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New Ways of Working practices like activity-based working and home-based work lead to different behaviors of employees. Due to these NWW practices, employees choose their own preferred times and places to work – albeit to a certain extent and within certain boundaries. This might have an impact on the possibilities for teamwork. Therefore, we suppose that teamwork and teamwork behaviors might moderate the relationship between NWW and outcomes. Does teamwork behavior have an influence on the relation of NWW and productivity or organizational commitment? And how, is it a positive or a negative influence on these relations? This chapter reports the results of an explorative study on the relationship between NWW practices, teamwork behavior, productivity, and organizational commitment. Quantitative data from the questionnaire will illustrate the main issues: the complex linkages between the four components of NWW, the outcome variables, and the effect of different components of teamwork behavior. This chapter describes the issue of teamwork and provides new data on the actual use and effectiveness of the different components of teamwork behaviors.

This study extends work from home (WFH) literature by recasting WFH performances that emphasise agents’ manipulation of scene. Drawing on the dramatist paradigm, the study uses Burke’s pentadic criticism to code the social media application Pinterest’s ‘work from home’ and ‘home office’ pinboards for act, agent, agency, scene, and purpose. Pinterest is a social media application that users post pins (images with verbal tags and link to external sites, especially blog sites) and collect pins by subject on an electronic pinboard, which other users can like, follow, and share. Analysis of WFH pins reveals that the agent–scene ratio saturates pins emphasising the agency of WFH agents to control their scenes or home office spaces. The idealism of the agent–scene ratio in pins further demonstrates an unrealistic approach to popular culture’s shift to WFH and a romanticisation of WFH as idyllic working conditions. Scripts for employees and employers are explored to equip them with the rhetorical resources to more closely align their agent–scene ideals with the scene–agent realities.

New Ways of Working seems to change the leadership agenda. Activity-based working and home-based work lead to different behaviors of employees. Supervising styles will change from command-and-control toward goal-setting-and-trust. This chapter describes the trend and provides new data on the actual use and effectiveness of these new supervision styles. It appears to be a mix of different leadership styles, such as leading by vision, setting targets and control on output, providing trust.

This chapter explores the potential economic advantages and disadvantages of reusable plastic containers (RPCs) in the transport of fresh produce from growers to retail stores. The empirical research linking packaging to quantifiable economic and social benefits is reviewed. This study answers the question – what are the economic and social impacts of increased standardization of bulk packaging in the North American fresh produce supply chains? Implications for the potential use of RPCs and its impact on sustainability are explored.

The chapter describes data from grocery retailers who have implemented both one-way and reusable plastic containers for fresh produce distribution. A Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TD-ABC) analysis was conducted to capture and evaluate process times and product damage associated with the typical deployment of bulk containers in the grocery retailers’ distribution centers (DC), retail stores, and asset recovery centers of the supply chain. Economic measures were implemented and together with the social dimensions provided insights about sustainability-based implications.

Fresh produce shipments using the RPC technology had significantly less waste and damage representing potential social and economic benefits. The empirical findings included results about the economic impact of RPCs on the sustainability level of a typical supply chain for fresh food products.

The quantification of the economic and potential social sustainability for the explored packaging types constitutes an important contribution. Much of the previous research did not contain comprehensive assessments. The impact of technological change – the introduction and use of RPC in packaging – is examined. In addition, the supply chain scope for this research included most of the major activities that involve the packaging of fresh produce commodities in its practical dynamics.

The aim of the chapter is to understand the role of trust and social cohesion in the effects of New Ways of Working.

The study consists of a cross-sectional survey (N = 549) at a Dutch insurance company with four locations. NWW was introduced in one of the locations 15 years ago, the other locations only recently. We present and test a model in which trust and social cohesion are mediators between NWW and performance.

The implementation of NWW leads to better performance (Beta 0.16, p < 0.001). However, the main effect is explained completely by the mediating role of trust (between employees-managers and between colleagues) and social cohesion. The number of days working at home has no significant relationship to performance.

The theory and findings of this chapter call for further elaboration in research: more contextualization of these data is needed and more comprehensive theoretical models, such as the role of personality, task and function.

If employees feel to be trusted by their supervisors and colleagues, the performance will increase, ‘even’ if they work at home or in flexible offices. The implementation of NWW will therefore only be beneficial if there are trustful relations and attention is paid to social cohesion of the group.

The study is among the first to prove the relationship between NWW and performance and more importantly, it is one of the first in explaining that relationship by pointing on the mediating role of trust and social cohesion.