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The potential applications of information and communication technologies in the workplace are wide-ranging and, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, have increasingly found their way into the field of electronic performance monitoring (EPM) of employees. This study aims to examine the influence of EPM on individual performance considering the aspects of privacy invasion, organizational trust and individual stress within an organization. Thus, important insights are generated for academia as well as business.

A theoretical framework was developed which conceptualizes perceived EPM as independent variable and individual performance as dependent variable. Moreover, the framework conceptualizes three mediator variables (privacy invasion, organizational trust and individual stress). Based on a large-scale survey (N = 1,119), nine hypotheses were tested that were derived from the developed framework.

The results indicate that perception of EPM significantly increases privacy invasion, reduces organizational trust, increases individual stress and ultimately reduces individual performance. Moreover, it was found that privacy invasion reduces organizational trust and that this lowered trust increases individual stress. Altogether, these findings suggest that the use of EPM by employers may be associated with significant negative consequences.

This research enriches the literature on digital transformation, as well as human–machine interaction, by adopting a multidimensional theoretical and empirical perspective regarding EPM in the workplace context, in which the influence of EPM perceptions on individual performance is examined under the influence of different aspects (privacy invasion, organizational trust and individual stress) not currently considered in this combination in the literature.

This study problematizes the prevailing normative and managerial-dominated view of self-initiated employee ambassadorship on social media from a power perspective. The aim is to provide a more nuanced and critical understanding of the negative aspects of this phenomenon.

The empirical material encompasses qualitative interviews with employees from 14 organizations and Foucault’s concept of disciplinary discursive power to analyze which and how discourses exert power over employee communication on social media and what role visibility plays in it.

This study indicates that employee ambassadors’ social media communication is governed by two discourses that create complex tensions, where ambassadors constantly must negotiate between self-branding requirements and an authenticity paradox. These tensions intensify through visibility on social media, where employees strategize and situationally silence their communication through self-monitoring and self-surveillance practices. Conclusively, the findings also outline the need for further critical research to offer a deeper understanding of power relations that influence the communication practices of organizational members.

The paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of self-initiated employee ambassadorship on social media and highlights disciplinary power relations that go beyond organizational borders.

The findings underscore that organizations need to address the critical aspects of self-initiated employee ambassadorship and act as facilitators to support employees in their navigation process.

This paper contributes a new critical power perspective on employee ambassadorship on social media.

In the literature, evidence is to be found of the positive effect of high-performance work systems (HPWSs) on innovation in firms. However, innovation is enabled by not only human resources but also digital technology, and scholars have called for further investigation into the interplay between digital technology and HRM systems. Drawing on signalling theory and HPWSs research, the purpose of this study is to explore the moderating role of digital technologies in the relationship between HPWSs and innovation in the firm and consider employee participation as an additional conditioning factor.

This study uses data from the European Company Suvery 2019 administered in a sample of more than 20,000 European establishments and applies logistic regression with a three-way interaction.

HPWSs underpin product and process innovation. Moreover, this study shows that in firms with low levels of employee participation, digital technology enhances the effect of HPWSs on innovation, while in firms with high levels of employee participation, this effect is reduced.

This study enriches the scholarly discussion about the link between HPWSs and innovation in the firm, by investigating in theoretical and empirical terms the moderating effect of digital technology, underlining that either positive or negative synergistic effects are possible. By adding employee participation to the analysis, the authors cast light on an important boundary condition for understanding when the synergic effects become more prominent. This intends to respond to recent calls from scholars and practitioners for more insight into the precise nature of the synergies between HPWSs and digital technology on innovation in the firm, with important implications for management.

The literature currently offers only fragmentary insights into the research on the relationship between employee emotions and human resource management (HRM). Therefore, further research is essential to bridge this knowledge gap. Our study aims to identify the mediating effects of positive employee emotions and exhaustion in the relationship between HRM and employee engagement.

Drawing on the literature review findings, a conceptual model was formulated to illustrate the relationship between HRM, employee emotions and engagement. A confirmatory analysis was conducted using structural equation modelling (SEM CFA) on a sample of 1,000 employees to validate the proposed model. The data were collected in 2021, with a particular emphasis on exploring the indirect influence of HRM on engagement through positive employee emotions and exhaustion.

The quantitative research aimed to test a model depicting the relationship between HRM and employee emotions. The findings indicate the robust effect of HRM on positive employee emotions and exhaustion. The authors observed significant variation in the level of impact depending on the size of the organisation (stronger in large firms) and the sector (stronger in the public sector).

The study bridges the gap in our understanding of the link between HRM and employee emotions. It would be advisable to further explore the specific impact of individual HRM practices on both positive and negative employee emotions. It is worth extending the scope of future research to explore components of the investigated constructs as well as mediators and moderators of the relationship between HRM and employee emotions.

Prior research has extensively examined how bringing technology from work into the non-work life domain creates conflict, yet the reverse pathway has rarely been studied. The purpose of this study is to bridge this gap and examine how the non-work use of smartphones in the workplace affects work–life conflict.

Drawing from three literature streams: technostress, work–life conflict and role boundary theory, the authors theorise on how limiting employees' ability to integrate the personal life domain into work, by means of technology use policy, contributes to stress and work–life conflict. To test this model, the authors employ a natural experiment in a company that changed its policy from fully restricting to open smartphone access for non-work purposes in the workplace. The insights gained from the experiment were explored further through qualitative interviews.

Work–life conflict declines when a ban on using smartphones for non-work purposes in the workplace is revoked. This study's results show that the relationship between smartphone use in the workplace and work–life conflict is mediated by sensed stress. Additionally, a post-hoc analysis reveals that work performance was unchanged when the smartphone ban was revoked.

First, this study advances the authors' understanding of how smartphone use policies in the workplace spill over to affect non-work life. Second, this work contributes to the technostress literature by revealing how, in specific situations, engagement with ICT can reduce distress and strain.

This paper explores Lean Six Sigma principles and the DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) methodology to propose a new Lean Six Sigma 4.0 (LSS 4.0) framework for employee occupational exams and address the real-world issue of high-variability exams that may arise.

This study uses mixed methods, combining qualitative and quantitative data collection. A detailed case study assesses the impact of LSS interventions on the exam management process and tests the applicability of the proposed LSS 4.0 framework for employee occupational exams.

The results reveal that changing the health service supplier in the explored organization caused a substantial raise in occupational exams, leading to increased costs. By using syntactic interoperability, lean, six sigma and DMAIC approaches, improvements were identified, addressing process deviations and information requirements. Implementing corrective actions improved the exam process, reducing the number of exams and associated expenses.

It is important to acknowledge certain limitations, such as the specific context of the case study and the exclusion of certain exam categories.

The practical implications of this research are substantial, providing organizations with valuable managerial insights into improving efficiency, reducing costs and ensuring regulatory compliance while managing occupational exams.

This study fills a research gap by applying LSS 4.0 to occupational exam management, offering a practical framework for organizations. It contributes to the existing knowledge base by addressing a relatively novel context and providing a detailed roadmap for process optimization.

We studied the relationship between job engagement and systematic problem solving (SPS) among shop-floor employees and how lean production (LP) and Internet of Things (IoT) systems moderate this relationship.

We collected data from a sample of 440 shop floor workers in 101 manufacturing work units across 33 plants. Because our data is nested, we employed a series of multilevel regression models to test the hypotheses. The application of IoT systems within work units was evaluated by our research team through direct observations from on-site visits.

Our findings indicate a positive association between job engagement and SPS. Additionally, we found that the adoption of lean bundles positively moderates this relationship, while, surprisingly, the adoption of IoT systems negatively moderates this relationship. Interestingly, we found that, when the adoption of IoT systems is complemented by a lean management system, workers tend to experience a higher effect on the SPS of their engagement.

One limitation of this research is the reliance on the self-reported data collected from both workers (job engagement, SPS and control variables) and supervisors (lean bundles). Furthermore, our study was conducted in a specific country, Italy, which might have limitations on the generalizability of the results since cross-cultural differences in job engagement and SPS have been documented.

Our findings highlight that employees’ strong engagement in SPS behaviors is shaped by the managerial and technological systems implemented on the shop floor. Specifically, we point out that implementing IoT systems without the appropriate managerial practices can pose challenges to fostering employee engagement and SPS.

This paper provides new insights on how lean and new technologies contribute to the development of learning-to-learn capabilities at the individual level by empirically analyzing the moderating effects of IoT systems and LP on the relationship between job engagement and SPS.

As after-hours technology-mediated work (ATW) becomes common in organizations, the increased workload and interference to life caused by ATW has induced employee turnover. This research develops a mediated moderation model to explain how employees' intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for ATW affect their turnover intention through work–life conflict.

A survey was conducted to collect data of 484 employees from Chinese companies. Partial Least Square was used to perform data analysis.

The results show that intrinsic motivation for ATW has an indirect negative impact on turnover intention via work–life conflict, whereas extrinsic motivation for ATW has both a positive direct impact and a positive indirect impact (via work–life conflict) on turnover intention. This study also helps find that time spent on ATW can strengthen the positive impact of extrinsic motivation for ATW on turnover intention but has no moderation effect on the impact of intrinsic motivation for ATW. Furthermore, this study reveals that the interaction effect of time spent on ATW and extrinsic motivation on turnover intention is mediated by employees' perceived work–life conflict.

By discovering the distinct impact of employees' intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for ATW on turnover intention, this research provides a contingent view regarding the impact of ATW and offers guidance to managers regarding how to mitigate ATW-induced turnover intention through fostering different motivations.

This study investigates the effect of total quality management (TQM) on customer satisfaction, personnel satisfaction and company reputation.

The study results rely on a structured survey conducted among an extensive sample of Finnish SMEs. In addition to the examination of the relationship between TQM and company performance in terms of customer satisfaction, personnel satisfaction and company reputation, the study takes a view on the possible effects of the industry, the company size and the certified quality system.

The results reveal that two TQM dimensions, namely Customer Focus and Product Management, were related to companies' customer satisfaction, whereas four TQM dimensions, namely Management/leadership, Customer Focus, Personnel Management and Risk Management, were related to personnel satisfaction. None of the TQM dimensions were related to company reputation. The control variables – the industry, the company size and the certified quality system – were not found to affect customer satisfaction, personnel satisfaction or company reputation.

Most previous studies have been based on traditional TQM classification and have not shown the effects of the latest TQM-related dimensions. Compared to previous studies, this work integrates risk management, digitization, system deployment efficiency and stakeholder management into TQM, which has not been implemented in any previous study. The roles of hard and soft TQM factors have been carefully considered in this study; thus, the study does not place too much emphasis on either direction but provides a balanced picture of the performance of the management systems studied. Although there are studies on the effects of TQM on personnel satisfaction, customer satisfaction and reputation, they are based on a much narrower definition of TQM than that in this study. The business environment is constantly changing, but only a few studies have been conducted to extend the TQM approach. This has led to duplication of studies, and the effects of performance-relevant procedures have not been extensively studied in the past as part of TQM. Therefore, the concept of this study brings significant added value to TQM research and returns the TQM concept to the overall level while considering the requirements of the ISO 9001: 2015 and EFQM 2019 quality standards. The study also considers the effects of ISO 9001 certification and EFQM requirements.