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A survey of employed workers was conducted at two time periods to assess relationships between work‐family conflict, well‐being, and job and family satisfaction, along with the role of social support from work colleagues and family members. Levels of work‐to‐family interference (WFI) were found to be uniformly higher than family‐to‐work interference (FWI). However, at each time period FWI showed more consistent negative relationships with well‐being and satisfaction, indicating that family‐to‐work interference may have a greater bearing on employees’ affective reactions. There were few cross‐time relationships between work‐family conflict and these reactions, which suggests that the association of work‐family conflict with well‐being and satisfaction may be time‐dependent. Although there was some evidence that social support from work colleagues moderated the relationship of WFI with psychological strain and family satisfaction, family support did not display a consistent moderator influence. Instead, both forms of support tended to exhibit direct (rather than moderator) relationships with the outcome variables. Implications of the findings for research and interventions are discussed.

The impact of technology on the health and well-being of workers has been a topic of interest since computers and computerized technology were widely introduced in the 1980s. Of recent concern is the impact of rapid technological advances on individuals’ psychological well-being, especially due to advancements in mobile technology that have increased many workers’ accessibility and expected productivity. In this chapter we focus on the associations between occupational stress and technology, especially behavioral and psychological reactions. We discuss some key facilitators and barriers associated with users’ acceptance of and engagement with information and communication technology. We conclude with recommendations for ongoing research on managing occupational health and well-being in conjunction with technological advancements.

This study explored a number of work‐family attitudes and the current and future use of work‐family practices by gender, using a sample of 100 New Zealand employees. Females were significantly more supportive of work‐family practice users towards both male and female users. Female employees also perceived greater benefits from work‐family practices than male respondents. Finally, female respondents were more likely to consider using work‐family practices in the future, although there were no differences to wards current use of work‐family practices by gender. Overall, the findings suggest that female employees are more supportive of work‐family practices, their users, and the benefits associated with their use, supporting the socialisation theoretical perspective. The implications for research are discussed.

The engagement and retention of older workers is a major concern for organisations and has been an increasing focus for human resource scholars internationally. Drawing on social exchange theory (SET), the purpose of this paper is to examine the conditions under which retention and engagement of older workers could be enhanced, together with the potential for perceptions of age discrimination to negatively influence these outcomes.

The study surveyed a large sample of New Zealand workers aged 55 years and over from across 28 New Zealand organisations of varying size and from a wide range of industrial sectors. A moderated-mediation model was proposed to examine the relationship between perceived organisational support (POS) and intention to leave, the mediating effect of job engagement in this relationship, and the moderating influence of perceived age discrimination on this mediation.

While POS was negatively related to workers’ intention to quit, job engagement partially mediated this relationship. Age discrimination moderated this mediation. As perceived age discrimination increased, the mediation of job engagement was weakened as POS had less influence on the job engagement of older workers.

Implications for human resource management practice include the importance of providing organisational support for older workers along with protections from age bias and discrimination.

The study is one of the first to apply SET to the context of older workers, and has extended the SET literature through its examination of the role of employee engagement as a mediator of this relationship, and how perceived age discrimination, as a negative aspect of the work environment, can negatively impact these relationships.

It is generally believed that workaholics tend to deny the existence of fatigue and push themselves beyond reason before physical complaints stop them working and lead them to seek help. However, while self‐neglect is believed to be a hallmark of workaholism, empirical data are both scant and contradictory. This study explores whether workaholics experience poorer health status than other (non‐workaholic) employees. Two groups of respondents (46 workaholics, 42 non‐workaholics) completed the workaholism battery‐revised and the rand SF‐36 at two measurement points across six months. While workaholics reported slightly poorer social functioning, role functioning and more frequent pain, they reported similar vitality, general health and psychological health to non‐workaholics. Importantly, differences between groups were small and failed to reach statistical significance. Given the substantial body of data supporting the SF‐36 and the present six‐month replication, it appears that workaholism may be less toxic to personal health and well‐being than at first thought. Implications for organisational and human resource management, including equal employment opportunities for workaholics, are discussed.

This study aims to test the belief that work‐family practices could have a negative influence in the workplace for non‐users of these practices.

A quantitative approach was undertaken, where users and non‐users of work‐family practices reported on a number of job‐related attitudes. Organisational justice theories suggest that employees will report lower attitudes if they feel that they are missing out on some benefit or practice. T‐tests were used to compare differences in these attitudes between users and non‐users.

There were no significant differences in any of the examined attitudes between users and non‐users of the organisations' work‐family practices.

Implications are that firms should not necessarily decline the adoption of work‐family practices if they fear a “backlash” from their employees who would not use work‐family practices. The authors suggest that the social good these practices may provide might remove any negative feelings towards the organisation by employees who cannot use these practices.

Practical implications for public sector organisations might be offering work‐family practices that target the widest array of employees. Further, future research into work‐family backlash should compare actual users of multiple practices as explored here.

This is one of the few papers to explore users and non‐users of multiple work‐family practices. It confirms previous research into work‐family backlash, indicating that the non‐users are not adversely affected by work‐family practices that they do not or cannot use. However, unlike other studies, this paper explored the use of multiple work‐family practices, providing stronger and more realistic findings for managers to have confidence in their work‐family practices.

States that there has been a trend for publications in the Asia‐Pacific region to move to a combined print and electronic medium, in an effort to achieve the goals of social equity and increased exposure to the worldwide community through the World Wide Web (WWW). Reviews some of the mechanisms by which this transition can be evaluated with respect to these two goals, both economically, but more importantly, in terms of user‐behaviour recorded WWW server access logs. The auditing of these logs facilitates new forms of market research which are impossible to conduct on traditional paper publications, as objective, quantitative information about usage patterns can be measured directly from key variables such as country of origin, most popular content pages, and typical access errors. It is argued that these audits can be used effectively for future planning, developing popular content areas, and creating publicity policy for electronic publications. The transition to a joint paper and electronic format for the South Pacific Journal of Psychology is presented in a three‐month case study, with important issues, such as the importance of indigenous contributions, being resolved using statistics computed from the server access logs.

Julian Barling received his PhD in 1979 from the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) and is currently associate dean with responsibility for the graduate and research programs. Julian is the author/editor of several books, including Employment, Stress and Family Functioning (1990, Wiley) and The Psychology of Workplace Safety (1999, APA). He is senior editor of the Handbook of Work Stress (2005, Sage) and the Handbook of Organizational Behavior (2008, Sage), and he is the author of well over 150 research articles and book chapters. Julian was formerly the editor of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. In 2002, Julian received the National Post's “Leaders in Business Education” award and Queen's University's Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision in 2008. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, SIOP, APS, and the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology. He is currently involved in research on leadership, work stress, and workplace aggression.