Search

Cyberloafing is a workplace problem that has emerged over the past two decades and continues to be problematic as workers' schedules become more flexible and deterrents associated with being physically present in an office are unavailable. Understanding the complex conditions under which employees are more likely to engage in cyberloafing activity continues to be valuable for businesses. This study identifies and models seven conditions that influence cyberloafing and investigates how interconnected social and deterrence factors affect employees' cyberloafing behavior. With a cross-sectional random sample of 324 employees from 14 provinces in China, the necessary condition analysis is used to identify the necessary conditions for high cyberloafing, and the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative approach is conducted to explore the configurational impacts of multiple antecedent conditions on high cyberloafing. The results show that no single condition is necessary for a high level of employee cyberloafing and that three distinct configurations of multiple conditions equivalently contribute to high cyberloafing among employees. Among all configurations, high visibility of cyberloafing, a lack of certainty of formal sanctions, and a lack of reward for not cyberloafing play important roles in explaining employees' cyberloafing. This study is the first to use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to explore how different combinations of social and reinforcement antecedents contribute to cyberloafing, which goes beyond existing research that explores antecedents independently and offers new insights into cyberloafing's interconnected antecedents and their complex causality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has seriously threatened the mental health of college students. This study intended to invest whether perceived threat avoidability of COVID-19 relates to psychic anxiety among college students during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the mediating roles of COVID-19-specific wishful thinking and COVID-19-specific protective behaviors in this relationship. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in China, using a random sampling method (February 6–25, 2020). Self-reported questionnaires were conducted online included the Perceived Threat Avoidability of COVID-19 Scale, COVID-19-specific Wishful Thinking Scale, COVID-19-specific Protective Behaviors Scale, and the Hamilton Psychogenic Anxiety Scale. The data were analyzed using Structural equation modeling and Bootstrapping procedure. Results: A total of 2922 samples were collected in this study. Perceived threat avoidability of COVID-19 is negatively related to psychic anxiety (β = −0.158, p < 0.001), and both COVID-19-specific wishful thinking (β = −0.006, p = 0.029, 95% CI: [−0.012, −0.001]) and protective behaviors (β = −0.029, p < 0.001, 95% CI: [−0.043, −0.018]) mediate this relationship. Also, COVID-19-specific wishful thinking is found to correlate with COVID-19-specific protective behaviors negatively (β = −0.112, p < 0.001). Conclusion: Perceived threat avoidability of COVID-19 contributes to psychic anxiety among college students. COVID-19-specific wishful thinking strategy plays a negative mediating role and increases the level of anxiety; COVID-19-specific protective behaviors strategy plays a positive mediating role and reduces the level of anxiety; meanwhile, wishful thinking also suppresses college students from adopting protective behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Chinese college students' social cyberloafing out of class has a curvilinear effect on academic performance and whether students' levels of psychological detachment and relaxation mediate the effect. Design/methodology/approach: A field survey was used to collect 502 self-reported responses from student Internet users at a large university located in central China. Findings: The results show an inverted U-shaped relationship between social cyberloafing out of class and academic performance. Two types of effort recovery experience gained from social cyberloafing, psychological detachment and relaxation, mediate that effect. Students' social cyberloafing out of class is positively associated with psychological detachment and relaxation, which in turn, have opposite effects on academic performance. Practical implications: This study offers novel insights into the effects of social cyberloafing on college students' academic achievement. The findings illustrate how social cyberloafing can serve as a recovery experience and improve academic performance, but it can hinder performance if the cyberloafing is excessive. Originality/value: This study extends the cyberloafing literature by focusing on Chinese college students' cyberloafing out of class. The study finds that a moderate amount of social cyberloafing out of class can result in psychological detachment, relaxation and improved performance when returning to academic work. However, both too much or too little social cyberloafing can result in difficulty returning to academic work and reduced academic performance. The findings are novel to the cyberloafing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumer citizenship behavior is widely considered to be vital to business success. However, the role of resource uniqueness and service quality in encouraging citizenship behavior in tourism settings has not been well understood. Grounded on a framework integrating the Stimulus-Organism-Response Model and Social Exchange Theory, this study examines whether tourism resource uniqueness and service quality affect tourists' citizenship behaviors (i.e., word-of-mouth recommendations and providing feedback) through the mediating effect of tourist emotion (i.e., positive and negative emotions). A total of 321 samples collected from three types of scenic spots in China were analyzed using structural equation modeling and Bootstrapping procedures. Results suggest that both tourism resource uniqueness and service quality positively predict positive emotion and negatively influence negative emotion, which is further positively and negatively associated with word-of-mouth recommendation and providing feedback, respectively. Moreover, both positive emotion and negative emotion mediate the effects of tourism resource uniqueness and service quality on tourists' citizenship behaviors. Findings provide evidence that both resource uniqueness and service quality are critical to understand tourists' citizenship behavior, and offer important marketing implications for destinations to manage tourist emotional experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this study was to investigate how and when online product presentation influences individual purchase intention of wearable devices in China. This study hypothesized that online product presentation would influence individual mental imagery, which, in turn, would impact purchase intention through perceived social risk and positive emotion, but this effect would be moderated by individualism–collectivism value at the individual level. We performed a laboratory experiment (2 × 2) to collect the data (N = 254). The experimental results indicated that there was a significant interaction effect between the product feature presentation video and usage scenario presentation picture on mental imagery. In addition to a direct effect, mental imagery had an indirect effect on purchase intention through perceived social risk and positive emotion. Additionally, the behavioral effect of perceived social risk was moderated by individualism–collectivism. Specifically, compared with individualists, perceived social risk had a stronger impact on collectivists' purchase intention. This study contributes to a greater understanding of the mechanism through which online product presentation drives purchase intention, with a particular emphasis on how individualism–collectivism value at the individual level moderates consumers' intention to purchase wearable devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several earlier studies validate the positive impact of information technology (IT) capability on firm performance during economic expansion in developed countries. Given sustained IT investments and rapid adoption of various IT in developing countries (e.g. China) in the 2000s, there is a need for new research to test whether prior findings still hold true with up-to-date data from a period of economic downturn in developing countries. Thus, this study attempted to reexamine the linkage between IT capability and financial performance during recent financial crisis in 2008, especially in China context. Our results show that during the period of financial crisis, Chinese firms with superior IT capability tend to outperform a sample of control firms on average profit ratios but not on cost ratios, even after adjusting for prior performance. We also find that the profit performance effects of IT capability can be sustained over a long period of economic downturn. This study contributes to research by extending a different context (i.e. China) from developed countries with new data from economic downturn and providing new finding to reconcile prior research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community and diversity shifts of bacteria and microeukaryotes with strong environmental and spatial variations have been unveiled in the Pearl River Estuary (PRE) and northern coastal part of South China Sea (SCS). However, it is not clear what the determining factors shape the microbial community and how the biotic interactions respond to the estuarine and oceanic environment. Here, we established the multiple regression models (MRM) and co-occurrence networks on microbial communities in PRE and SCS habitats. The results showed that there were significant differences of the abiotic factors affecting the bacterial and microeukaryotic communities between PRE and SCS habitats. Salinity explained the largest variations to the microbial community dissimilarities in PRE. Whereas spatial and environmental factors determined the microbial community dissimilarities in SCS. Positive relations between parasitic lineages (e.g. Perkinsea and Cercozoa) and algal taxa (Dinophyceae, Cryptophyta, Chlorophyta and Ochrophyta) dominated in the PRE network. While parasites Syndiniales positively correlated with other Syndiniales and protists in SCS. Strong positive associations among autotrophic and heterotrophic groups were revealed in both niches. Therefore, the biotic interactions are also important and may be responsible for the unexplained variations of the abiotic factors from MRM models. Microbial network in the PRE estuarine water had weakened resistance to environmental disturbances, while the SCS network had greater capacity to maintain network stability. This study shed light on the different mechanisms of abiotic and biotic factors in shaping the compositions of bacteria and microeukaryotes between PRE and SCS niches, and highlights the weakening effect of environmental disturbances on the microbial network stability., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Although positive safety leadership has attracted increasingly academic and practical attention due to its critical effects on followers' safety compliance behavior, far fewer steps have been taken to study the safety impact of laissez-faire leadership., Objective: This study examines the relationships between safety-specific leader reward and punishment omission (laissez-faire leadership) and followers' safety compliance, and the mediations of safety-specific distributive justice and role ambiguity., Methods: On a two-wave online survey of 307 workers from high-risk enterprises in China, these relationships were tested by structural equations modeling and bootstrapping procedures., Results: Findings show that safety-specific leader reward omission was negatively associated with followers' safety compliance through the mediating effects of safety-specific distributive justice and role ambiguity. Safety-specific leader punishment omission was also negatively associated with followers' safety compliance through the mediating effect of safety-specific role ambiguity, while safety-specific distributive justice was an insignificant mediator., Originality: The study addresses and closes more gaps by explaining how two contextualized laissez-faire leadership measures relate to followers' safety behaviors, following the contextualization and matching principles between predictors, mediators and criteria, and by revealing two mechanisms behind the detrimental effects of laissez-faire leadership on safety outcomes., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Liu, Mei, Skogstad, Wu, Liu and Wang.)

Background: COVID-19 has seriously affected people's mental health and changed their behaviors. Previous studies for mental state and behavior promotion only targeted limited people or were not suitable for daily activity restrictions. Therefore, we decided to explore the effect of health education videos on people's mental state and health-related behaviors., Methods: Based on WeChat, QQ, and other social media, we conducted an online survey by snowball sampling. Spearman's non-parametric method was used to analyze the correlation related to mental health problems and health-related behaviors. Besides, we used binary logistic regression analyses to examine mental health problems and health-related behaviors' predictors. We performed SPSS macro PROCESS (model 4 and model 6) to analyze mediation relationships between exposure to health education videos and depression/anxiety/health-related behaviors. These models were regarded as exploratory., Results: Binary logistic regression analyses indicated that people who watched the health education videos were more likely to wear masks (OR 1.15, p < 0.001), disinfect (OR 1.26, p < 0.001), and take temperature (OR 1.37, p < 0.001). With higher level of posttraumatic growth (PTG) or perceived social support (PSS), people had lower percentage of depression (For PSS, OR 0.98, p < 0.001; For PTG, OR 0.98, p < 0.01) and anxiety (For PSS, OR 0.98, p < 0.001; For PTG, OR 0.98, p = 0.01) and better health behaviors. The serial multiple-mediation model supported the positive indirect effects of exposure to health education videos on the depression and three health-related behaviors through PSS and PTG (Depression: B[SE] =  - 0.0046 [0.0021], 95% CI - 0.0098, - 0.0012; Mask-wearing: B[SE] = 0.0051 [0.0023], 95% CI 0.0015, 0.0010; Disinfection: B[SE] = 0.0059 [0.0024], 95% CI 0.0024, 0.0012; Temperature-taking: B[SE] = 0.0067 [0.0026], 95% CI 0.0023, 0.0013)., Conclusion: Exposure to health education videos can improve people's self-perceived social support and inner growth and help them cope with the adverse impact of public health emergencies with better mental health and health-related behaviors., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Despite the documented relationship between active-approaching leadership behaviors and workplace safety, few studies have addressed whether and when passive-avoidant leadership affects safety behavior. This study examined the relationship between two types of safety-specific passive-avoidant leadership, i.e., safety-specific leader reward omission (SLRO) and safety-specific leader punishment omission (SLPO), and safety compliance, as well as the moderating effects of an individual difference (safety moral belief) and an organizational difference (organizational size) in these relationships. These predictions were tested on a sample of 704 steel workers in China. The results showed that, although both SLRO and SLPO are negatively related to safety compliance, SLPO demonstrated a greater effect than SLRO. Moreover, we found that steel workers with high levels of safety moral belief were more resistant to the negative effects of SLRO and SLPO on safety compliance. Although steel workers in large enterprises were more resistant to the negative effects of SLPO than those in small enterprises, the SLRO-compliance relationship is not contingent upon organizational size. The current study enriched the safety leadership literature by demonstrating the detrimental and relative effects of two types of safety-specific passive-avoidant leadership on safety compliance and by identifying two boundary conditions that can buffer these relationships among steel workers.

Mining and smelting activities are the primary sources of toxic metal pollution in China. The purpose of this study was to investigate the pollution risk and identify sources of metals in the arable soil of a Zn/Pb mining and smelting district located in Huize, in Southwest China. Topsoil (346) and profile (three) samples were collected and analyzed to determine the total concentrations of eight toxic elements (Cd, Hg, As, Pb, Cr, Cu, Zn and Ni). The results showed that the mean Cd, Hg, As, Pb, Cr, Cu, Zn and Ni concentrations were 9.07, 0.37, 25.0, 512, 88.7, 239, 1761 and 90.3 mg/kg, respectively, all of which exceeded both the Huize and Yunnan soil background levels. Overall the topsoil was quite acidic, with a mean pH of 5.51. The mean geoaccumulation index ( Igeo ) revealed that the pollution level was in the order of Pb > Zn > Cd > Hg > As > Ni > Cu > Cr. The ecological risk index ( E i ) indicated that there were serious contamination risks for Cd and Hg, high risk for Pb, moderate risk for As, and Cd and Hg were the dominant contributors to the high combined ecological risk index ( E r ) with a mean parameter of 699 meaning a serious ecological risk. The Nemerow pollution index ( P n ) showed that 99.1% of soil samples were highly polluted or worse. Horizontally, high concentrations of Cd, Hg, As, Pb and Zn appeared in the north and middle of the study area, while Cr, Cu and Ni showed an opposite trend. Vertically, as the depth increased, Cd, Hg, As, Pb and Zn contents declined, but Cr, Cu and Ni exhibited an increasing trend. The mobilities of the metals were in the order of Zn > Cd > Hg > As > Pb. Horizontal and vertical distribution, coupled with correlation analysis, PCA and CA suggested that Cd, Hg, As, Pb and Zn mainly came from the anthropogenic sources, whereas Cr and Ni had a lithogenic origin. The source of Cu was a combination of the presence of parent materials as well as human activities. This study provides a base for the local government to control the toxic metal pollution and restore the soil environment system and an effective method to identify the sources of the studied pollutants.