The current study aims to understand the detrimental effects of COVID-19 pandemic on employee job insecurity and its downstream outcomes, as well as how organizations could help alleviate such harmful effects. Drawing on event system theory and literature on job insecurity, we conceptualize COVID-19 as an event relevant to employees' work, and propose that event strength (i.e., novelty, disruption, and criticality) of COVID-19 influences employee job insecurity, which in turn affects employee work and non-work outcomes. We also identified important organization adaptive practices responding to COVID-19 based on a preliminary interview study, and examined its role in mitigating the undesired effects of COVID-19 event strength. Results from a two-wave lagged survey study indicated that employees' perceived COVID-19 event novelty and disruption (but not criticality) were positively related to their job insecurity, which in turn was positively related to their emotional exhaustion, organizational deviance, and saving behavior. Moreover, organization adaptive practices mitigated the effects of COVID-19 event novelty and criticality (but not disruption) on job insecurity. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Researchers generally believe that abusive supervision leads to poor employee well‐being (e.g. poor mental health and lower job satisfaction). However, these relationships are not always observed. Based on the cognitive appraisal theory, the current research extended the content domain of abusive supervision research by examining the moderating effect of power distance orientation (the extent to which an individual accepts the unequal distribution of power in institutions and organisations), a kind of cultural value, on these relationships. We tested two independent samples (N 1 = 762 and N 2 = 347) using different methods. Results showed that employees' power distance orientation moderated the relationships of abusive supervision with employee psychological health and job satisfaction, such that the negative relationships were weaker for employees with higher power distance orientation. The findings suggest the adaptive function of cultural values employees hold in organisational behavior. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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Although conscientiousness was commonly viewed as a type of personal resource to help individuals reduce strain or mitigate the impacts of stressors, empirical research demonstrated mixed results. Based on the personal resource allocation perspective, we posited that rather than functioning as personal resource per se, conscientiousness may act as a key factor influencing how individuals allocate their personal resources. The current study examined the moderating roles of conscientiousness in the relationships that work stressors (i.e., challenge stressors and hindrance stressors) have with employee psychological strain and job performance by using multi-source, time-lagged data collected from 250 employees working at two companies. The results showed that both challenge stressors and hindrance stressors were positively related to psychological strain. Conscientiousness moderated the relationships between both stressors and psychological strain, such that the positive relationships were stronger for individuals with high conscientiousness. Conscientiousness also moderated the relationship between challenge stressors and performance, such that the relationship was positive for individuals with high conscientiousness but negative for those with low conscientiousness. Altogether, the findings suggest that conscientiousness acts as a double-edged sword that both promotes performance and exacerbates the stress reaction of employees when they are confronted with stressful situations.the outcome under consideration (e.g., performance or psychological strain). It is the first attempt to demonstrate the double-edged effect of conscientiousness in a single model and highlights the need to consider not only the work environment and individual differences, but the outcomes as well.