In European countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a demanding work situation for office employees who have been required to work from home (hereinafter referred to as remote workers). Due to curfews, school closures, and leisure restrictions in Austria, remote work circumstances have changed compared to before the pandemic. By combining event system theory with transactional stress theory, we aim to identify the most important resources for maintaining remote workers’ well-being, perceived productivity, and engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. We collected daily data (five working days for each remote worker) once from March to May 2020 (2222 employees) and again from November 2020 to January 2021 (1268 employees) and explored the role of personal (self-goal setting, self-efficacy, home-office experience), external (equipment at home), and organizational (work-related and social) resources for changes in well-being, perceived productivity, and engagement. Well-being and engagement decreased less when remote workers indicated high resources of self-efficacy and social support at the beginning of the crises. Results further reveal that an improvement in resources from the first to the second measurement was associated with a reduced decline in well-being, productivity, and engagement, respectively. We discuss implications for HRM and provide suggestions for future research.

Growing awareness of the fashion industry’s negative impact on people and the environment has led to considerable growth of the sustainable fashion market. At the same time, Black Friday purchases increase annually as the sales event develops into a global phenomenon. As sustainable fashion brands are choosing to participate in the event, many communicate their offers via the social media platform Instagram. To gain a competitive advantage and maintain their sustainable corporate images, some brands use greenwashing and/or bluewashing strategies. The first part of this study explores which strategies were employed in Instagram content posted by sustainable brands, using quantitative and qualitative content analysis. We propose a research-based model of nine greenwashing/bluewashing strategies. The second part of the study examines predictive factors for consumer evaluations of Black Friday ads by sustainable brands, using an online survey and a stepwise multiple regression analysis. Findings show that consumers’ critical attitude towards Black Friday and high ad skepticism predict positive evaluations while sustainable purchase behavior predicts negative evaluations. These insights suggest that ‘sustainable’ Black Friday campaigns may appeal to consumers who show a general concern for the environment and issues of social sustainability, but not to those who exhibit actual sustainable behavior.

In response to the climate crisis, organizations are encouraging employees to adopt pro-environmental behavior (PEB). While descriptive norm interventions (e.g., many people engaging in PEBs) are generally positive, mixed findings suggest an alternative approach may maximize effects. Using self-concordance theory, we hypothesize that the attribution of normative behavior (intrinsic/extrinsic) interacts with personal values to motivate behavior, especially for those with extrinsic values. In a time-lagged experiment with 1,712 participants, we tested descriptive norms with either intrinsic or extrinsic attributions, a norm-only condition, or no norm. Surprisingly, self-concordant attributions did not increase PEB, and extrinsic attributions led to a greater increase than intrinsic or norm-only conditions. Organizational pro-environmental support correlated independently with PEB but the moderation effect was non-significant. These counterintuitive findings suggest further exploration and implications for future research.