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“…It just broke me…”: exploring the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on academics
Get PDFBackground
The declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2020 catapulted institutions of higher education into an emergency transition from face-to-face to online teaching. Given the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuing after-effects thereof, the study explored the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on academics.
Methods
A qualitative phenomenological research design was used to explore the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on academics. Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews from a sample of 11 full-time academics permanently employed at six public and private higher education institutions in South Africa in 2020 and 2021. The data were analysed by means of thematic analysis.
Results
The study found that the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions had a largely negative psychological impact on academics in higher education. The most dominant negative emotions reported by participants included stress, anxiety, fear and guilt either due to the threat of the virus itself, potential for loss of life, lockdown restrictions, a new working environment, and/or their perceived inability to assist their students. Participants also reported feelings of emotional isolation and an increase in levels of emotional fatigue.
Conclusion
In conclusion, institutions of higher education need to be aware of the negative psychological impact of COVID-19 on academics, and ensure they create and foster environments that promote mental well-being. Institutions may offer psychological services and/or emotional well-being initiatives to their academic staff. They must create spaces and cultures where academics feel comfortable to request and seek well-being opportunities. In addition to mental and emotional well-being initiatives, institutions must provide academics with tangible teaching and learning support as this would go a long way in reducing much of the stress experienced by academics during the pandemic
Knowledge sharing in the supply chain networks: A perspective of supply chain complexity drivers
Get PDFKnowledge transfer has been an important aspect in supply chain systems; however, there are many factors that affect the impact of transfer effectiveness. In previous studies, less attention has been given to the process of knowledge transfer and therefore, this paper highlights the significance of the process of knowledge transfer in supply chain processes. Enhanced supply chain networks have better performance when knowledge sharing is present, and it is important to identify and eliminate any supply chain complexity to improve the supply chain processes. Methods: A systematic review on the literature has been conducted to critically identify and evaluate the factors of supply chain complexity which impact knowledge transfer. Findings: The findings highlight the key benefits of effective knowledge transfer in supply chain systems by identifying risks associated with supply chain networks. Conclusion: The balanced power of facilitating knowledge transfer in supply chain processes helps in supply chain partnerships and reduces the supply chain complexity. This paper has both theoretical and practical contributions as it adds to the literature by identifying the factors of supply chain complexity drivers which are impacting the knowledge transfer
Self-induced consensus of Reddit users to characterise the GameStop short squeeze
Get PDFThe short squeeze of GameStop (GME) shares in mid-January 2021 has been primarily orchestrated by retail investors of the Reddit r/wallstreetbets community. As such, it represents a paramount example of collective coordination action on social media, resulting in large-scale consensus formation and significant market impact. In this work we characterise the structure and time evolution of Reddit conversation data, showing that the occurrence and sentiment of GME-related comments (representing how much users are engaged with GME) increased significantly much before the short squeeze actually took place. Taking inspiration from these early warnings as well as evidence from previous literature, we introduce a model of opinion dynamics where user engagement can trigger a self-reinforcing mechanism leading to the emergence of consensus, which in this particular case is associated to the success of the short squeeze operation. Analytical solutions and model simulations on interaction networks of Reddit users feature a phase transition from heterogeneous to homogeneous opinions as engagement grows, which we qualitatively compare to the sudden hike of GME stock price. Although the model cannot be validated with available data, it offers a possible and minimal interpretation for the increasingly important phenomenon of self-organized collective actions taking place on social networks
Hegel on spirited animals
Get PDFHegel conceives of human beings as both natural and spirited. On Robert Pippin's influential reading, we are natural by being ‘ontologically’ like other animals, but spirited through a ‘social-historical achievement’. I contest both the coherence of this reading and its fidelity to Hegel's texts. For Hegel the human being is the truth of the animal. This means that spirit's self-production is not, as Pippin claims, an achievement that an animal confers on itself, but the realization of what the human being is. I end by specifying Aristotelian features of Hegel's account whose neglect by Pippin can help explain what goes wrong in his reading, and provide the outlines of a reading that is both coherent and faithful to Hegel's texts
