Reaction to COVID-19, social media engagement and well-being: a mediation analysis

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to disruption of employee well-being; changing the work scenario across the globe. The psychological impact of this pandemic is an undeniable stressor greatly affecting employee well-being across cultures. Social media, in such a time of crisis, can provide the requisite support by filling the emotional, informational and instrumental voids. In order to explain how reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic influences an individual’s employee well-being, this study first examines the relationships between pandemic reactions, social media engagement and employee well-being, and then develops a completely mediated model by fully integrating these links. The results, of structural equation modelling analyses conducted for 304 employees from Hospitality (129) and IT/ITeS sector (175) in India, offered strong support for the proposed model. We found that pandemic reactions were indirectly and positively associated with employee well-being; mediated by social media engagement. This study theoretically contributes to the employee well-being literature by revealing how social media engagement completely mediates the relationship between pandemic reactions and employee well-being. The study also offers practical implications by stressing the significant role played by social media engagement in influencing employee well-being in these testing times.

KEYWORDS:

• Employee well-being
• social media engagement
• pandemic reactions
• COVID-19
• mediation analysis
• structural equation modelling

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Puja Khatri

Prof. Puja Khatri is a Professor at USMS, GGSIPU, Delhi. She is a doctorate in the field of Organizational Behaviour and Higher Education. She is a certified behaviour analyst with specialisation in Psychometric Profiling. In her 20 years of experience, she has published more than 140 research papers in journals of repute. She won the ‘Best Professor in OB’; award by ET NOW, India (2019). She has to her credit edited books in the area of Human Resource Management, Business Communication and Personality Development, Mind Management, Management by Optimism, sustainable development in organisations and mind management for management.

Khushboo Raina

Dr. Khushboo Raina is an Assistant Professor at Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management Studies, New Delhi. She has done her doctoral work in the area of Human resource management and Higher education from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University. She has more than 7 years of research and teaching experience. She has to her credit more than 30 papers published in Journals and Conference Proceedings of National and International repute and also 1 edited book. Her research interests include the areas of Organization Behaviour, Information technology, Business communication and Social sciences.

Sumedha Dutta

Dr. Sumedha Dutta is presently working as an Associate Professor with Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Management Studies, Delhi. She is a research scholar at University School of Management Studies, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi and has submitted her doctoral work in the area of servant leadership and positive psychology. Her keen research areas include Organization Behaviour and Human Resource Management. She has over 20 papers published in National and International Journals and conference proceedings to her credit.

Harshleen Pahwa

Ms. Harshleen Kaur is a research scholar at USMS, GGSIPU, Delhi. Her area of research is Perceived Employability and Student Well-being.

Preeti Kumari

Ms. Preeti Kumari is a research scholar at USMS, GGSIPU, Delhi. Her area of research is Happiness at work.