotional exhaustion plays a partly mediating role between event strength with constructive deviant behaviors, and destructive deviant behaviors. Emotional exhaustion has a positive effect on creative constructive deviant behaviors, challenging constructive deviant behaviors, and interpersonal destructive deviant behaviors. Emotional exhaustion has a negative impact on organizational destructive deviant behaviors, and has no significant impact on interpersonal constructive deviant behaviors.
Highlights
Since the outbreak of the Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19), the virus has spread rapidly at home and abroad
The questionnaire design part of this study mainly includes five aspects: the event strength scale designed by Morgeson [1]; the emotional exhaustion scale designed by Maslach [4]; the constructive deviant behavior scale designed by Galperin [5]; the destructive deviant behavior scale designed by Robinson and Bennett [14], shown in Table 2, and the basic demographic information of the respondents
This research is based on the event system theory, starting from the event strength perceived by the public, and exploring the changes in employees’ psychological state and their workplace behaviors after being stimulated by the external environment
Summary
Since the outbreak of the Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19), the virus has spread rapidly at home and abroad. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 59 research attempts to explores the emotional exhaustion and workplace deviance of employees of different ages, educational backgrounds, and income levels affected by the Corona. [3], which can lead to feelings of helplessness, anxiety, and social decline, job unsatisfaction, breaking organizational norms and other behaviors [4,5] This major public health event disrupted the previous lifestyle of the public, changed the previous office style of employees, and caused emotional exhaustion. This article explores the feelings of employees of different genders, ages, educational backgrounds and income levels about the COVID-19 event, and the mechanism(s) influencing employees’ perceptions of novelty, disruption, criticality of the Corona Virus Disease event with their possible destructive or constructive deviant behaviors, which should help companies understand employees’ psychological needs and practical difficulties, reduce job burnout and stimulate work enthusiasm. Employees who implement destructive deviant behavior may display behavior beneficial to the organization, and vice versa
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