Empirical Article Examining generational differences as a moderator of extreme-context perception and its impact on work alienation organizational outcomes: Implications for the workplace and remote work transformation

Mahmoud, A. B.


INTRODUCTION
Maintaining the positive emotions and attitudes of firm-level labor, especially during prolonged exposure to extreme circumstances, such as those created by the sustained grip of pandemics (e.g., , proves to be a challenge across many industries and across many types of jobs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, as an extreme context, service jobs in which personnel are perceived to be particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 exposure risks due to continuous interactions with customers as part of in-person service delivery in both the front and back office (external and internal customers) have been particularly hard-hit. Loss of jobs due to the initial wave of lockdowns worldwide followed by reopenings under modified safety rules and protocols have led to the development and implementation of innovative and agile safety protocols, many of which are based on technological innovations and strategic redesign efforts (cf. Mahmoud, Grigoriou, Fuxman, Reisel, Hack-Polay & Mohr, 2022) aimed at reducing risk while still delivering efficient and reliable services. For service employees, emerging literature Park & Kim, 2021) shows that learning new protocols and measures while being able to integrate them into their daily customer service routines feeds into COVID-triggered negative perceptions and anxiety, leading to the subsequent attitudinal (job insecurity, job satisfaction) and behavioral implications which ultimately cause deterioration of customer service, hence worsened organizational effectiveness. Furthermore, the lines between work and home have been blurred more than ever, with people working remotely, namely from home, now more than ever. Thus it can be easy for employees to start feeling as though work is taking over their lives and that they are not getting enough personal time, which leads to burnout, while also feeling separated from the workplace as a result of the lack of social interaction with colleagues and reduced opportunities for collaboration and teamwork, hence work alienation. Given the heightened stress levels expected during the experience of extreme contexts, there is a recurring need to understand the potential outcomes of the personal experiences of these contexts.
Furthermore, there are notable cognitive and social differences across generations that are known to contribute to the development of dissimilar values, causing variations in mental attitudes and behaviors (Dam, Hack-Polay, Rahman & Mahmoud, 2023;Schullery, 2013;Sharabi, Polin & Yanay-Ventura, 2019;Torsello, 2019) in technologically disrupted generationally diverse workplaces ). Yet, scholarly evaluations of multigenerational work environments assert that data regarding multigenerational variations in a range of workrelated factors, such as work values, personal characteristics, leadership preferences, and motivation, are thought to be fragmented (Van Rossem, 2021). Thus, more empirical investigations are warranted to pull the shreds of evidence together for more rigor in articulating generational differences in the workplace, especially while experiencing an extreme context. Unlike with cultural and gender diversity, little research has been done on the influence of age diversity on human resource management (HRM) policy and practices ); yet workplaces are growing more agediverse, with older employees reporting to younger managers (Cogin, 2012). In an extreme context, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the perception of the pandemic-related changes is likely to vary across generations , with differentiated consequences to employees' anxiety, alienation, job insecurity, and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). For instance, older generations are thought to be used to working in an office environment. In contrast, Millennials and Generation Z tend to be more adaptable to working from home due to their digital nativity (Mahmoud, Fuxman, Mohr, Reisel & Grigoriou, 2020). Understanding these differences is critical not only to our ability to accurately recognize the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic but also to the development and implementation of effective policies, operating methods, and strategic initiatives to transform the workplace, especially in extreme contexts. Thus what we are seeing is a period of suboptimal efficiencies for firms still needing to deliver performance and complete processes vital to financial stability. Therefore, studying generational differences among employees in the services sector in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic can provide valuable insights into how different generations respond to extreme circumstances and how they navigate the challenges associated with such contexts. Furthermore, studying this phenomenon in the Middle East is particularly important, given the region's unique social, cultural, and economic context, which can affect the way employees in the service sector experience and cope with the pandemic's impacts. Moreover, the Middle East is a region that has experienced frequent political upheaval, social unrest, and armed conflict, which presents significant challenges for workers in terms of job security, safety, and mental health. This extreme and unstable setting offers a rare chance to investigate how external factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can shape work alienation and its attitudinal and organizational outcomes leading to possible generalizations for other contexts facing pandemics amid political unrest or conflicts. The central thesis of this article is, thus, to probe the effects of extreme-context perception effects on work alienation outcomes in the generationally diverse service sector, drawing on the COVID-19 pandemic as an extreme event and the organizations in the Middle East, a region thatoutside the oil industrysignificantly relies on key service sectors such as hospitality and tourism, as a setting for this study.
Following this introduction, the rest of the article is divided into three main sections. The first discusses the emerging literature on COVID-19's impact on organizational life and establishes the hypotheses. The second section clarifies the methodological approach and data collection and analysis. The third section discusses the key findings, including the implications and limitations of the study, as well as future research directions.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHETICAL FRAMEWORK
Generational differences in the workplace Given today's increasingly competitive global market, the heterogeneity and multigenerational structure of organizational workforces provide a considerable challenge for leadership amid technological disruption and wartime-like public health crises . Generational gaps are sometimes overlooked when discussing diversity and developing resilient work environments (Drinkwater, 2021), even though theories like the theory of generations (Mannheim, 1952) and social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) have established the necessity for further exploration of generational differences in the workplace. While Mannheim (1952) postulates that life experiences shape the way attitudes, behaviors, and expectations occur across the generations, Tajfel and Turner (1986) suggest that individuals form self-concepts based on their perceived membership in social groups, in this case, generational cohorts.
However, both scholars (e.g., Grobman & Ramsey, 2020;Tortorella, Miorando, Meiriño & Sawhney, 2019) and practitioners (Drinkwater, 2021) have highlighted variations in attitudes about the workplace driven by generational differences, while others implicitly have acknowledged the differences by reporting results based on samples drawn from a specific generation (e.g., Garc ıa, Gonzales-Miranda, Gallo & Roman-Calderon, 2019). We refer to different generational cohorts in our research. They include (Dimock, 2019) the Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964); Generation X (those born between 1965 and 1980); Generation Y or the Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996); and finally, Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2011).
Recent literature, however, has cast doubt on the assumption of similarities within generational categories Rudolph & Zacher, 2016). For example, Rudolph and Zacher (2016) argue that generational differences have little effect on work processes and outcomes, while other scholars conceptualize generational cohorts based on non-age criteria such as tech-nativity (Mahmoud, Ball, Rubin, et al., 2022). However, age-defined generational groups remain the most common classifications utilized in addressing generational differences in business studies. While younger and older individuals may have distinct views at any point in time, generational cohorts enable scholars to investigate how today's older adults felt about a particular issue when they were younger and characterize how attitudes change over time (Dimock, 2019). This leads to the reason that a generational cohort is a distinctive group of people who share significant social or historical life experiences throughout pivotal developmental periods (Hernaus, Carla, Vicki Culpin & Pološki Vokic, 2014). Yet, we use generational categories conservatively to maintain conceptual coherence with mainstream sociological research while accepting the theoretical limitations identified by Rudolph and Zacher (2016). For example, Baby Boomers, as they retire, provide an ideal opening for younger generations to assume a more significant role in the workplace (Flippin, 2017b;Mahmoud, Fuxman, Mohr, Reisel & Grigoriou, 2020). However, as Rudolph and Zacher (2016) contend, generational differences do not always have an effect on job outcomes. Their immediate impacts are on work values, expectations, and attitudes, resulting in conflict and altering an employee's willingness to change (Bresman & Rao, 2017).
Recent events lend credence to studying generational differences in the employment setting, where economic progress and globalization have increased the complexity of modern workplaces . The pandemic has forced many people to stay home, and as a result, working from home has become more popular. There are many benefits to working from home, including avoiding a commute and being able to work flexible hours, there are also some challenges, such as distractions, isolation, and lack of human interaction. Therefore, understanding how the remote work movement influences mainstream practices, such as design thinking and employee experience, and the implications of recent developments for human resources (HR) procedures, the resilience of the HR system, and HR roles and duties have been central to international HRM practice and scholarship (Mahadevan & Schmitz, 2020;Mayer & Oosthuizen, 2020;Mayer, Wegerle & Oosthuizen, 2021;Syed, 2020) in generationally diverse workplaces .
Various other aspects of workplace generational differences have emerged in the past three decades. These largely center on technological use among generations. This has led to the theorization of what is increasingly known as the generational digital divide (Seland & Hyggen, 2021). Building on the earlier theory of the digital divide (van Dijk, 2013), Seland and Hyggen (2021) argue that the notion of the digital divide has several societal ramifications and does not apply only at the macro level to the North-South divide or inequalities in technology access. In fact, previous theorists (Guill en & Su arez, 2005;Korupp & Szydlik, 2005) alluded mainly to the fact that there are sharp differences in the availability of digital technologies between the rich nations of the northern hemisphere and the predominantly poorer nations of the southern hemisphere. Further sociological inquiries found that the digital divide was more complex and profound than the macro-binary division between developed and emerging economies. It encapsulates differences within each of these spheres, and some of these major divisions concern genders and generations, particularly vis-a-vis access to and use of the Internet in the workplace (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009). With regard to the generational digital divide, a major explanation focuses on the periods of the births of groups of users. Those born longer before the dawn of the digital age (1990s to present)therefore Generations X and Yare said to be more technology-resistant due to digital shock, the fact that technology advances accelerated dramatically in the 1990s, causing these older generations to fall behind. In contrast, Generation Z, born after 1995, is said to be born into the digital age, which has led sociologists to qualify them as digital natives to express the perspective that this generation is more technologysavvy (Mahmoud, Ball, Rubin, et al., 2022). Recent statistics illustrate these differences well. For example, Vogels (2019) found that 93% of Millennials have smartphones, compared with 90% of Generation X and well under 70% of Baby Boomers and 40% of older generations.
The metaverse is projected to be the next evolutionary phase of the Internet's transformation that many businesses in nearly all sectors are anticipating will become the next frontier as individuals may live, work, and interact together in a virtual environment (Kelly, 2021;Mahmoud, 2023). Meta (formerly known as Facebook), for instance, began public testing of a workplace-collaboration application called "Horizon Workrooms" (Uberti, 2022), which might be favored by younger generations and less well received by the prior generations. Further, better general health conditions over the last few decades have resulted in increases in retirement age (Osborne, 2021;Yi, Ribbens, Fu & Cheng, 2015). Moreover, developing a culture capable of attracting and retaining employees of all generations is critical during a period of mass resignations (Drinkwater, 2021) that has characterized the post-pandemic era, where the availability of a workforce can pose a crucial threat to the production and processes (Dora & Kumar, 2022), especially in the services sector, in which human resources are the most valuable asset to organizations. Hence, our work teases out this substantial consideration of performance and process effects related to generational categories. This establishes the significance of our study. Generation X is defined as self-directed, skeptical, and independent individuals born during an era themed with rapid change . In contrast to their Baby Boomer bosses and supervisors, who were noted for embracing heavy workloads, Generation X workers place great value on work-life balance, ensuring they have more time to spend with their families and social networks (Waltz, Munoz, Weber Johnson & Rodriguez, 2020). Bresman and Rao (2017) found that 61% to 77% of Generation Y and Generation Z would take more aggressive approaches to achieve their leadership goals, typically by taking more risks, compared with 57% of Generation X cohorts.
Workers from Generation X are taking on leadership roles in the workplace as Baby Boomers retire and make room for their offspring (Generation Z) to rise through the ranks (Seemiller & Grace, 2019). Consequently, many members of Generation X have interests in social media and mobile phones that are akin to those of younger generations . Then again, workers of Generation X tend to communicate in ways distinct from those of younger generations. For example, Generation Z employees prefer to connect with coworkers by text messages rather than emails, which Generation X employees find less convenient (Mahmoud, Fuxman, Mohr, Reisel & Grigoriou, 2020;Seemiller & Grace, 2019).
By 2025, Generation Y workers will account for 75% of the global human capital (Deloitte, 2014). Moreover, Generation Y is becoming the workforce's largest generational group in the Middle East . Generation Y and Generation Z employees have both been described as technology-native (Lebowitz, 2018;Mahmoud, Ball, Rubin, et al., 2022). Certainly, Generation Y is often portrayed as connected, self-assured, and nimble (Taylor & Keeter, 2010).
The youngest generation entering the workforce is Generation Z (Rikleen, 2020). Employees of Generation Z understand the value of financial stability and are recognized for their enthusiasm for work excellence and desire for professional achievement (Flippin, 2017a;Mahmoud, Fuxman, Mohr, Reisel & Grigoriou, 2020). Their use of technology and desire for job flexibility are comparable to those of Generation Y (Ryback, 2016). Additionally, both Millennials and Generation Z are seen as more ethnically and culturally diverse than any preceding generational cohort (Bresman & Rao, 2017;Flippin, 2017aFlippin, , 2017bMahmoud, Fuxman, Mohr, Reisel & Grigoriou, 2020).

COVID-19 perception and anxiety
The COVID-19 outbreak is one of the most substantial health challenges in modern history (He & Harris, 2020). Existing literature reports that the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic increased workforce anxiety levels across the Middle East and worldwide . The unfolding pandemic caused abrupt structural and policy changes with considerable consequences across a wide span of social and economic activities (Bartik, Bertrand, Cullen, Glaeser, Luca & Stanton, 2020). In response to these developments, organizations have implemented numerous operating and strategic changes that influence employees' career prospects and job security (Seetharaman, 2020). Notably, some of the COVID-19related structural changes are expected to become permanent, with long-lasting effects on work-related conditions and the overall level of anxiety .
Conservation of resources (COR) (Hobfoll, 1991) theory states that threatening and traumatic events result in a loss of personal resources. The theory also suggests that fears and uncertainties are potential stressors that can impact employees' emotional and behavioral outcomes (Toker, Laurence & Fried, 2015). COR theory points out that a significant stressor has objective environmental elements (Hobfoll, Halbesleben, Neveu & Westman, 2018) that provide "shock(s) to one's cognitive processing that pushes the individual to carefully assess this new information" (Halbesleben, Neveu, Paustian-Underdahl & Westman, 2014, p. 18). Building upon the COR perspective, researchers have discovered that fear of COVID-19 can create sleep disturbances among employees because of lessening resources while facing pandemic threats leading to job insecurity (Chavan, Galperin, Ostle & Behl, 2021;De Clercq, Haq, Azeem & Khalid, 2021;Reizer, Galperin, Chavan, Behl & Pereira, 2022). Specifically, the COVID-19 crisis can be considered an external traumatic event that changes both the ecological and organizational environments and depletes employees' resources (Reizer, Galperin, Chavan, Behl & Pereira, 2022), thus impacting their job productivity and satisfaction .
As noted earlier in this article, there are cognitive and social differences across generations (Twenge, Campbell, Hoffman & Lance, 2010). These generational differences are known to contribute to the development of dissimilar values, causing variations in mental attitudes and behaviors (Schullery, 2013). In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the perception of pandemic-related changes is likely to vary across generations . For example, people of Generations X, Y, and Z tend to have different attitudes toward work and authority, technological adaptation, and personal and professional communication methods (Gursoy, Maier & Chi, 2008). In contrast, pandemic-related developments have enacted changes in many aspects of organizational governance as well as in the use and application of communication technologies. Accordingly, we expect the association between COVID-19 perception and work-related anxiety to vary across generations (Mannheim, 1952;Seland & Hyggen, 2021;Tajfel & Turner, 1986;van Dijk, 2013). Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: The positive relationship between COVID-19 perception and anxiety is not invariant across Generations X, Y, and Z.

Anxiety and alienation
Previous research documents the positive association between anxiety and alienation (e.g., Cheng & Chan, 2008). Research further shows that COVID-19 perceptions positively predict adverse psychosocial variables, such as anxiety and depression . As discussed earlier, the COVID-19 pandemic has altered global socioeconomic realities and political policy in many pertinent ways. Governments and organizations worldwide have enacted restrictions on people's mobility, implemented lockdowns, and sanctioned severe limitations on various types of social gatherings (OECD, 2021). While these effects have been particularly profound in customerfacing industries, such as hospitality, retail, and airlines (OECD, 2020), the overall consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have translated into widespread elevation in anxiety across societies worldwide Sonmez, Apostolopoulos, Lemke & Hsieh, 2020). As such, when fear of COVID-19 is activated, it leads to anxiety, and it may affect all spheres of life, leading to many emotional and behavioral responses because, with high levels of fear, individuals may not think clearly and coherently (Ahorsu, Lin, Imani, Saffari, Griffiths & Pakpour, 2022). For example, fear of COVID-19 may lead to future career anxiety (Mahmud, Talukder & Rahman, 2020), additional media consumption (Bendau, Petzold, Pyrkosch, et al., 2021), and cyberchondria (fear and anxiety activated due to a health-related search online) (Wu, Nazari & Griffiths, 2021).
Regarding the generational perspective, we expect differences among generations to manifest in the relationship between anxiety and alienation during the COVID-19 time. Past literature (e.g.,  indicates that the perception of pandemic-related changes is likely to vary across generations due to fundamentally different work-related objectives and preferences. Moreover, Millennials and Generation Z could be more vigilant about threats to their work-life balance than older generations (Brauner, W€ ohrmann & Michel, 2021). These generational variations are likely to influence the manner in which individuals perceive COVID-19 changes and how they respond to related circumstances. For example, generation Z employees tend to be more intrinsically motivated when compared with Generations X and Y (Mahmoud, Fuxman, Mohr, Reisel & Grigoriou, 2020), whereas Generation Y is often found to be more confident and adaptable to work-related changes (Mahmoud, Grigoriou, Fuxman, Reisel, Hack-Polay & Mohr, 2022;Vogels, 2019). Accordingly, we expect the positive association between anxiety and alienation to vary across generations (Mannheim, 1952;Seland & Hyggen, 2021;Tajfel & Turner, 1986;van Dijk, 2013) during the pandemic. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 2: The positive relationship between anxiety and alienation is not invariant across Generations X, Y, and Z.

Alienation, job insecurity, and job satisfaction
Alienation refers to an individual's estrangement from self, other people, and occupation (Banai & Reisel, 2007;Lang, 1985). Alienation has a substantial relationship with a range of work outcomes involving employees' attitudes and job performance attributes (Chiaburu, Thundiyil & Wang, 2014). Alienation is known to correlate positively with job insecurity , while it associates negatively with job satisfaction (Cheng & Chan, 2008). Unsurprisingly, the cognitive and/or physical circumstances that alienate employees are likely to decrease the perception of job security, employment-related confidence, and overall job satisfaction. In fact, the adverse effects of job insecurity on job satisfaction are among the most frequently reported associations in the related literature (Reisel, Probst, Chia, Maloles & K€ onig, 2010). Continuous threats outside the workplace deplete individuals' personal resources (both cognitive and emotional). This vicious loss cycle may lead to undermining employees' ability to assign significant energy to other cognitive consuming tasks and work assignments, leading to a decrease in the perception of job security, employment-related confidence, and overall job satisfaction (Abhishek, Pratima, Kokil, Meena, Isha & Zuopeng, 2021;Behl, Chavan, Jain, Sharma, Pereira & Zhang, 2022;Holmgreen, Tirone, Gerhart & Hobfoll, 2017).
The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on employee alienation, job insecurity, and job satisfaction have also been previously examined, with indications that the alienation caused by pandemic-related restrictions to mobility, lockdowns, and economic distress has increased work-related insecurity and decreased satisfaction .
Further, the COR theory too emphasizes that resource loss in one domain (e.g., situational or external stress) may lead to resource constraints in other domains (work or educational outcomes) due to a downward spiral. For example, research has shown that employees who undergo gradual resource depletion because of the fear of a terror attack may develop job burnout or have a loss of energy in productive job behaviors (De Clercq, Haq & Azeem, 2019;Hobfoll, 1989;Toker, Laurence & Fried, 2015).
While these findings are informative, the potential relevance of the generational context to this dynamic remains unclear and is, therefore, the focus of our examination. Given previously discussed relevance of the generational variations to cognition, values, perceptions, and behaviors (Schullery, 2013;Twenge, Campbell, Hoffman & Lance, 2010) and building on Mannheim's (1952) theory of generations and Tajfel and Turner's (1986) social identity theory, we expect such differences to influence the relationships among alienation, job insecurity, and job satisfaction during the COVID-19 time. Specifically, we expect the positive association between alienation and job insecurity during the pandemic time to vary across generations (Mannheim, 1952;Seland & Hyggen, 2021;Tajfel & Turner, 1986;van Dijk, 2013). Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 3: The positive relationship between alienation and job insecurity is not invariant across Generations X, Y, and Z.
Similarly, the generational-differences theories (Mannheim, 1952;Seland & Hyggen, 2021;Tajfel & Turner, 1986;van Dijk, 2013) discussed earlier suggest that unique generational experiences and social identities may lead to varying perceptions of and responses to workplace alienation, thereby influencing job satisfaction differently. That said, we expect the negative association between alienation and job satisfaction during the pandemic time to vary across generations. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 4: The negative relationship between alienation and job satisfaction is not invariant across Generations X, Y, and Z.

Alienation and OCB
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) refers to employees' discretionary efforts that promote the effective functioning of organizations but are not explicitly recognized by organizations' formal reward systems (Organ, 1988). OCB reflects numerous discretionary behaviors, such as portraying an organization favorably to outsiders or making a sincere effort to excel in all professional functions at all times, regardless of the rewardtailored circumstances. Alternatively, fears and uncertainties will increase psychological distress, which may trigger an avoidance ("flight") response (Cannon, 1927). According to stress models, this avoidance action is generated when the situation is too hostile (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980). The pandemic is considered a major traumatic and stressful life event (Reizer, Geffen & Koslowsky, 2021); therefore, it is likely to activate an avoidance ("flight") response (Reizer, Galperin, Chavan, Behl & Pereira, 2022).
As noted in our rationale for Hypotheses 3 and 4, the circumstances that alienate employees are likely to decrease the perception of job security, employment-related confidence, and overall job satisfaction. Accordingly, alienation is shown to influence job insecurity and job satisfaction (Cheng & Chan, 2008). In contrast, job insecurity and job satisfaction are, in turn, important determinants of OCB (Sverke, Lastad, Hellgren, Richter & Naswall, 2019). Specifically, past research  indicates that alienation increases stress levels and reduces employees' discretionary contributions as they conserve mental and physical resources by not engaging in OCB-related behaviors.
In regard to the COVID-19 developments, research shows that the consequences of pandemic-related restrictions to mobility, lockdowns, and economic challenges contribute to alienation (Sonmez, Apostolopoulos, Lemke & Hsieh, 2020) and, therefore, affect job insecurity, job satisfaction, and OCB (Cheng & Chan, 2008;Sverke, Lastad, Hellgren, Richter & Naswall, 2019). However, the potential relevance of the generational context to this dynamic is, once again, understudied. We expect differences among generations to be relevant to the relationship between alienation and OCB during the COVID-19 time. Past literature (e.g.,  indicates that cognitive and behavioral responses to pandemic-related changes are likely to vary across generations. As such, generational variations are likely to influence the manner in which individuals perceive COVID-19 changes, respond to alienation, and translate this response to OCB. Accordingly, we expect the negative association between alienation and OCB to vary across generations (Mannheim, 1952;Seland & Hyggen, 2021;Tajfel & Turner, 1986;van Dijk, 2013) during the pandemic. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 5: The negative relationship between alienation and OCB is not invariant across Generations X, Y, and Z.

Sample
Soper's a-priori sample size calculator for structural equation models (Soper, 2020) was used to determine the sample size. Using 0.95 as a power level, 0.30 as effect size, six as the number of latent variables, and 24 as the number of observed variables, therefore, our data collection was driven by a target sample size of 236. This study received ethics approval from Crandall University. Our research investigation was conducted in Middle Eastern Arab nations between March and August 2021. In practical terms, we recruited 647 participants from randomly selected LinkedIn members in customer service jobs in organizations located in the Middle East through a personalized invitation message. We located the participants on LinkedIn by configuring the filters to retrieve results based on their country of residence in addition to their position title (i.e., customer service). LinkedIn's sample population was about 136,000 users. We picked one participant for every three counts after filtering the search results. In our message, we informed the participants that the procedure would require participation in two separate instances to complete the survey. They were made aware that those who would complete the two phases of the survey would receive US$10 in cash or gift cards in compensation for their time and participation. Email addresses and/or WhatsApp numbers were obtained from the participants to whom the surveys would be sent. Moreover, the participants were made aware that they would get an automatically generated five-digit identification number upon completing the first stage, such that they would need that number to log in to the survey in the second phase. At Time 1, the participants responded to the measures of COVID-19 perception, anxiety, and alienation.
Four weeks after completing Stage 1, the survey's second wave was conducted. We chose a 4-week time lag because a too-short time lag can falsely inflate the correlations between distinct variables, whereas a toolong time lag does the opposite (cf. Ployhart & Vandenberg, 2009). Previous research has taken a similar method (e.g., Yam, Fehr, Keng-Highberger, Klotz & Reynolds, 2016). The automatically generated IDs at Time 1 were used to match Time 1's responses to the corresponding ones at Time 2, thus ensuring the pairing was correctly performed. The participants responded to the measures of job insecurity, job satisfaction, OCB, and demographics at Time 2. Each of the two waves of procedures included an explanation of the research's purpose and methodology to all participants. They were advised that they could contact the researchers at any time to ask questions, voice concerns about the survey, or withdraw from the study. Consent to participate in this study was included in the survey distributed to participants, and since the survey was conducted online in both phases, participants' signatures were not obtained. The questionnaire was completed anonymously. We guaranteed all participants that their responses would remain confidential. At Time 1, we circulated 647 surveys, and received 420 completed ones. At Time 2, we solely distributed the second wave questionnaires to those who had completed Time 1 surveys. As a result, we received 219 completed surveys whose data informed our analyses to test the hypotheses and draw our conclusions. The majority of our sample was millennial (55%), male (53%), educated to a university degree level (41%), and single (58%). Table A1 in Appendix 1 summarizes descriptive statistics for the latent variables categorized by generation.

Measures
The previously validated measures that we used in this study are listed in Table A2 in Appendix 1. We used the measures cited in the work of  to measure COVID-19 perception, Hamilton (1959) to measure anxiety, Banai and Reisel (2007) and Lang (1985) to measure alienation, Francis and Barling (2005) to measure job insecurity, Judge, Scott, and Ilies (2006) to measure job satisfaction, and Van Dyne, Graham, and Dienesch (1994) to measure OCB. All measures were graded on five-point Likert scales.
We examined the validity and reliability of the measures employed in this research using a range of indicators. First, we applied the Fornell-Larcker Criterion (Table A3 in Appendix 1) to assess the discriminant validity using the Average Variance Extracted values (herein AVEs) square rooted (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Also, the square root of each construct's AVE was greater than its correlations with the remaining variables, hence establishing the discriminant validity for all of the measures employed. All of the constructs had AVEs higher than 0.5 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981), Composite Reliability values (herein CRs) above 0.7 (Hair, Hult, Ringle & Sarstedt, 2022), and Variance Inflation Factor values less than five (James, Witten, Hastie & Tibshirani, 2013), hence establishing the discriminant validity, construct reliability, and convergent validity for all of the measures employed in this study (see Table A4 in Appendix 1). We ran Common-Method Bias (herein CMB) tests before conducting path and multigroup analyses with partial least squares structural equation modeling (herein PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 3 (Ringle, Wende & Becker, 2015). The inner Variance Inflation Factor (herein VIF) values were all less than 3.3 (see Table A5 in Appendix 1). Hence, no CMB issues were detected.

RESULTS
The main statistical technique we utilized for assessing research hypotheses is structural equation modeling using the variancebased approach or partial least squares (PLS-SEM). Our decision to use the PLS-SEM method is based on earlier studies suggesting it for analyzing predictive models and the growing popularity of its use in work psychology studies (e.g., Hair, Hult, Ringle & Sarstedt, 2022;. Furthermore, the literature (Mahmoud, Hack-polay, Fuxman, Massetti & Al Samarh, 2020) shows that most data are likely to fail to meet the multivariate normality criterion such that an expanding body of literature (Hair, Hult, Ringle & Sarstedt, 2022;Mahmoud et al., 2023) has substantiated PLS-SEM for empirical research studies containing data sensitive to non-normality consternation.
Two techniques are used to test our hypotheses: path analysis and multigroup analysis. They cover the deployment of standardized betas (b: for direct effects), unstandardized betas (B: for indirect effects), and the accompanying t-values in bootstrapping mode. The standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) is used to evaluate the model's fit to our data. In addition, we employ f 2 to evaluate effect sizes and PLSpredict to test the out-of-sample prediction.
The SRMR value is found to equal 0.062, less than 0.08, indicating that our hypothetical model fits our data well. Finally, when compared with the naive LM benchmark (Table A6 in Appendix 1), nearly all of the observed variables in the PLS-SEM evaluation possess lower root mean square error (RMSE) scores, suggesting that the model has a medium to a strong level of predictive power.
Before performing any multigroup comparisons, both configural invariance and compositional invariance should be validated and established (in this case, with no data pooling). Since we adopt a PLS-SEM technique, the measurement configural invariance is, by default, achieved. As a result, we continue to see whether the second condition, compositional invariance, is established. In this case, we do a permutation check. All of the variables have permutation p-values greater than 0.05 (Table A7 in Appendix 1). As a result, we consider the null hypothesis to be supported, meaning that the initial correlations of the constructs are not considerably different from 1, proving compositional invariance.
We perform a multigroup analysis to examine whether generational differences can moderate the hypothesized path. We use t-values associated with the comparisons indicated in the parametric analyses. The findings (see Table 3) demonstrate that the paths representing the direct effects of COVID-19 perception on anxiety and the direct effects of alienation on job insecurity are non-equivalent across the three generational groups. Certainly (see Fig. 1), Generation Y (b Y = 0.336, p < 0.01, f 2 > 0.15) and Generation Z (b Z = 0.431, p < 0.01, f 2 > 0.15) are substantially more likely to develop anxiety due to intense COVID-19 perception than Generation X (b X = À0.148, p = 0.710, f 2 > 0.02). And similarly, both Generation Y (b Y = 0.659, p < 0.01, f 2 > 0.35) and Generation Z (b Z = 0.709, p < 0.01, f 2 > 0.35) are significantly more likely to experience job insecurity than Generation X (b X = 0.457, p < 0.01, f 2 > 0.15) in pandemic times. Therefore, we judge Hypotheses 1 and 3 as supported but Hypotheses 2, 4, and 5 as unsupported, meaning that younger generations are more likely to have higher anxiety as a result of COVID-19 perception and, therefore, higher job insecurity due to alienation than Generation X in pandemic times.

DISCUSSION
In this study, we investigate the influence of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on employees' anxiety, alienation, job insecurity, job satisfaction, and OCB. We further evaluate how related associations vary across generational cohorts, focusing on distinct attributes of Generations X, Y, and Z. Our findings show that anxiety and alienation function as transmitting channels through which COVID-19 perception influences job insecurity, job satisfaction, and OCB. The results further   indicate that some of these processes vary across generations, with younger employees being significantly more susceptible to anxiety and job insecurity as a consequence of their differentiated COVID-19 perception. The notion of digital nativity has also been deployed to explain the generational differences in technology or the digital divide (Dobson & Willinsky, 2009;Mahmoud, Ball, Rubin, et al., 2022). We make several notable contributions to the literature. First, our findings provide valuable insights regarding the consequences of COVID-19 perception on employees' cognitive, psychological, and behavioral matters. Second, we extend the existing literature regarding the relevance of anxiety and alienation to job insecurity, job satisfaction, and OCB, with an emphasis on service-oriented operations and businesses. This perspective is particularly pertinent given the unprecedented effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the service-tailored industrial sectors. Third, our study provides novel insights regarding the relevance of generational differences to the associations among COVID-19 perception, anxiety, and job insecurity. These findings exemplify the need to customize COVID-19 responses to reflect distinct generational attributes of employees. This perspective has broad and far-reaching implications for matters of both policy and practice, with direct relevance to the development of effective policies, organizational strategies, and operating models and protocols, including remote work transformation. We also clarify further the theory of the digital divide to apprehend its generational ramifications, thus contributing to asserting it as an equally generational theory within the workplace generational differences debate. The digital divide is often a source of generational differences, primarily due to varying levels of technology use and comfort among different generations. We found that younger generations, often labeled 'digital natives' for their inherent familiarity with digital technologies, have a unique way of perceiving and adapting to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. This suggests that the experience of an extreme context such as a pandemic is shaped not only by the   Mahmoud et al. Scand J Psychol (2023) event itself but also by an individual's ability to navigate digital platforms and technologies.

Practical implications
We argued that examining generational differences in the circumstances of remote work and other work arrangements during pandemic times is an intriguing topic for international HRM. With the rise of flexible and telecommuting work arrangements and their popularity, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Zers are expected to approach work differently. These generational differences can impact how they view and adapt to remote work. In fact, the notion that firms can have practices, policies, and procedures that are invariant across generational cohorts while transforming the workplace is a question of importance and the focus of the current research. We are now emersed in a grand experiment during a period of incalculable strain on individuals, families, firms, and nations. COVID-19 has introduced changes to daily personal, social, and economic domains, and we are learning the complex effects as people from around the globe grapple to make do and adapt to the enormous challenges. This calls for greater sensitivity concerning flexibility in working patterns not only in the workplace but also in technology training packages for different generations. For example, Baby Boomers and earlier generations still have much to contribute in terms of their experience and should not be isolated due to technology anxiety. The generational technology divide ought to be swiftly decreased for greater equality in the workplace (Seland & Hyggen, 2021). In this article, we sought to advance our understanding of the climate of employee responses to COVID-19, considering the need for firms to continue delivering performance to their customers while drawing on their most valuable asset, the employees who perform the work, whether remotely or in the office. Our focus in this article has been on the nuanced question of how COVID-19 perception, ignited by the pandemic measures and conditions such as working remotely, influences employee emotions such as anxiety and attitudes such as alienation and, moreover, how these subsequently influence job insecurity, job satisfaction, and OCBs. Our approach sought to refine research that has formulated global models of effects and guidance and has looked at differences in outcomes related to generational cohorts. The idea we wished to examine is whether firms are best positioned to pursue policies and processes that regard all employees similarly or, conversely, account for generational differences. What we learned paints a picture of partial generational differences and, therefore, highlights the need for firms to construct flexible policies and processes in their efforts to transform the workplace, making them generationally intelligent.
Previous research (e.g., Sakthi Nagaraj & Jeyapaul, 2021) has emphasized that lean performance is positively linked to physical, emotional, and organizational factors. With the human element symbolizing the backbone of services organizations, psychosocial factors are crucial for management when it comes to managing the resource most valuable to their organizations and keeping their production processes running, notably during crisis times such as wars or pandemics. As COVID-19 spreads throughout the globe, operations directors and executives are concentrating their efforts on maintaining supply chains that have seldom confronted such complicated and shifting situations. They encounter numerous aggravating issues in doing so (McKinsey & Company, 2020): demand surges in certain sectors (e.g., health) along with historic reductions in others (e.g., tourism); disparities in manufacturing capacity across cities and nations, with unpredictable time lines for resuming regular operations; and capacity and cost shifts across all modes of logistics. Our findings suggest that employees from younger generations can be considerably more prone to the psychological outcomes of COVID-19 perception in the workplace. Therefore, implementing agile and generationally non-sectarian management would be essential to keeping a generationally diverse workforce functioning effectively either remotely or in the office, and hence seamless processes and effective organizations thriving in such an unprecedently challenging time. Our argument that younger employees represent the future for many organizations (Ashaye, Mahmoud, Munna & Ali, 2023) (given their distance from retirement) means that firms act flexibly with these employees while striving not to alienate previous generations. Managing anxiety and alienation (cf. Chiaburu, Thundiyil & Wang, 2014) will be key for attracting and retaining productive and long-term employees amid the workplace transformation.

Research limitations and implications
Several limitations exist in the current research. First, the setting and context of this study restrict the generalizability of the findings to other cultures or situational patterns, and that has been highlighted in previous research (Yi, Ribbens, Fu & Cheng, 2015). It should also be noted that the Middle Eastern region, from which we drew our sample, has a long history of political unrest and conflicts. This unique context might have affected our findings, as individuals in this region could potentially exhibit higher resilience to extreme-context experiences compared with individuals from other regions. This might have influenced their perceptions and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic as an extreme-context situation. Future research should take this aspect into account, exploring the impact of such contextual differences on the generalizability of the findings. Therefore, because different populations may have different cultural, social, and historical backgrounds that can influence their members' behaviors, beliefs, and values, recognizing that generational differences in a given context may not necessarily be generalizable to other populations is crucial. Thus it could motivate further cross-cultural research in this arena. For instance, based on the cultural metrics offered by Hofstede Insights (2021a), different countries in the Middle East score differently on the uncertainty avoidance scale. For example, with Egypt and Israel scoring 80 and 81, respectively, compared with Lebanon's 50, it is apparent that people in Egypt and Israel tend to see themselves to a higher degree as endangered by ambiguous or uncertain events and have developed beliefs and institutions to protect themselves from these events. Furthermore, nations outside the Middle East are estimated to show more variance in this regard. For instance, with a score of 35, the UK rates substantially low on uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede Insights, 2021b). Such variations in prevalent cultural patterns motivate future research to address this limitation by replicating our study in culturally different contexts within or outside the Middle East, thus addressing the cross-cultural effects on the invariance of the model presented by this study. In that case, each context would require considerable representation in the ultimate sample.
Second, the study results were limited in that they were produced using COVID-19 perception as an endogenous variable conceptualizing extreme context perception. This can limit the generalizability of our findings to other extreme contexts such as war zones. Moreover, individuals with personal experiences of political unrest or conflict might have different responses to extreme-context situations. An analysis of such individual differences could provide additional insights into the moderating effect of generational differences in extreme-context perception. While both contexts trigger similar insecurities (e.g., both require a coordinated response from governments and aid organizations to mitigate the impact on vulnerable populations), future research looking into validating our findings in war zones, as extreme contexts, is warranted.
Finally, a larger sample size for subsequent research would be more advantageous for identifying variances across the generational cohorts. Thus, using larger samples could help detect additional occurrences of non-invariance. Employing forced answering (FA) to limit the quantity of missing data might cause bias in the forced responses . As a result, we encourage future research to utilize methods other than FA. For example, utilizing "soft reminders" in conjunction with an additional choice of "Prefer not to answer" or "Not wish to disclose" when responding to questionnaire questions might help reduce missing data without increasing the threat of FA bias.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
None of the authors declares a conflict of interest related to this research.

ETHICAL APPROVAL
This research was granted ethics approval by Crandall University.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
Data are available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions. APPENDIX 1