The effect of COVID-19 fear on psychological capital dimentions: A research on the employees of accommadation establishments

One of the areas where the biggest change has occurred during the Covid-19 (New Coronavirus) epidemic has been on working life. In this process, a flexible working system was adopted in many sectors, then with the normalization period, some workplaces started actively over time, and some other businesses adopted alternating or hybrid working systems. Along with the pandemic, the economic crisis has affected employees on the one hand and led to employees carrying health-related concerns and fears for themselves and their families on the other hand. The sudden appearance of the disease, the fast spread, and the possible consequences of government decisions that arise to prevent the spread of the virus, created negative effects on people's mental health as they lived in panic, fear, and anxiety. Employees make efforts to ensure that the virus is not transmitted to them in the working environment while they continue their activities in fear and anxiety about job security in enterprises; that they are experiencing a difficult time. It is estimated that this situation experienced by employees affects their productivity, motivation, and performance, creates stress, and leads to anxiety. There is a consensus that the tourism sector is also one of the sectors negatively affected by the epidemic process, and the service sectors most affected by Covid-19 are the travel and tourism sectors. As it is known, increasing the performance of tourism employees working in a labor-intensive sector is of great importance both in terms of improving the quality of services provided and ensuring customer satisfaction, as well as in terms of achieving organizational goals. Psychological capital, as one of the developing areas of positive organizational behavior, is considered to be a psychological resource that can stimulate development and performance at the personal level. Increasing the psychological capital levels of tourism employees is effective in getting the desired efficiency from them and increasing their performance. The aim of this thesis study is to examine the effect of Covid-19 fear on psychological capital dimensions, which are widely accepted by positive psychologists and can be explained as the ability of individuals to get out of adversity and recover. The quantitative research method was used in the research. In order to test if the independent variable has an influence on the dependent variable by data collected using quantitative research, an information was collected from 404 people working actively from different departments in 5 star hotels of Antalya and its surrounding. The analysis of the data was carried out with the SPSS 25.0 program. The results of the research was evaluated with a significance level of p<.05. Frequency analyses were performed according to demographic characteristics and information found in the research. ANOVA, T-Test, Normality Test, Pearson Product Moment Correlation Analysis, Simple and Multivariate Regression were applied to determine the relationship between the variables. According to the results of the research, a significant relationship was found between the fear of Covid-19 and the dimensions of psychological capital. Although there was a negative significant (r=-0.127, p= 0.01) relationship between the Covid-19 fear and optimism dimension, it was determined that this relationship was weak. As the level of optimism decreases, the fear of Covid-19 increases. In addition, it was found that there was a negative effect (p=0.003<0.05) and significant relationship between covid-19 fear and resilience dimension. As the level of psychological resilience decreases, the fear of Covid-19 increases. In the research it was determined that there was a negative effect (r=-0.229, p=000<0.05) and significant relationship between the Covid-19 fear and hope dimension. However, in relationship between Covid-19 fear and self-sufficiency had negative effect (r= -0.145, p=0.004<0.05), and low-level of an existing relationship. As the level of self-efficiency decreases, the fear of Covid-19 increases. According to the results of simple and multivariate regression analyses, it was observed that Covid-19 fear had a significant (F=14.763, p= 0.000) effect on psychological capital dimensions. At the end of this analysis the effects found on Covid-19 fear are; negative effect on the size of optimism dimention (β=-0.161; p=0.011), negative effect on the size of resilience dimention (β=-0.222; p=0.003), negative effect on the size of hope dimention (β=-0.152; p=0.000) and negative effect on the size of self-sufficiency dimention (β=-0.210; P=0.004). In addition, it was concluded that the dimensions of resilience and self-sufficiency of psychological capital in accommodation establishments are higher than other types of dimensions.