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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.

For various reasons many organisations are currently introducing the new ways of working (NWW). By now, this occurs on such a large scale, that it becomes relevant to investigate whether the new way of working leads to the best way of working: are the measurements taken by NWW really resulting in pursued outcomes? NWW claims to make working more effective, efficient but also more enjoyable for the organisation as well as the employee (Bijl, 2007). In practice, it seems that more pragmatically reasons lead to changes in the way of working. In many cases this concerns the elimination of fixed workplaces, combined with the possibility to work from home or elsewhere, facilitation of working with new ICT, and establishing an organisational culture which aims at employee autonomy and goal attainment.

To answer the question whether the NWW approach offers sufficient tools to provide effective solutions for occurring objectives, we compare NWW with a scientifically established construct regarding work design: Sociotechnical systems (STS) (Kuipers et al., 2010). We chose STS not only because it is a comprehensive approach to work design (all aspects of managing and organising are addressed), but also because the ambition is similar to NWW. STS considers, next to the ‘quality of the organisation’ (which is central to most work design approaches), also the ‘quality of work’ and ‘quality of employment relationships’ as outcome criteria. With incorporating the latter two, STS distinguishes itself from many other work design approaches and fits to the philosophy of NWW as mentioned above. Important foundations for the NWW approach are the quality of work as well as the willingness to organise teamwork.

The comparison of NWW and STS reveals as most important finding that the NWW approach misses a coherent theoretical foundation for the design of organisations. NWW focuses on loose aspects of organisations, like workspace, work design, management, organisational culture and competences. This is also evident in the scientific research focused on NWW: many studies examine the impact of a specific measure (e.g. introduction of flexible workspaces) on specific aspects of the organisation (e.g. social cohesion). Due to the lack of a work design approach no framework exists to test whether the introduction of NWW fits to the organisation and how work is organised and divided. It is our statement that NWW can only be effective once a good theoretical foundation is provided for NWW and once a clear work design approach is deducted.

Simultaneously, the NWW practices provide so many relevant practical experiences on skills and information underlining the potential of STS. Currently, STS mostly is focused on work in industrial organisations. STS and NWW have the potential to mutually extend each other, while tools may be developed with which new ways of working lead to the best way of working for organisations.

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.

New ways of working (NWW) change some fundamental processes in the workplace. NWW practices like teleworking, flexible workspaces, and flexible working hours lead to different behaviors of employees. But does the employment of NWW practices also have an impact on the innovation behavior of employees? This chapter explores this relationship and uses qualitative data from case studies to illustrate the complex linkages between three components of NWW and IWB.

Based on seven chapters in this volume and a broader literature review, we present a research agenda where research challenges are identified with the relevant research questions. In the second place, this chapter presents the implications of NWW for HR, in particular the required competences for HR-professionals. We elaborate on several research questions that, in our view, help to address challenges to advance our understanding of NWW. The need for more theory-driven research is stipulated, including some possible directions for appropriate methods, such as configurational analysis. we argue that it is essential for HR-professionals to know the required HR-competences for managing and coaching those who are involved in NWW-practices. This chapter provides crucial insights for these competences.

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.

The new ways of working (NWW), a contemporary work environment with temporal and spatial flexibilities, has become an enforced reality after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted workplaces. However, the understanding of how it impacts employee well-being perceptions is limited. Hence, the current study aims to examine how the NWW facets, namely, time- and location-independent work, management of output, access to organizational knowledge and flexibility in working relations relate to employees' life satisfaction, mediated by psychological capital.

A cross-sectional survey was designed to collect data from 459 Indian knowledge workers. Model fit and the hypothesized relationships were tested using IBM SPSS 25, AMOS and PROCESS Macro.

All four NWW facets positively relate to psychological capital, which in turn associates with life satisfaction. Except for the facet “management of output”, the other three facets associate positively with life satisfaction before accounting for the mediator. Indirect effects of all four facets on life satisfaction via psychological capital were established. Overall, the findings establish the important mediating role of psychological capital in relating the NWW facets with life satisfaction.

By examining the previously unexplored relationships between NWW, psychological capital and life satisfaction, this study provides novel insights into the role of personal resources in maximizing the beneficial effects of the NWW practices and is highly relevant in the current context where organizations are trying to identify coping mechanisms that help employees adapt to workplace transformations.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a first investigation of how new ways of working (NWW) and their various facets relate to employee informal learning at work, while accounting for a range of known antecedents of informal learning.

The job demand–control model and the job demands–resources model underpin our hypotheses on how NWW would relate to informal learning. The hypotheses are tested using the Preacher and Hayes (2008) bootstrap method for mediation analysis, accounting for the potential mediating effect of the frequency with which employees receive feedback.

The analyses show that NWW positively relate to informal learning at work. This relation is mediated by the frequency with which employees receive feedback. Further analysis shows that one particular NWW facet – access to organizational knowledge – is an independent driver of informal learning, hardly mediated by receiving feedback.

The results suggest that managers who seek new ways to stimulate informal learning can do so by giving their employees more access to organizational knowledge, for instance, by leveraging the potential of modern ICT.

This empirical paper is the first study on the impact of NWW on informal learning at work. Using data on the Dutch working population, it provides novel insights for several strands of literature as well as for practitioners.

This study aims to develop a scale for new ways of working (NWW) in higher education institutions in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The study also intends to validate the psychometric properties of the developed scale.

This study targeted the academic staff of universities in the GCC region. Out of the 1,200 questionnaires distributed, only 1,016 questionnaires represented valid responses. Because there was not a unified theory for NWW, the authors developed a six-dimension tool that covered all virtual work aspects and psychometrically validated.

The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed a structural model of six factors: flexible work location; work–life balance; communication; workplace design at home; culture and motivation; and satisfaction. The model showed a satisfactory fit. The scale consisted of 32 items with a high Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.85, which demonstrated good internal consistency. The results also suggested that the NWW scale had adequate convergent and divergent validity.

The data for the current study is a cross-sectional that represents a single sector; therefore, it would be more interesting to include more sectors. The study findings contribute to the ongoing debate in feasibility and usefulness of NWW pre, during and post-Covid-19 crisis. This research has offered a new scale for measuring NWW that fits dynamic educational environment where continuous learning and innovation are the key critical factors for survival. For this reason, further future studies need to refine, validate and improve the current scale structure. Also, because the current scale is by no means conclusive, future studies may look at other work characteristics and contextual factors that determine the success of NWW.

Practitioners can use the results of the current study as an intervention tool to leverage NWW acceptance to regain benefits and mitigate negative consequences. In addition, policymakers may use the scale as an evaluation tool to examine the readiness of higher education institutions to counter the COVID-19 crisis.

The originality of this work stems from the fact that it is the first study to develop a scale for NWW and test its psychometric properties in higher education institutions in the GCC countries, a domain that has been ignored by the extant literature.

The purpose of this paper is to shed more light on the impact of the various facets of new ways of working (NWW) on employee work engagement, taking into account multiple sectors and occupational fields.

Insights from the literature and the job demands-resources model underpin the hypotheses on how NWW would affect work engagement. The hypotheses were tested using the Preacher and Hayes’ (2008) bootstrap method for multiple mediation and controls, taking into account two potential mediators between (facets of) NWW and work engagement: social interaction in the workplace and transformational leadership.

The analyses show that three facets of NWW – management of output, access to organizational knowledge, and a freely accessible open workplace – positively affect employees’ work engagement. The latter two facets appear to be fully mediated by social interaction and transformational leadership.

The results imply that firms should foster transformational leadership styles among their line managers, and social interaction in the workplaces, to maximize the positive impact of NWW on work engagement.

This empirical paper draws on a unique data set on the Dutch working population to provide novel insights with a substantial degree of generalizability into the relation between NWW and work engagement, whilst applying a more comprehensive definition of NWW than previously applied, while incorporating two potential mediators.