Tourism employees’ fear of COVID-19 and its effect on work outcomes: the role of organizational support

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has substantially affected tourism industry employees across the globe, particularly flight attendants, who work in enclosed spaces and in close proximity to others. This paper discusses the effect of flight attendants’ fear of COVID-19 (FC) on their work engagement and service behaviors. Furthermore, the moderating effect of COVID-19 organizational support (COS) on the relationship between fear and behaviors was investigated. Implications and recommendations for management with regard to the pandemic are also presented. Using a quantitative research approach, 316 Taiwanese international flight attendants were recruited through convenience and snowball sampling. Structural equation modeling was conducted to verify the causal relationships between the variables. FC was determined to negatively affect work engagement and service behaviors, impacts that were mitigated by high COS. Specifically, COS enabled the respondents to concentrate on and improve the quality of their work.

KEYWORDS:

• Fear of COVID-19
• COVID-19 organizational support
• work engagement
• service behaviors
• tourism employees

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).