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The purpose of the paper is to uncover and synthesise the main factors that affects and determines the success or failure of empowerment initiatives from a macro and micro perspective.

A thorough review of scholarly articles and empirical evidence was conducted on the topic of empowerment in order to bring to light the correlation between the different factors affecting structural empowerment, psychological empowerment and the effect of leadership style.

It has been determined that a team based structure and a culture based on trust and open communication are the key factors affecting the successful implementation of empowerment. Furthermore, although, many positive points can be made for transformational leadership, transactional leadership cannot be discounted as the research shows that the right combination of incentives and rewards, coupled with a certain organisational culture can breed empowerment among certain types of employees.

Going forward in terms of research on the increasingly popular concept of empowerment, it is believed that a more fully integrated model should be developed. Although some models do incorporate analysis of various macro and micro variables a more comprehensive and encompassing model would prove useful. Such a model would allow for a far more in-depth understanding of empowerment and its defining factors and would provide an invaluable tool to organisations wishing to implement empowerment in the most optimal way.

In applying a combination of theories on empowerment, leadership and individuals as part of an organisation, the authors posit that empowerment initiatives are predisposed to either success or failure. In order for empowerment to permeate the corporate culture and prove successful, the predispositions of decentralised management and personal ambition are strong factors of success.

The authors postulate that the deciding factors regarding the success or failure of empowering an employee originate from the employees themselves. Even though employees can adopt new corporate cultures and be transformed by their leaders, their core traits remain the same and will have a decisive impact on the eventual success or failure of empowerment initiatives.

Going forward in terms of research on the increasingly popular concept of empowerment, it is believed that a more fully integrated model should be developed. Although some models do incorporate analysis of various macro and micro variables, a more comprehensive and encompassing model would prove useful.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover and synthesise the main factors that affects and determines the success or failure of empowerment initiatives from a macro and micro perspective.

A thorough review of scholarly articles and empirical evidence was conducted on the topic of empowerment in order to bring to light the correlation between the different factors affecting structural empowerment, psychological empowerment and the effect of leadership style.

It has been determined that a team based structure and a culture based on trust and open communication are the key factors affecting the successful implementation of empowerment. Furthermore, although, many positive points can be made for transformational leadership, transactional leadership cannot be discounted as the research shows that the right combination of incentives and rewards, coupled with a certain organisational culture can breed empowerment among certain types of employees.

Going forward in terms of research on the increasingly popular concept of empowerment, it is believed that a more fully integrated model should be developed. Although some models do incorporate analysis of various macro and micro variables a more comprehensive and encompassing model would prove useful. Such a model would allow for a far more in-depth understanding of empowerment and its defining factors and would provide an invaluable tool to organisations wishing to implement empowerment in the most optimal way.

In applying a combination of theories on empowerment, leadership and individuals as part of an organisation, the authors posit that empowerment initiatives are predisposed to either success or failure. In order for empowerment to permeate the corporate culture and prove successful, the predispositions of decentralised management and personal ambition are strong factors of success.

The authors postulate that the deciding factors regarding the success or failure of empowering an employee originate from the employees themselves. Even though employees can adopt new corporate cultures and be transformed by their leaders, their core traits remain the same and will have a decisive impact on the eventual success or failure of empowerment initiatives.

Going forward in terms of research on the increasingly popular concept of empowerment, it is believed that a more fully integrated model should be developed. Although some models do incorporate analysis of various macro and micro variables, a more comprehensive and encompassing model would prove useful.

This chapter builds on previous research that conceptualized organizational politics as an organizational stressor. After reviewing the studies that integrated the occupational stress literature with the organizational politics literature, it discusses the negative implications of the use of intimidation and pressure by supervisors, implications that have generally been overlooked. Specifically, the chapter presents a conceptual model positing that the use of intimidation and pressure by supervisors creates stress in their subordinates. This stress, in turn, affects subordinates’ well-being, evident in higher levels of job dissatisfaction, job burnout, and turnover intentions. The stress also reduces the effectiveness of the organization, reflected in a high absenteeism rate, poorer task performance, and a decline in organizational citizenship behavior. The model also maintains that individual differences in emotional intelligence and political skill mitigate the stress experienced by subordinates, resulting from the use of intimidation and pressure by their supervisors. In acknowledging the destructive implications of such behavior in terms of employees’ well-being and the productivity of the organization, the chapter raises doubts about the wisdom of using it, and advises supervisors to rethink its use as a motivational tool. Implications of this chapter, as well as future research directions, are discussed.

Observes that historically, family and work were not separated in pre‐industrial societies in which life was a united whole, but that family and work are gradually becoming separated in industrial societies, as work becomes dependent, production becomes centralized, and the relationship of the individual with work impersonal. In Greece there is still some evidence of close relations between family and work due to the large number of very small family firms and the high proportion of the population working in small family farming lots. However, a large percentage of the population work in full‐time traditional jobs. Flexible working patterns such as part‐time, flexi‐time, annual working hours, parental leaves, job sharing, variable working time, telework, condensed working week, as well as contract, pay and task flexibility are not so extensively used in Greece and it is only since 1990 that they are gaining ground. Flexibility at work is a major tool in enhancing economic performance, fighting unemployment and promoting competitiveness. Apart from that, flexibility is needed because it can prove very useful in harmonizing family life with work obligations, provided it takes into consideration family needs, parental obligations and the right of employees to a better quality of life. Presents the current situation on work flexibility in Greece and examines these aspects of flexibility which can prove useful not only in enhancing economic performance but in providing better conditions for the reconciliation between family and work.

The purpose of this paper is to identify employee wellness as a further component of intellectual capital and to illustrate how it might be possible to account for it in ways that depart from accounting's traditional focus on costs and valuations.

The paper is discursive in approach, considering a range of ideas relevant to visualising employee wellness as intellectual capital and how to account for it as such.

Employee wellness a component of primary intellectual capital, being something that employees bring to their organisations together with their experience, expertise, know‐how, leadership skills, creativity, etc. It is also a component of secondary intellectual capital envisaged as initiatives designed to promote greater levels of health and fitness among employees. While it is not possible to place financial valuations on employee wellness, individual or collectively, it is possible to develop metrics that will communicate useful information to a variety of stakeholders. In addition, employee wellness is a suitable topic for the development of self accounts by organisational participants.

The paper is an early contribution to a new field of enquiry and seeks to encourage further studies both empirical and conceptual.

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.

New developments in concepts and approaches to job stress should incorporate all relevant types of resources that promote well-being and health. The success resource model of job stress conceptualizes subjective success as causal agents for employee well-being and health (Grebner, Elfering, & Semmer, 2008a). So far, very little is known about what kinds of work experiences are perceived as success. The success resource model defines four dimensions of subjective occupational success: goal attainment, pro-social success, positive feedback, and career success. The model assumes that subjective success is a resource because it is valued in its own right, triggers positive affect and emotions (e.g., pleasure, cf., Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), helps to protect and gain other resources like self-efficacy (Hobfoll, 1998, 2001), has direct positive effects on well-being (e.g., job satisfaction, cf., Locke & Latham, 1990) and health (Carver & Scheier, 1999), facilitates learning (Frese & Zapf, 1994), and has an energizing (Locke & Latham, 1990, 2002) and attention-directing effect (Carver, 2003), which can promote recovery by promoting mental detachment from work tasks in terms of absence of job-related rumination in leisure time (Sonnentag & Bayer, 2005).

The model proposes that success is promoted by other resources like job control (Frese & Zapf, 1994) while job stressors, like hindrance stressors such as performance constraints and role ambiguity (LePine, Podsakoff, & LePine, 2005), can work against success (Frese & Zapf, 1994). The model assumes reciprocal direct effects of subjective success on well-being, health, and recovery (upward spiral), and a moderator effect of success on the stressor–strain relationship. The chapter discusses research evidence, measurement of subjective occupational success, value of the model for job stress interventions, future research requirements, and methodological concerns.

It is of great importance for organizations to identify what can influence employees’ well-being. The theoretical model that the authors propose combines psychological and social determinants of stress at work. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the contribution of work organization conditions, personality traits and their interaction to well-being in a sample of Canadian workers and companies.

Multilevel regression analyses were performed on a sample of 1,957 workers employed in 63 Quebec firms. Work organization conditions included (skill utilization, decision authority, psychological demands, physical demands, job insecurity, irregular schedule, number of working hours, social support from colleagues and supervisors, job promotion, and recognition) and personality traits included (self-esteem, locus of control and Big Five).

Work organization conditions (psychological demands, number of hours worked and job insecurity) and personality (self-esteem, locus of control, extraversion, neuroticism and conscientiousness) were significantly associated with well-being. The results of the analysis show that none of the personality traits included in this study interacts with work organization conditions to explain workers’ level of well-being.

This study provides support for the implementation of human resource management (HRM) practices in order to diminish the presence of stressful working conditions as well as for the eventual development of training programs designed to raise personality traits.