War vs pandemic: investigating the type of extreme context as a moderator of extreme context perception effects on work alienation and its organisation

<p> With many organisations operating in challenging circum stances such as military conflicts and pandemics, a growing body of research has investigated the effects of extreme-context perceptions on job attitudes and organisa tional outcomes. While prior investigations focused on spe cific extreme contexts like warzones or pandemics, research has yet to examine whether different extreme contexts would have different intensities regarding shaping job atti tudes and organisational outcomes. This study takes a unique approach to address this gap in the existing litera ture by exploring whether the type of extreme context (war vs pandemic) moderates extreme-context-perception effects on work alienation and subsequent job attitudes and organ isational outcomes. Specifically, this study investigates the consequences of differentiated extreme contexts by using 668 valid responses from two samples: Sample 1 (N = 449), collected via snowball sampling during the Syrian civil war (2016-2019), and Sample 2 (N = 219), recruited using system atic random sampling from the Middle East during COVID-19 in 2021. Employing t-tests, Sample 1 in the wartime crisis reported higher levels of extreme-context perception, yet not quite as much worsened job satisfaction, but they had lower levels of alienation and job insecurity than those in health-crisis contexts. Using PLS-SEM, we found extreme- context perception heightened alienation, leading to increased job insecurity, decreased job satisfaction, and lower organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) outcomes. Interestingly, some of these relationships were moderated by the extreme context type. Specifically, while no significant differences were found between the two contexts regarding the relationship between extreme context perception and alienation and between alienation and job insecurity, we found that extreme-context-driven alienation is more likely to damage job satisfaction and OCB in war zones than in pandemic contexts. </p>