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The study's objective is to estimate the association of specific perceived employer-provided benefits on employees' intention to leave in different age cohorts during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Informed by the psychological theories of ageing, the authors propose three age-cohort-specific hypotheses in three motivational domains: security and health benefits, flexible work arrangement and education-related benefits.

The authors use a large survey of employees in Estonia (n = 7,209) conducted in 2020 and test the association of specific benefits and their interactions with age on employees' intention to leave.

The results show that older cohorts are generally less prone to leave their jobs. Benefits that employers could use during the COVID-19 crisis generally had negative associations with the intention to leave, but age-specific differences were negligible; only the perceived provision of flexible work arrangements reduced the younger cohort's intention to leave relatively more.

This study is one of the few that allows us to make inferences regarding the benefits preferences amongst the working population during an unprecedented health crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the emergence of non‐cooperative behaviour after the economic transition in Estonia.

The paper uses a combined research design, in that evolutionary game theory and network segregation models are enriched with semi‐structured interviews. Simulations are used to deal with analytical complexity; in this case a prisoners' dilemma situation is used and randomness is created through the exogenous shock of opening the network to “aliens”.

Consequently, it is found that individuals in large and small communities differ in their behavioural strategies: in an open community, players are more self‐interested and reciprocate only benevolent behaviour; in a regular community, people rely on cooperative social norms. Case specific information leads to the suggestion that in open networks people behave cooperatively only in teams of up to four members. Increasing the random connections in a network makes people use group segregation – that is, they behave cooperatively in regular connections and in a self‐regarding manner towards others.

The method brings certain limitations to the implications of the results – simulations are sensitive to the initial conditions set up using qualitative data.

In managerial areas the results can provide at least two insights. First, it is obvious that only small teams (with personal connections) can be fully cooperative. In this case, the ideal number of co‐operators is four. In larger teams, individuals find it more profitable to segregate an inner circle and others. Second, if players are interpreted as firms, then competition between firms will prevail even in small communities (where new players can penetrate the market) and thus any cartel or other cooperative action will fail.

The main value of the research is twofold: it allows to introduce the combined research methodology and explain the mental change after transition in the 1990s. The first enables to reduce the methodological impediments researchers find in the qualitative‐quantitative dichotomy. The second explains the emergence of, and changes to, the behavioural or moral codes as a result of rational social learning.