Recently, the Journal of Applied Psychology officially published a research paper by Associate Professor Wu Wen from the Department of Enterprise Management of our college. With the title of "Disaster or Opportunity? How COVID-19-Associated Changes in Environmental Uncertainty and Job Security Relate to Organizational Identification and Performance", this paper explores how changes in environmental uncertainty and job insecurity affect employees' organizational identity and performance change trends in the context of COVID-19 (https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001011 ).

Based on the social identity theory and the perspective of dynamic change, this study proposed and verified a model about how the uncertainty brought by COVID-19 affects employee performance. This model distinguishes the uncertainty faced by employees into internal (job insecurity) or external (perceived environmental uncertainty), and explores their different impacts on employee organizational identity, as well as the positive impact of organizational identity on employee work performance (work effort, organizational citizenship behavior, and performance). Through the Latent Change Score Approach, this study found that the increase (or decrease) in job insecurity before and during the epidemic is related to the subsequent decrease (or increase) in organizational identity, while the increase (or decrease) in perceived environmental uncertainty before and during the epidemic is related to the subsequent increase (or decrease) in employee organizational identity. Meanwhile, the increase (or decrease) in organizational identity is related to the increase (or decrease) in positive work performance. The research findings have enriched relevant literature and revealed that uncertainty in the context of COVID-19 often leads to poor employee performance by inducing anxiety. This study also provides valuable practical significance, which can help companies improve employee organizational identity and performance during crises.

The authors of this study also include Huiwen Lian (University of Kentucky), three doctoral students, and Cynthia Lee from Northeastern University in the United States. The School of Economics and Management at Beijing Jiaotong University is the corresponding unit for the paper.

Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP, ISSN: 0021-9010) is an AJG (formerly ABS) 4 *, FT50, and our A+ category journal.