The Influence of the COVID-19 Event on Deviant Workplace Behavior Taking Tianjin, Beijing and Hebei as an Example

Background: Since the beginning of 2020, the Corona Virus Disease has broken out globally. This public health incident has had a great impact on the work and life of the public. Aim: Based on the event system theory, this article explored the influence of the &ldquo:COVID-19&rdquo: event on emotional exhaustion and deviant workplace behaviors. Methods: This survey&rsquo:s objects are employees working in Tianjin, Beijing, Hebei affected by the epidemic. Using the questionnaire star, the online platform of the Marketing Research Office of Peking University and &ldquo:snowball&rdquo: methods 700 questionnaires were collected. Results: The response rate was 89.71% (n = 700). Female employees are more sensitive to the perceived event strength of the novel coronavirus pneumonia than male employees (F = 10.94, p &lt:0.001): Employees aged 30&ndash:40 affected by the epidemic have the highest level of emotional exhaustion (F = 5.22, p &lt: 0.01): A higher education level leads to a higher level of emotional exhaustion (F = 4.74, p &lt: 0.01): The emotional exhaustion is polarized with the annual family income (F = 4.099, p &lt: 0.01). Conclusions: The novelty, disruption, criticality of the Corona Virus Disease event has had a positive impact on the emotional exhaustion of employees in the workplace: Emotional exhaustion plays a partly mediating role between event strength with constructive deviant behaviors, and destructive deviant behaviors. Emotional exhaustion has a positive effect on creative constructive deviant behaviors, challenging constructive deviant behaviors, and interpersonal destructive deviant behaviors. Emotional exhaustion has a negative impact on organizational destructive deviant behaviors, and has no significant impact on interpersonal constructive deviant behaviors.