Human beings are generally reluctant to adopt a new change, these resistances are generally misunderstood by analytical models of operations, analyzing and managing the behavioral aspects of reluctance, which is generally known as behavioral operations management [1]. The new interventions by the government agencies for the behavioral control of the society are called “Nudges”[2], [3], for example, social distancing is used to control COVID by many sovereign governments and it may be classified as a nudge. Behavioral operations are used to control the resistance shown by the people towards a change and have been a tested tool that is widely used to manage the nudges in the healthcare sector [106], [166].
The behavior control of the citizen towards COVID has been an utmost important tool to contain its spread, therefore it is imperative to understand behavioral operations during the pandemic. The behavior related to the health of a person has been studied in terms of health maintenance behaviors seeking medical advice/intervention, and risk behaviors and/or lack thereof, the theories related to these studies are governed by Health Belief Model (HBM) [153]. The unprecedented spread COVID-19 virus is somehow attributed to non –adherence to COVID appropriate behavior set by WHO [90]. In this context, we can conclude the mechanism of taking precautions played a vital role in the spreading of the COVID-19 virus. Initially, people do not understand the importance of taking basic precautions (using a mask, regular sanitizing hand, uncovered coughing, close contact, etc), and this acts as a platform in spreading the virus and soon becoming pandemic. COVID-19 virus which had infected 114 countries by then was declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020 [6], [7], [7], [8]. COVID-19 spread worldwide (210 countries till May 19, 2021) like wildfire and had devastating effects. It had infected 22, 62, 36, 577 individuals globally and caused 46, 54, 548 deaths by September 16, 2021[1]. Till 16 September 2021, there were 33,347,325 (second highest in the world) infected cases and 4, 43, 928 deaths in India. The spread of communicable diseases is dependent upon the infectivity of the virus and the total exposed population [9]. It became imperative for India as a country to take stringent measures to control the spread of infectious diseases.
There are many ways to control a communicable disease like COVID-19, the two important methods to control a communicable disease are Nudges like vaccination and isolation [25]. Isolation is a tested method of controlling the size and duration of an epidemic. There are many ways to achieve isolation during the outbreak of a pandemic, the most important way to reduce the number and duration of contact between humans is social distancing [12].
Nudge Theory was applied in Malaysia during the Covid-19 outbreak, “It was observed that during the mandatory lockdown, citizens explored various social innovation solutions to cope with the fear, anxiety, and loss of income during the pandemic. The government deployed strategies which exemplified elements of the Nudge Theory to drive nationalism and citizenship” [102]. An experiment was conducted by [67] to test the impact of Nudge during the first national lockdown in the UK (April/May 2020), the results reveal that “social norms and portrayal of the victim do not work on their own in increasing intentions to comply with the guidelines”. The concept of Social distancing nudge is implemented in the USA and discussed by [61] for its applicability and effectiveness. It has been studied in the context of COVID -19 in Europe that nudges are more powerful than the implementations of social distancing forcefully [148].
In the area of epidemiology, several quantitative research studies have proven the important role that social distancing plays in flattening the growth curve during an epidemic [13], however, lesser attention has been paid towards the management of the nudge like social distancing and its behavioral and social impact. Many countries such as India, Pakistan, China Bangladesh, Brazil, etc. are today struggling to maintain social distancing during the outbreak of COVID-19. It is evident from the literature that although HBM has been used to study the health care behavioral operations during COVID-19 in a country like China, however very little literature has focused on the effect of subjective norms and facilitating conditions on the social distancing nudge using HBM. This research aims to fulfill this gap and try to understand the behavioral and supporting factors of individuals in countries like India, towards adopting social distancing measures and the effect of subjective norms and facilitating conditions on the continuation intention of social distancing, to maintain effective lockdown during the pandemic outbreak. The attitude of an individual includes proper covering mouth and nose in sneezing, proper disposal of used tissues, avoiding close contact during flu, early medical care in high fever, and shortening in breathing. The results of the study will provide valuable inputs for formulating policies about social distancing measures that need to be undertaken during the spread of a pandemic.
Social distancing nudge is an effective measure to control the pandemic outbreak [158]. Amid the ongoing pandemic, the world is facing an unprecedented lockdown to control the spread of the COVID-19. However, the lack of universal access to many resources leads to poor socioeconomic status and indeed posed a major challenge faced by the developing countries. Moreover, the COVID 19 outbreak could be primarily categorized as physical logistics problems and behavioral health operations problems. Researchers in the operations and supply chain area have given much attention to managing the physical movement and control of scarce resources during a pandemic or humanitarian crisis [2], [33],[149],[167],[185]. Social Distancing is a nudge [5] that is applied by the administration to control the pandemic. But implementing social distancing has put forth several behavioral operations challenges, that must be solved by behavioral operations management [21],[62],[87],[191].
As social distancing is the key factor to control a contagious pandemic [158]. Social distancing becomes a key tool to achieve isolation during the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2(COVID-19). This research is conducted to evaluate the intention to be in social distancing. This research is conducted to evaluate the intention to be in social distancing during the COVID-19 outbreak. For this purpose, factors for using social distancing were identified and the questionnaire was designed based on the HBM. The research was conducted to find the answers to the following research questions:
- How do facilitating conditions help individuals to develop a positive attitude to be in social distancing?
- Whether subjective norms play an important role in the intention to be in social distancing?
Given the aforementioned research questions, a systematic shape has been given to the study and it is structured as follows; Section-1 contains the introduction to the study, Section-2 presents the related works and theories, the importance of social distancing is presented in Section-3 while proposed research framework, hypotheses, details of measurement and path models are discussed in Section-4 of the study. Section -5 contains theoretical contribution and practical implications and Section- 6 provides practical insights and discussion. The limitations of the study and scope for future research have been detailed in Section-7.
[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries