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. 2022 Feb:139:1275-1283.
doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.10.036. Epub 2021 Oct 29.

When and How Trust in Government Leads to Compliance with COVID-19 Precautionary Measures

Mesay Sata Shanka  1 , Mesay Moges Menebo  2
Affiliations

When and How Trust in Government Leads to Compliance with COVID-19 Precautionary Measures

Mesay Sata Shanka et al. J Bus Res. 2022 Feb.

Abstract

Despite the risks of COVID-19, some people ignore the COVID-19 precautionary measures, endangering public health. We aimed to investigate how and in what conditions trust in government and health authorities encourage individuals to comply with COVID-19 precautionary measures. Based on a sample of 664 respondents, we found that an increase in the level of trust in government is associated with higher compliance with COVID-19 precautionary measures. We also found that problem awareness mediates the effect of trust in government on compliance with COVID-19 precautionary measures. In addition, we examined whether individualistic orientation moderates the mediating effect of problem awareness. We found that individualistic orientation mitigates the mediating effect of problem awareness in the relationship between trust in government and compliance behavior. The findings of this study have the potential to inform policy and practice by addressing the ways in which compliance with COVID-19 precautionary measures can be improved.

Keywords: Compliance behavior; Compliance with COVID-19 precautionary measures; Individualistic orientation; Trust in government.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Fig. 1
Research Model.
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