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This chapter departs from a specific Swedish perspective on structural changes which took place during the 1990s in Sweden. Before this period Sweden had a long period of improving democracy at work. From the start of the 1990s a number of structural changes were – according to national surveys – associated with increasing psychological demands at work. According to the same sources this was followed during the three last years of the 1990s by a reduced decision latitude. The prevalence of work-related psychological problems started to rise when decision latitude started to decrease. A discussion of concepts related to work democracy is followed by a review of the literature on work democracy and health. Finally, strategies for improving democracy and possible health promoting effects of such improvement are discussed.

This paper aims to focus on participation in the workplace and examines the relative importance of different dimensions of job control in relation to subjective well-being and organizational commitment. These dimensions are job autonomy (within a given job), functional support (from supervisor and colleagues) and organizational level decision latitude (shop-floor consultancy on process improvements, division of labor, workmates, targets, etc.). Interaction with work intensity is looked at as well.

Measurements and data were taken from the European Working Conditions Survey, 2010. The paper focusses on salaried employees only. The sample was further limited to employees in workplaces consisting of at least 50 workers. There are 2,048 employees in the final sample, from Denmark, Ireland, The Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and the UK. In this paper, the focus is not on differences between countries, and adding more countries would have introduced too many country characteristics as intermediate variables.

In the regression analyses, functional support and organizational level decision latitude showed stronger relations with the outcome variables than job autonomy. There was no relation between work intensity and the outcome variables. Two-way interactions were found for job autonomy and organizational level decision latitude on subjective well-being and for functional support and organizational level decision latitude on organizational commitment. A three-way interaction, of all job control variables combined, was found on organizational commitment, with the presence of all types of job control showing the highest organizational commitment level. No such three-way interaction was found for subjective well-being. There was an indication for a two-way interaction of work intensity and functional support, as well as an indication for a two-way interaction of work intensity and organizational level decision latitude on subjective well-being: high work intensity and low functional support or low organizational level decision latitude seemed to associate with low well-being. No interaction was found for any dimension of job control being high and high work intensity.

Although this study has all the limitations of a cross-sectional survey, the results are more or less in accordance with existing theories. This indicates that organizational level decision latitude matters. Differentiation of job control dimensions in research models is recommended, and so is workplace innovation for healthy and productive jobs.

Most theoretical models for empirical research are limited to control at task level (e.g. the Job Demand-Control-Support model of Karasek and Theorell. The paper aims at nuancing and extending current job control models by distinguishing three dimensions/levels of job control, referring to sociotechnical systems design theory (De Sitter) and action regulation theory (Hacker) and reciprocity (Akerlof). The policy relevance regards the consequences for work and organization design.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of advertised reference price (ARP) and sales price (SP) as anchor points on the latitude of expected price, and subsequently on purchase intention (PI). The research involves the theoretical lens of selective anchoring mechanism, which allows investigation of the influence of ARP and SP in a situation where price estimation task is a “non-thoughtful processes”.

On the basis of quasi-experimental design, the study involves intercept survey of 142 shoppers.

The study finds that due to anchoring effect, the highest and the lowest expected prices shift toward ARP and SP, respectively. Consequently, it influences the latitude of expected price, which in turn influences purchase intention. In addition, the study proposes and tests a method to forecast expansion and contraction of the latitude of expected price.

It suggests a new mechanism to understand the simultaneous influence of ARP and SP, provides a mechanism to understand shifts in price latitude’s end-points and investigates a phenomenon with two externally provided anchors.

The study highlights the role of the latitude of expected price in understanding consumers’ response. Results suggest that a plausible ARP, when joined with an above-expectation SP, can fetch better consumer responses.

The study uniquely investigates a problem with two anchor points and two estimation targets, and proposes a construct of internal price uncertainty (IPU).

The nature of work has changed in the past 30 years but we do not know what these changes have meant for worker job stress. In this chapter we compare data from three surveys of the quality of work life from 1972 to 2002. At the most general level, work today is less stressful than it was in 1972. Workers report fewer job demands, more decision latitude, less job strain, more job security and greater access to job resources and job support. However, these changes have not affected all workers equally. Women, those with less education, non self-employed workers, blue collar workers and workers in manufacturing industries showed the greatest decreases in job stress although levels of job stress remain higher than for comparison groups (men, college educated, white collar, service workers). Changes were not always linear across time suggesting that some aspects of job strain are sensitive to economic cycles.

This study aims to put forward a theory for the design of the crown sections in hedgerow orchards.

The fruit trees located at the north latitudes 0°-60° were selected for analysis. In detail, the study period focused on the fruit trees’ growing season, that is from the vernal equinox to the autumnal equinox. Certain fixed hedge-shaped angle with sufficient sunlight throughout the seasons was calculated under the condition of the lines from north to south. Meanwhile, the crown cross section perpendicular to the lines was analyzed in rectangular, trapezoidal and triangular forms.

Results showed that the adaptive geographic latitudes to different crown sections should be determined by the ratio analysis between various crown heights and spans.

The optimum parameters of the crown sections in different latitude areas can be determined by the theory proposed in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of role stressors on job stress among airline employees in mainland China. More specifically, the aggravating effects of shift work and the mitigating effects of decision latitude are explored to facilitate strategies of intervention aimed at reducing job stress.

Data are collected using a field survey in Mandarin from 485 airline employees, including pilots, flight attendants, and service employees in five major cities in mainland China.

The findings demonstrate that role overload and role conflict have significant positive effects on job stress. Furthermore, both shift work and its interference with non‐work activities significantly elevated the impact of role overload on job stress. Findings also reveal that decision latitude mitigated the detrimental effect of role overload on job stress for employees working on fixed shift, but not for employees working on rotating shift.

This is a cross‐sectional study using perceptual measures.

The findings suggest that aviation managers in China need to focus not only on decision latitude but also on job and organizational design to mitigate the impact of job demands on stress. While decision latitude works to ease demands among those who work on fixed shifts, it does not work in the same way for those working on rotating shifts.

This paper corroborates the cross‐cultural applicability of stress theory by demonstrating the detrimental role of rotating shift on stress while at the same time calling attention to some cultural shaping of the findings.

The purpose of this paper is to design free return trajectories launching at lower-latitude launch site Wenchang and landing at relatively high-latitude landing site Siziwang Banner tailored to human lunar missions for China, and in general demonstrate the feasibility of high-latitude landings with acceptable entry range.

Free return trajectories satisfying all basic constraints were generated directly by a high-fidelity model with multiple differential corrections. Suitable initial assumptions, control parameters, constraints and stopping conditions were set. Method was developed to automatically converge unlimited trajectories accurately to the same constraints, and their characteristics affected by the ephemeris were analyzed.

Launching into lower Earth inclination plus high-latitude landing with acceptable entry range requires asymmetric trajectories with high inclination Earth entry only from the south. Periodic trends of parameters at launch, injection and entry were found and analyzed. Nominal trajectory covering phases from launch to landing for China human moon flight with minimum entry range were designed.

Such trajectories can be used by China’s future manned lunar missions. Spacecraft capability and ground station distribution shall adjust accordingly.

Previous studies mainly concentrated on symmetric free returns using low-fidelity models first. This paper investigates asymmetric free returns skipping simplified gravity model approximation to simultaneously achieve high-latitude landing and acceptable entry range, and accurate automated generation of feasible trajectories daily across 19-year lunar nodal cycle within every monthly launch window without trial and error to reflect the actual effect by the ephemeris only. Others include landing accurately by controlling entry direction and range (and altitude), minimizing entry range and designing an effective scheme of differential correction for full convergence.

The purpose of this paper is to address the theoretical ordering of the associations between work hours, psychological demands, decision latitude, and psychological distress.

A mediation model, predicting that the association between long work hours and psychological distress is mediated by psychological demands and decision latitude, was tested with a representative sample of 7,802 individuals in full‐time paid employment surveyed by a government agency. Structural equation modeling was used and the full mediation model was replicated for subsamples of men and women. The analysis controlled for demographic variables, work characteristics and socioeconomic status.

As expected, decision latitude is associated with less and psychological demands with more psychological distress. Long work hours are associated with more decision latitude and psychological demands. The association between long work hours and psychological distress is mediated by psychological demands and decision latitude. The mediation process was supported in male and female sub‐samples.

Considering the weak associations between work hours and psychological strain reported in previous research, the findings of this study support new theorizing about this association. Accordingly, long work hours may be viewed as a distal variable influencing the duration of exposure to psychological demands. The study reported here also underscores the need to further investigate the positive consequences of long work hours within the context of psychological contracts.

This is one of the few studies that conceptualize work hours as something other than an occupational risk factor or as a job demand with a direct impact on psychological strain. It thus provides a new basis for thinking about the process through which long work hours may influence psychological strain.

Researchers and practitioners usually consider that integrating customers in firms’ business models comes with positive consequences. However, customer integration may also detrimentally influence firms by limiting their strategic and operational latitude, which, in this context, refers to the degree of freedom companies possess over their strategic and operational decisions and actions. Being aware of that would enable companies to limit this potentially harmful influence.

This is a conceptual paper that relies on recent business cases. It is suggested that the negative influence of customers on firms’ latitude occurs through the three dimensions of their business model, namely, resources and competences, value propositions (i.e. the firm’s offer) and the organization.

By influencing the use of resources and competences, the design and evolution of the value proposition or the functioning of the organization, customers may constrain firms’ strategic and operational moves and thus have detrimental effects on their performance and evolution. Three ways to counterbalance this potentially negative influence are proposed.

A lack of prior research on the negative side effects of customer integration in firms’ business models is emphasized. Further studies are needed to help firms take these into consideration.

Being aware of the potential drawbacks associated with using customers as resources, firms are invited to balance the level of their strategic and operational latitude with the importance that they grant to their customers.

This paper introduces the concept of strategic and operational latitude. It is also one of the few to highlight the negative consequences of customer integration in firms’ business models.