How the COVID-19 pandemic affected hotel Employee stress: Employee perceptions of occupational stressors and their consequences

This study sought to examine the impacts of the global coronavirus pandemic on hotel employees’ perceptions of occupational stressors and their consequences. Paired t-tests and structural equation modeling were applied to examine the responses of 758 hotel employees in the United States. The findings showed that occupational stressors after the outbreak of the pandemic consisted of three domains: traditional hotel-work stressors, unstable and more demanding hotel-work-environment stressors, and unethical hotel-labor-practices-borne stressors. The impacts of these stressors differed from the hypothesis that traditional hotel-work stressors positively affect job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The findings showed that job satisfaction and organizational commitment significantly explained job performance, subjective well-being, and prosocial behavior, but they did not significantly influence turnover intention. Hotel employees’ pre-pandemic perceptions of occupational stressors and their consequences also differed significantly from their perceptions after the pandemic had broken out.     

Government and social trust vs. hotel response efficacy: A protection motivation perspective on hotel stay intention during the COVID-19 pandemic

Based on protection motivation theory (PMT), this study conceptualizes a research framework to explain and examine customer intentions regarding hotel stays during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected from 700 U.S. consumers via a crowdsourcing website in July 2020. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the collected data for testing proposed hypotheses. The analytical results showed that the level of threat perceived by customers significantly reduced their intention to stay at a hotel. On the contrary, individual customer response efficacy significantly enhanced their intention to stay at a hotel. Additionally, both government and social trust, as well as hotel response efficacy, were found to significantly increase hotel stay intention by mediating the effects of threat perception and individual response efficacy. To the best of our knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts to apply PMT to explain customer hotel stay intentions during the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Balancing risk with virtual private networking during a pandemic

When the pandemic struck and teaching went online worldwide, universities had to make pressing decisions that balanced cybersecurity against other factors, including health and safety, usability, and cost. One such challenge Indiana University (IU) faced was how to accommodate the secure telecommunications needs of 130,000 faculty, staff, and students who would now be teaching, learning, doing research, and working from home. Some universities reflexively promoted virtual private network (VPN) use for all activities. Such an approach would have been unsustainable at IU, however, owing both to the licenses and resources needed for the sheer number of users and to the high-throughput applications on which they rely. Perhaps even worse, it would have increased the chances that the VPN would be unavailable during a critical incident or other situation in which secure communications must be guaranteed. Instead, IU launched an awareness campaign demonstrating exactly when VPN use is and isn’t needed. In addition, network staff employed a VPN feature called split tunneling to reduce the load. This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of this approach and how IU made the decision to balance both sides of the risk equation to ensure the continued advancement of its mission throughout the pandemic.     

突发公共事件对电影行业影响的量化研究

人工收集和整理2012—2018年在中国市场上映的首轮院线电影信息数据，构建电影需求的嵌套logit回归模型，以新冠肺炎疫情为准自然实验，来量化突发公共事件对电影行业复产复工的影响。结果显示：第一，关于上映时间选择，在恢复营业后，如果所有因为疫情尚未上映的电影选择顺延上映能有效避免过度竞争的局面。第二，关于上映节奏控制，控制好未定档电影的上映节奏，保持适当的竞争能促进经济效益提升。其中，从11月份开始以每周两部的频率上映未定档电影的经济效益最佳。第三，关于上映方式选择，与线下播放相比，疫情期间选择线上播放能及时收回成本并有利于经济收益最大化的实现。研究结论为电影行业制定复产复工策略提供依据，为未来应对突发公共卫生事件提供参考。     

Attitudes of ageing passengers to air travel since the coronavirus pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on the demand for air transport. One passenger segment that has received relatively little attention is ageing passengers (defined as aged 65+), in spite of the fact that this group has been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, and in recent years has been viewed as a potential growth market. Therefore, the aim of this brief paper is to analyse the attitudes of ageing passengers by assessing air travel plans in the next 12 months, examining the factors influencing future flying decisions, and investigating the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on perceived risks and experiences associated with flying. The findings show that over 60% of ageing passengers are planning to travel by air in the next 12 months, although the nature of their trips may change. Factors such as flexible ticket booking and quarantine rules do not appear to be key drivers affecting travel decisions and within the different stages of the air journey, getting to/from the airport is perceived as the safest stage. The findings suggest that there are various COVID-19 implications for airlines and airports serving this market segment, ranging from the use of self-service technology, the generation of commercial/ancillary revenues and the design of surface access policies.     

A SWOT analysis of China's air cargo sector in the context of COVID-19 pandemic

This paper discusses the situation of China's air cargo sector facing the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the expectation that it can go out of recession more easily than China's air passenger sector, this paper analyzes four aspects that are favorable and unfavorable for its further development: (1) strengths (China's sustainable economic basis and proliferating cargo suppliers), (2) weaknesses (insufficient cargo capacity and less business internationalization), (3) opportunities (top authority support, rising e-commerce demand, and new technological momentum), and (4) challenges (uncertain trade environment and increasing profitability pressure). Then this paper suggests strategies for China's air cargo suppliers to adapt to the pandemic.     

Exogenous shocks and managerial preparedness: A study of U.S. airlines’ environmental scanning before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic

Managerial preparedness is a constant concern for firm stakeholders. This concern is exacerbated during times of immense stress brought about by exogenous shocks. In this paper, we analyze the preparedness of U.S. commercial airline management teams to the largest systematic exogenous shock to date, namely the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019 and 2020. We do this by underpinning the paper with theory on environmental scanning and managerial dysfunction and then documenting the signals and actions of management around multiple public health scares. These include the SARS outbreak, the Swine Flu outbreak and the COVID-19 outbreak. Our results, based off of corporate filings with the SEC, is that airline management had multiple “dry runs” before the COVID-19 outbreak that should have lead them to prepare for financially catastrophic scenarios such as the one observed in 2020. Instead, management teams failed to learn from these, and other, prior shocks. Instead, they focused on other, less serious threats while diffusing their financial buffers through dividends and share buybacks.     

Pandemic (COVID‐19) Policy,Regional Cooperation and the Emerging Global Production Network†

In this paper, we explore the possible policy responses to the COVID‐19 pandemic shock as well as the related economic (financial crisis) shocks on trade and global value chains (GVC) in East Asia. We find that regional policy coordination is critical to mitigate and isolate the pandemic shock. It is important to identify the pandemic events early to flatten the pandemic curve at the national and regional level. This supports a recent study by the World Bank (2020), which highlights the importance of early mitigation policies during the pandemic shock. The cost of the pandemic and economic shocks will increase significantly when several countries in the region experience the pandemic shock concurrently. In this case, flattening the regional pandemic curve becomes important. The results also indicate the need for greater coordination in East Asia to mitigate the pending economic shock in terms of unemployment, corporate bankruptcy and financial market fragility. The paper also highlights that the stability of the GVC network is critical during the pandemic in terms of hedging the risk of disruptions to the procurement of critical medical and health products as well as maintaining service linkages to manufacturing, such as the logistics sector. Regional policy coordination and the stability of GVC will be valuable in the post‐pandemic recovery of the region.     

城市化进程中的乡村衰落现象：成因及治理——“乡村振兴战略”实施视角的分析

党的十九大报告提出了“实施乡村振兴战略”。乡村振兴是“中国梦”不可或缺的组成部分，城市化进程中的乡村衰落现象不容忽视，乡村问题的解决关系到乡村振兴战略能否实现和现代乡村能否建成。为此，剖析了我国乡村衰落的成因，探索了乡村振兴战略落实的办法，提出了现代乡村建设的可能路径。