Historically, infectious diseases have been the leading cause of human psychosomatic strain and death tolls. This research investigated the recent threat of COVID-19 contagion, especially its impact among frontline paramedics treating patients with COVID-19, and their perception of self-infection, which ultimately increases their agonistic behaviour. Based on the stressor–strain–outcome paradigm, a research model was proposed and investigated using survey-based data through a structured questionnaire. The results found that the perceived threat of COVID-19 contagion (emotional and cognitive threat) was positively correlated with physiological anxiety, depression, and emotional exhaustion, which led toward agonistic behaviour. Further, perceived social support was a key moderator that negatively affected the relationships between agonistic behaviour and physiological anxiety, depression, and emotional exhaustion. These findings significantly contributed to the current literature concerning COVID-19 and pandemic-related effects on human behaviour. This study also theorized the concept of human agonistic behaviour, which has key implications for future researchers.

Purpose: The study aims to examine the role of initiative climate as a resource caravan passageway in engaging employees and developing a proactive frontline service workforce to identify the mechanisms whereby scarce resources efficiently yielding the desired outcomes can help organizations improve productivity and gain competitive advantage, thereby helping clarify the leadership–performance relationship in service organizations.Design/methodology/approach: The study employed a quantitative research design with a cross-sectional survey conducted among frontline hospitality employees in Malaysia. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to examine the hypothesized relationships.Findings: The initiative climate is significant as a resource caravan passageway to transmit the positive impact of interpersonal leadership onto the engagement and proactive performance of frontline hospitality employees in whom initiative climate and employee engagement sequentially mediated the relationship between interpersonal leadership and proactive service performance.Research limitations/implications: The online data collection procedure conducted through LinkedIn and Facebook and cross-sectional, self-reported survey method are significant limitations of the current study.Practical implications: The findings of the study will aid in developing organizational interventions for an engaged and proactive frontline service workforce, as interpersonal leadership can positively impact the engagement and proactive behavior of frontline service employees via initiative climate. Therefore, hospitality managers should value interpersonal leadership and initiative climate as coexisting organizational resources.Originality/value: The study shows the significance of initiative climate in the relationships between interpersonal leadership, employee engagement and the proactive performance of frontline service employees.

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between personal mastery orientation and employee creativity through internalized extrinsic motivation (identified regulation) and intrinsic motivation while testing job complexity as a boundary condition.Design/methodology/approach: The authors tested this study model using a cross-sectional design with a sample of (N = 361). The study population was software developers from across different cities of Pakistan. Respondents were asked to rate themselves on creative behavior. Partial least square structural equation (PLS-SEM) and PROCESS macro were used for data analysis.Findings: The results of the study confirm that personal mastery orientation positively affects employee creativity. Furthermore, both identified regulation and intrinsic motivation mediate the relationship between personal mastery and employee creativity. Job complexity was shown to moderate the direct relationship between personal mastery, identified regulation and intrinsic motivation such that for higher job complexity levels, the relationship between personal mastery and both types of motivation (identified and intrinsic) becomes stronger. The authors confirm that the indirect relationship between personal mastery and employee creativity through identified regulation was contingent upon job complexity level. In comparison, the indirect relationship between personal mastery and employee creativity through intrinsic motivation is not contingent upon the level of job complexity.Research limitations/implications: There are a few limitations to the authors' study. The current study is based on a cross-sectional design; therefore, this is of limited causal value. The authors suggest the studies examining similar relations to this study model use a longitudinal design. The incumbent of the job reports creative behavior; therefore, this is susceptible to common method bias (CMB). A peer-reported or supervisor-reported creative behavior should be used to eliminate the CMB in future studies.Practical implications: The authors' study provides valuable input in identifying the complex mechanism through which creative behavior is induced involving individual personality disposition, job attributes and various types of motivations. In this study, the authors tried to reveal the mechanism through which personal mastery orientation predicts creative behavior. In the authors' endeavor of testing the motivational paths through which personal mastery orientation predicts creative behavior, the authors confirmed the efficacy of autonomous-complex motivation based on the self-determination framework. The authors' findings add to the evidence of the importance of intrinsic motivation in inducing creative behavior and recommend that the researcher should not ignore intrinsic motivation when exploring the effectiveness of extrinsic motivation.Originality/value: The study's findings strengthen the argument of the continuum-like structure of the motivation types under self-determination theory(SDT). The authors argued that intrinsic motivation is a relatively stable type of motivation when creative behavior is involved and is not contingent upon the job attributes. These findings add to the evidence that intrinsic motivation is stable compared to extrinsic motivation. Another important contribution of this study is that the authors identified a boundary condition for the internalized extrinsic motivation when serving as creativity predicting mechanism and ruled the presence of a conditional effect when intrinsic motivation is involved.