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However, the reasons behind the health and safety issues of the employees working in familyowned firms are still under-explored. A business/ entity which is owned and managed by the members of a single-family is known as a family business firm (Lude and Prügl, 2018). The family firms' operations and ownership is transferred from one generation to another generation, and usually, more than one generation is involved in the day-to-day operations and management of the business. The family firms perform with limited financial and other resources and have a small network (Van den Heuvel et al., 2006). Thus, family firms have limited resources to facilitate their employees at the workplace. Insufficient arrangements at the workplace such as improper lights, hygiene issues, overfilled workplace, and absence of safety tools, facilities, and safety instruction boards. Healthy food and clean water are also serious issues for workers at the workplace in family firms (Campopiano et al., 2014).In underdeveloped and developing countries, the ratio of employees working in family firms and SMEs is very high as compared to the corporate sector (Abor and Quartey, 2010).Several studies have provided evidence of the relationships between working conditions, employees' health and safety, and productivity (Fernández-Muñiz et al., 2009;Lundstrom et al., 2002). Therefore, it is very important to develop a system to address the health and safety issues at the workplace in family firms. Researchers describe the consequences of the issues regarding the health safety of the employees such as low performance of workers and the firm, high rate of absenteeism, poor rate of productivity, a high turnover rate of employees, stress, anxiety, disengagement, and psychological issues (Ongori and Agolla, 2008). In family firms, the limited focus of the managers, lack of financial resources, and absence of the workers' leadership play a significant role in the development of health and safety issues in employees. In this special issue, a total of 20 manuscripts were submitted, 8 manuscripts were rejected due to quality issues and 12 were accepted. The following paragraphs explain the topics related to health and safety issues of the family firms' workers in this special issue.First, this study explains the employees' performance during COVID-19 in small family firms. Post-COVID-19, these small firms tried to regain their share of the market but they were not significantly successful, and a financial crisis rises in these family firms (Le Breton-Miller and Miller, 2022). Even, these organizations failed in providing financial benefits to their workers. The authors explained that in such types of scenarios social and psychological rewards can help the management. Therefore, this study investigated how top management can enhance employees' performance by using social and psychological rewards in the absence of financial rewards. By using a stratified sampling technique, the data were collected from 250 employees working in small family firms. The findings confirm that psychological rewards help to increase employees' performance. However, social rewards do have not a significant impact on employees' performance.Second, drawing on the appraisal theory of emotions, this paper investigates the impact of ethical leadership behaviors' on employees' negative emotions i.e., workplace embitterment, and moderating role of core self-evaluation. Through random sampling technique, the data were collected from 398 employees working in public sector universities of Pakistan. Findings, leaders' ethical behaviors negatively impact employees' workplace embitterment and workplace embitterment mediates this impact on employees' well-being (Michailidis and Cropley, 2017).Moreover, employees' core self-evaluation moderates the relationship between leaders' ethical behaviors through workplace embitterment.Third, the COVID-19 pandemic bought several changes in the very field of life. The educational system is also affected by this pandemic. The educational institutions shifted their activities from physical to online mode. The online educational mode brought several attitudinal and behavioral changes in students. Drawn on stress theory, this study investigates the impact of pandemic fear on student performance and anxiety in students as a mediator. Moreover, this study also explored the role of mindfulness as a moderator. The data were collected from HSK teachers working in China. The results confirm that fear of the pandemic negatively impacts students' performance and develops anxiety in students. However, mindfulness has failed to perform its moderating role in this study model. This study also offers several managerial implications and theoretical contributions. Fourth, the dynamics of family-owned firms are different from other business entities. Therefore, antecedents and outcomes of family-owned firms can be different.The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of the psychological distance between a non-family member employee and a family member on occupational mental health, and psychological safety as a mediator in the said relationship. In addition, a proactive personality as a potential moderator is applied in this study. Two approaches, PSL-SEM and fsQCA are used for data analysis. The results confirm the partial mediating role of psychological safety.Fifth, the Global health emergency (COVID-19 pandemic) raised serious issues regarding health and safety issues for the employees of family-owned firms. This paper explains how Chinese family enterprises face problems regarding employees' performance, health, and safety after dynamic changes at the workplace due to COVID-19. Drawn on game theory, the study researched Chinese family-owned firms. The data were collected from the firms in the list provided by a 3 rd party CSR rating agency (SynTao Green Finance). The outcomes of the study described that family firms are less likely to fulfill the responsibilities of workers regarding health and safety as compared to non-family business firms. From the operational perspective, family business firms are improving facilities for the workers gradually, however, this process is "U" shaped. The results indicate that more effective policies and stakeholder monitoring are required to solve the health and safety issues of the employees. It is also important to provide awareness to the workers regarding their legal and professional rights.Sixth, this paper examines the impact of testing fear and less social connectedness on employees' health. In addition, the scholars used psychological strain as a mediator between less connectedness, testing fear, and employees' health and performance. For empirical investigation, the data were collected from the employees working in the electronic industry of China by using a convenience sampling approach. Partial least squares structural equation modeling approach (PLS-SEM) has been used for data analyses by using the software Smartpls-3. The results of this study indicate that COVID-19 testing fear impacts the employees' health negatively but social connectedness has not a significant direct impact on employees' health. However, psychological strain significantly mediates the relationship between testing fear and less social connectedness, and employees' health. This paper also provided valuable insights for organizational management to develop a healthy and positive working environment and adopt healthy behavior among their workers which ultimately fosters their job performance.Seventh, human resource plays a strategic role in making or breaking a brand. The COVID-19 pandemic realizes the importance of health safety to organizations and their management.Health-oriented strategies play a significant role to boost employees' trust and well-being.Drawing on the social exchange theory, this paper investigates the role of organizational healthoriented strategies in improving employees' job performance. This study also used employees' psychological well-being and trust as a mediator in the above-said relationship. In addition, this study also investigated the moderating role of perceived medical mistrust. By using a random sampling technique, the authors collected the data from the employees working in the textile sector of China. The study proved that health-oriented strategies positively increase the employees' trust and psychological well-being leading to employees' performance. The study also found the significant role of medical mistrust between psychological well-being and employees' performance but failed to moderate the relationship between trust and job performance. Moreover, the findings of the present study also serve the literature by providing important theoretical and practical implications.Eight, this paper evaluates the impact of employee loneliness, psychological distress, and job uncertainty on employee-based brand equity. In addition, emotional exhaustion has been used as a mediator in the above-said relationship. For empirical evidence, the data were collected from 459 employees working in clothing brands in China. Results, job uncertainty, and psychological distress impact negatively on employees based brand equity. However, employee loneliness has no impact on employees based brand equity. Nine, this study was conducted on the employees of 25 readymade garment factories in Dhaka, Narayanganj, and Gazipur industrial areas of Bangladesh on a random sampling basis. The impact of occupational stress on employees' health risks was measured. As the result, occupational stress has an impact on employees' health.However, female workers were more affected than male workers.Ten, this paper clarifies the type of hazards prevailing in dental hospitals and job stress in the workers. The findings described the occurrence of ergonomic, physical, biological, and chemical hazards in the workplace. Ergonomic hazards have the highest occurrence and chemical hazards have the least occurrence. Eleven, this study is conducted on the janitorial staff. The objective of this paper is to measure the impact of occupational safety practices to prevent COVID-19 transmission and associated factors on the janitorial staff of Ethiopian University. The results explained that occupational safety practices regarding COVID-19 were in practice among 53.9% of the janitorial staff. Twelve, this paper investigates the impact of workplace environment on employees' performance, mediating role of employee achievement striving ability. This study is conducted on university faculty members. The results confirm the hypotheses of the study.Overall, this special issue is very helpful not only to understand the antecedents and consequences of employees' health and safety issues but also it providing suitable solutions. The topics included in this special issue are very helpful to the students of human resource management, research scholars, faculty of the field of human resource management, and professional consultants in the field of human resource management, and health and safety.
Bari et al. (Thu,) studied this question.