Shattered but smiling: Human resource management and the wellbeing of hotel employees during COVID-19

The purpose of this paper is to explore the human resource management (HRM) practices adopted by hotels during COVID-19 and to examine the impact of COVID-19 on the wellbeing of hotel employees using qualitative thematic analysis. This study presents HRM practices that organizations can use to effectively manage employees in uncertain times. There is compelling evidence that employee-centered HRM practices strongly impact employee wellbeing. This paper integrates the insights from an HRM framework for wellbeing using a job demands-resources model. The paper identifies themes that confirm and extend existing theories and models of wellbeing. The findings are important for policy makers by offering guidance for managing people effectively during tough times.     

Terminator or accelerator? Lessons from the peer-to-peer accommodation hosts in China in responses to COVID-19

This study investigates how peer-to-peer accommodation (P2PA) hosts in China have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. A multi-case study approach was adopted to depict the decision-making logic of three different types of hosts—speculators, diplomats, and entrepreneurs—based on an awareness-motivation-capability (AMC) framework under COVID-19. The findings highlight the role of owner motivation (profit/sharing/entrepreneurial-driven) and capabilities, such as having a unique value proposition and linkages with other hospitality experience, under COVID-19. Meanwhile, the platform collaboration capability failed to support survival during the pandemic. Moreover, the current study indicated that, after the COVID-19, entrepreneurs will continue to innovate, diplomats’ operations will remain unchanged and speculators will quit hosting. Hence, COVID-19 is an accelerator of P2P industry that reserving the hosts who embrace the original features of the P2PA sector, e.g. sharing and a focus on the experience, and eliminating the hosts who have diluted the uniqueness of the sector.     

Too afraid to vote? The effects of COVID-19 on voting behaviour

This paper studies the causal effect of local exposure to COVID-19 on voting behaviour and electoral outcomes using evidence from the regional elections held in Spain on 12 July 2020. Exploiting the variation in exposure to COVID-19 and using a difference-in-differences identification strategy, we show that turnout was between 2.6 and 5.1 percentage points lower in municipalities that experienced positive cases of COVID-19. In addition, the results show a substantial increase in the probability of voting for nationalist parties. We discuss the idea of perceived fear being the potential mechanism driving our results.     

The COVID-19 crisis: A public choice view

Many observers have been puzzled by the sight of otherwise freedom-loving citizens consenting to the stripping of their civil rights and the massive budgetary expansion of their governments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Conversely, governments who ‘kept their cool’ such as those of Brazil and Sweden were heavily criticised by the Western media. Adopting James Buchanan's contractarian approach, this article seeks to model how the interplay between citizens and their government is affected by a health crisis. Citizens' increased willingness to pay for improved control of risks is found to play a major role.     

重大公共危机中科研协同团队识别研究——以诊断试剂为例

遴选合适的科研机构以整合成科研协同力量对于应对重大公共危机，尤其是对于防治和遏制新型冠状病毒肺炎等重大紧急疫情至关重要。首先，构建科研力量协同整合潜在对象识别理论模型，并在此基础上构建识别方法。以突发重大公共危机中的诊断试剂科研攻关为研究对象，以诊断试剂领域科研力量协同整合作为案例进行实证研究。最终识别出7个协同合作群组及29个关键核心机构，而且可将其整合为针对不同科研攻关需求的科研力量。结果还表明，在整合诊断试剂领域科研力量时，高校是与其它机构衔接的主要核心纽带，来自国家层面的科研院所及军队系统机构可以提供有力支持，而高新技术企业也是不可忽视的重要力量。     

The role of economic structural factors in determining pandemic mortality rates: Evidence from the COVID-19 outbreak in France

Among the majority of research on individual factors leading to coronavirus mortality, age has been identified as a dominant factor. Health and other individual factors including gender, comorbidity, ethnicity and obesity have also been identified by other studies. In contrast, we examine the role of economic structural factors on COVID-19 mortality rates. Particularly, focusing on a densely populated region of France, we document evidence that higher economic “precariousness indicators” such as unemployment and poverty rates, lack of formal education and housing are important factors in determining COVID-19 mortality rates. Our study will help inform policy makers regarding the role of economic factors in managing pandemics.     

How did COVID-19 impact air transportation? A first peek through the lens of complex networks

The current outbreak of COVID-19 is an unprecedented event in air transportation. This is probably the first time that global aviation contributed to the planet-wide spread of a pandemic, with casualties in over two hundred countries. As of August 23rd, 2020, the number of infected cases has topped 23 million, reportedly relating to more than 800,000 deaths worldwide. However, there is also a second side of the pandemic: it has led to an unmatched singularity in the global air transportation system. In what could be considered a highly uncoordinated, almost chaotic manner, countries have closed their borders, and people are reluctant/unable to travel due to country-specific lock-down measures. Accordingly, aviation is one of the industries that has been suffering most due to the consequences of the pandemic outbreak, despite probably being one of its largest initial drivers. In this study, we investigate the impact of COVID-19 on global air transportation at different scales, ranging from worldwide airport networks where airports are nodes and links between airports exist when direct flights exist, to international country networks where countries are contracted as nodes, and to domestic airport networks for representative countries/regions. We focus on the spatial-temporal evolutionary dynamics of COVID-19 in air transportation networks. Our study provides a comprehensive empirical analysis on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on aviation from a complex system perspective using network science tools.     

The pricing of European airbnb listings during the pandemic: A difference-in-differences approach employing COVID-19 response strategies as a continuous treatment

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major shock to the global tourism industry. Given its peculiarity, this paper analyzes one of the most intriguing questions in the Airbnb literature – the pricing of Airbnb listings – by taking advantage of a difference-in-differences methodology that largely draws on variations in country-level policy responses to the pandemic. Relying on a dataset containing weekly information from 130,999 continuously active listings across 27 European countries from 2019 to 2020, this study first investigates the exogenous impact of response policies (proxied by the COVID-19 Stringency Index) on demand. Secondly, accounting for the endogeneity of both demand and prices, this research analyzes pricing responses to demand variations. Results show that: i) increases in the COVID-19 Stringency Index cause significant declines in Airbnb demand; ii) increases in demand cause, on average, increases in Airbnb prices; and iii) pricing strategies between commercial and private hosts differ substantially.     

重大疫情下高校辅导员开展思想政治工作的五个着力点

新型冠状病毒感染的肺炎疫情防控过程中,高校大学生是一个不容被忽视的群体。抗疫是近期大学生思想政治教育工作的重中之重,事关大学生身心健康成长的根本利益,事关立德树人教育根本任务的实现。     

Modeling the lockdown relaxation protocols of the Philippine government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: An intuitionistic fuzzy DEMATEL analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic, which started at Wuhan, has shut down world economies, prompting governments to impose drastic lockdown measures of the economy and the society. As these measures are exhausted, non-COVID-19 related issues such as those associated with the mental and physical well-being of people under lockdowns became an emerging concern. As these issues are evident, not to mention the economic downturn, governments are currently looking at designing lockdown relaxation efforts by simultaneously considering both public health and economic restart. Without documented experiences to rely on, governments are resorting to trial-and-error approach in creating a lockdown exit strategy while preventing succeeding waves of cases that may overwhelm healthcare facilities. Thus, this work pioneers the use of the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method with intuitionistic fuzzy (IF) sets along with the domain of public health and the emerging COVID-19 pandemic. The DEMATEL handles the intertwined causal relationships among guideline protocols for the relaxation strategy. The intuitionistic fuzzy set theory addresses the vagueness and uncertainty of human judgments in the context of the DEMATEL. A case study of the Philippine government response for the lockdown exit is presented to evaluate the applicability of the proposed method. Findings reveal that compliance of minimum public health standards, limited movement of persons, suspension of physical classes, the prohibition of mass gatherings, non-operation of category IV industries, and non-operation of hotels or similar establishments are the most crucial protocols for such strategy. These findings offer practical insights for the government to allocate resources and impose measures to ensure their implementation, as well as for developing mitigation efforts to cushion their socio-economic impacts. Policy insights and avenues for future works are also discussed.