When Crises Create Fear: How Emotional Control and Improvisation Protect Job Performance

What is it about?

This study explores how employees’ perceptions of pandemic-related threats can reduce their job performance, and why this happens. It focuses on the role of job insecurity—employees’ fear of losing their jobs—as a key psychological mechanism in this process. The study also investigates how two personal skills, emotion regulation (the ability to manage one’s emotional responses) and improvisation (the ability to act creatively and effectively in unexpected situations), can protect against this harmful dynamic. Based on three-wave, multisource data collected from employees and their supervisors in Pakistan, the findings show that when employees feel threatened by a pandemic, they often believe their jobs are in jeopardy. This sense of job insecurity lowers their motivation and ability to perform well. However, employees who can effectively control their emotions and adapt quickly are less likely to experience these declines in performance. Their capacity to remain calm and flexible helps them maintain focus and productivity, even under the uncertainty and anxiety triggered by crisis conditions. For organizations, these results underscore the importance of building emotional and adaptive capabilities among employees to sustain performance during large-scale disruptions. Providing training in emotional self-regulation and improvisation can help workers manage uncertainty more effectively. Employers should also communicate transparently about job stability to reduce insecurity. By combining clear messaging with support for employees’ emotional resilience and creativity, organizations can mitigate the negative performance effects of crisis-driven stress.

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Photo by Valery Tenevoy on Unsplash

Photo by Valery Tenevoy on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This study is unique in identifying job insecurity as the mechanism linking pandemic threats to job performance while integrating emotion regulation and improvisation as personal resources that can interrupt this chain. It provides a nuanced understanding of how external, uncontrollable crises interact with internal self-regulatory and creative capacities to shape workplace outcomes. Its timeliness lies in addressing the lasting organizational and psychological effects of global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. As workplaces in Pakistan and worldwide continue to adapt to uncertainty, this research highlights actionable ways organizations can safeguard employee well-being and performance by strengthening personal and emotional competencies that buffer against fear and instability.