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Although alienation as a concept has a rich history, it has suffered relative neglect in organizational studies and one possible reason for the same is its conceptual ambiguity vis‐à‐vis popular and long‐standing concepts of commitment/identification, satisfaction and engagement, that represent the positive experience of work and which have sometimes been equated as the opposite of work alienation. Similarly, the negative experience of work has traditionally been captured by concepts such as burnout/cynicism and counterproductive work behaviours/deviance. The purpose of this paper is to argue for refocusing attention on the concept of work alienation in management studies as distinct from other related concepts.

The methodology integrated research from both quantitative and qualitative approaches.

Through the analysis of the concept of alienation, along with other related concepts, the conceptual space for the study of alienation in organizational studies is pointed out. By examining the definition, and the antecedents and consequences of commitment, satisfaction, engagement, burnout and workplace deviance, the overlaps and points of differences are highlighted.

The paper offers a conceptual level analysis and builds the argument for refocusing attention on the study of work alienation. The juxtaposition of the related concepts clarifies that alienation has a unique contribution to make towards understanding the link between experience at work and employee‐related outcomes.

The objective of this study was to examine the significant factors leading to employee alienation in post-merger integration (PMI).

Data were collected from 482 middle- and low-level employees in two organizations in the real estate and banking sectors in the United Arab Emirates. The analysis was carried out using structural equation modeling (SEM).

Organizational justice, employee commitment, organizational trust, perceived effectiveness of human resource (HR) initiatives and employee communication strategy played an important role in developing or mitigating a feeling of alienation among employees during PMI. Employee tenure in the organization affected individual work performance.

The study was limited to middle- and low-level employees and did not consider other organizational variables important in mergers. This study will help merger strategists to deliver appropriate HR practices during PMI, facilitating mitigation of uncertainties among employees and maximizing their trust and commitment.

The study results will help organizations understand employee trust, commitment and determinants in an emerging economy.

The mechanisms through which superiors’ leadership styles and subordinates’ internal cognitions affect subordinates’ actual behaviour and attitudes are relatively unexplored in most contexts. This paper aims to bridge the gap by exploring the mediating effect of teachers’ cognitions (psychological empowerment) in the relationship between principals’ leadership style (empowering leadership) and teachers’ behaviour (job crafting) and attitudes (work alienation and organizational commitment).

Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used on data obtained from 624 teachers of primary classes in Indian private schools.

Psychological empowerment partially mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and job crafting and job crafting partially mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and work alienation and affective commitment. Work alienation partially mediates the relationship between job crafting and affective commitment. Empowering leadership has a direct effect on job crafting.

Due to the lack of longitudinal data, causality cannot be established. Also, there are concerns about the factor structure of scales.

Principals demonstrating empowering leadership can help teachers become more proactive and feel more empowered, less alienated and more committed. More proactive teachers and less alienated teachers are more likely to engage in self-initiated professional development and collaboration, thereby improving the teaching-learning process. Though this study was done in the school context, it is believed that the findings can plausibly apply to managers/leaders who work with complex, ambiguous work and knowledge workers.

First, the study extends the research on job crafting by studying the relationship between leadership style (empowering leadership) and job crafting. Second, the identification of the mechanisms through which leaders (principals) can help subordinates (teachers) find meaning in work (reduction in alienation) and develop commitment is an original contribution.

Cross-cultural mergers and acquisitions (M&As) can generate the number of negative feelings and emotions among the survivors of the deal. These negative outcomes can range from lowered commitment, lack of productivity, and talent loss to the more serious work alienation. Hence, this chapter is an attempt to identify the employees’ level of commitment and their feelings of alienation in the post-M&A integration phase. Also, provided training has proven to be important in building employee commitment and mitigating the feelings of alienation, this studies the relationship of these psychological outcomes with the different kinds of training provided to them during post-M&A situations. The vast literature review studied revealed a significant relationship between employees’ perceived effectiveness of training and their level of commitment with the newly merged firm, while an inverse relationship was found with employees’ feelings of alienation. This chapter has crucial implications for researchers and practitioners.

States that researchers in marketing have called for investigations concerning personal selling and sales management in the international arena. Examines the influence of organizational formalization on work alienation through role stress and organizational commitment in industrial salesforces in the USA, Japan and Korea. From surveys of salesforces selling electronic products and components, reveals inter‐country differences and highlights the importance of conducting cross‐national studies on salesforce issues.

Human resources are of great importance to provide competitive advantage in tourism, which is a labour-intensive industry. It is seen that the level of organizational commitment of the individuals who have similar values with the organization they work for and who can fulfil the roles and duties they undertake and who can meet all their needs in return increases. Their level of alienation is also observed to decrease. Population of the study, which purposes to reveal whether organizational culture has any impact on the employees' perception of person-organization fit and their level of organizational alienation or not, constitutes 4- and 5-star hotels in service in the central district of Izmir province. According to the results, it was seen that hotel businesses had two types of organizational culture such as hierarchy and clan culture. In the hotels with clan culture, demands-abilities fit levels of the worker were higher than value-congruence and needs-supplies dimensions. It was seen that workers alienated on meaninglessness dimension mostly. Similarly, in the hotels with hierarchy culture, demands-abilities fit levels of the worker were higher than value-congruence and needs-supplies dimensions. Workers alienated from their organization on meaninglessness dimension mostly.

The purpose of this paper is multifold. First, this study aims to proffer a psychometric scale to measure sales agent's perception of sales cannibalization due to the addition of an internet channel. Second, the study seeks to estimate the downstream impact of sales agents' perceived cannibalization (SPC) on two outcomes, namely, commitment and alienation from work. Third, it aims to examine the moderating role of environmental munificence in the relationship between SPC and the two outcomes.

The data for this study were collected from a contact pool of 2,108 insurance sales agents. A total of 511 valid responses were attained. Structural equation modeling was employed to examine the relationships posited in this study.

First, a multi‐item scale was conceptualized and developed for measuring SPC. Second, the properties of the scale were assessed following procedures recommended by Churchill, Anderson, Gerbing, Bagozzi, and Yi. The scale demonstrated satisfactory reliability and validity. Third, SPC was shown to be not universally damaging to commitment. Rather, only under a low munificent environment does perceived cannibalization significantly reduce salespersons' commitment. Additionally, the severity of the influence of SPC on alienation from work increases in low munificent environment.

The data for this study were collected using a single survey of insurance agents. Future researchers should attempt to examine the relationships posited in this study using a sample from a different industry.

While recognizing that the internet is here to stay and that strategic channel decisions will unlikely be made based on the views or psychological reactions of sales agents alone, incorporating the sales agent perspective does allow organizations to take a holistic view of their distribution system. This may be particularly important in view of multi‐channel marketing, when a new marketing channel is employed to co‐exist with the traditional sales force.

Previous conceptualizations of inter‐channel cannibalization were all based on economic terms and, hence, were considered myopic by Porter. This study examines the psychological influence of the addition of an internet channel on sale agents' work related outcomes.

In the past decade or so, workplace organisation and restructuring processes, have been subjected to the most intense scrutiny. Driven by rapidly intensifying competitive pressures, work organisations sought increased flexibility, especially from labour, as they struggled to maintain market shares in an economic environment increasingly characterised by excess in labour supply. Pressures for change were probably most evident in the public sector where economic and ideological forces combined to limit the growth of government services and increase their exposure to competitive forces.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which employees' perceptions of alienation (personal and social) are related to positive (career satisfaction) and negative (careerist orientation) career‐related outcomes and to examine the mediating role of career satisfaction.

The paper used a cross‐sectional design, with questionnaires administered to 165 employees working in organizations in the USA to test the relationship between alienation and careerism through career satisfaction.

Alienation was found to be a positive predictor of employee careerism, and a negative predictor of their career satisfaction. The data were consistent with a model positioning career satisfaction as a mediator of the alienation to careerism relationship.

Future research should examine the relationship between alienation and career outcomes in other organizations and job families, to enhance generalizability. Data should be also collected longitudinally, to extend the current cross‐sectional design.

Understanding the empirical link between alienation and career outcomes can provide useful information to reduce negative career outcomes.

The findings point toward a positive relationship between employee alienation and their careerism. In doing so, the paper adds to a body of work where careerism was connected with structural rather than individual predictors.

The concept of alienation boasts a long history in the academic literature. However, their empirical relations are not clear. The purpose of this paper is to test a model of predictors and outcomes of alienation. Since occupational status plays a key role in alienation processes, such model was tested with high- and low-status workers.

Participants were 340 workers holding high-status (n=98) and low-status (n=242) positions. Data were collected through a self-report questionnaire. The authors verified the hypothesized relationships by means of a structural equation modelling, simultaneously tested on high- and low-status workers.

Results showed that individual determinants of alienation, i.e. locus of control, appear to play a more relevant role for high-status professionals, whereas organizational dimensions, i.e. perception of decision making, have an impact only for low-status workers. Relational variables, i.e. work-family conflict, fostered alienation, regardless the status. Concerning outcomes, alienation decreased both job satisfaction and job involvement.

The specificities of the cultural context have to be considered. Generalizing the results to other cultural contexts requires caution.

Work alienation has a negative influence on work attitudes that can be better managed by the knowledge of alienation’s correlates and peculiarities.

The study confirms the relevance of alienation for workers’ satisfaction and involvement highlighting the difference between high- and low-status workers.