TRANSFORMATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIORS DURING A PANDEMIC: FOCUS ON HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONS AND REMOTE WORK

Abstract

The topics of management and health have probably never been as closely intertwined as they are today. Companies and their practices play an important role in public health (Freudenberg, 2014). They influence every aspect of human life from food supply, air pollution, physical health, psychological wellbeing and healthcare to personal identity and lifestyle. The Covid-19 crisis has only heightened awareness of this interconnectedness. For almost three years, the pandemic focused researchers’ attention on health concerns, with burgeoning publications and research programs around this theme. But the crisis was more than just a wake-up call; it also influenced and transformed organizational behavior (Donthu & Gustafsson, 2020). Its disruptive effect on work relations has been widely documented (Fouad, 2020). For example, Hillebrandt & Barclay (2022) showed that cheating and individualistic behaviors have been exacerbated by the threat of the Covid-19 pandemic. Thus, the pandemic should not only be analyzed as a specific context for study, but also as the cause of profound transformations in organizational behavior.This special issue of RIPCO aims to contribute to this scientific momentum by bringing together contributions from organizational behavior scholars. While we are only just emerging from the crisis, we know that it is difficult to estimate its long-term effects on behavior. We have therefore chosen to focus this special issue on seven contributions dealing with the direct consequences of the pandemic: the behavior of carers and their relationship with patients, and the unprecedented development of remote working…