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The purpose of this paper is to identify key personal and organisational resources that influence the engagement, well-being and job satisfaction of healthcare professionals working in Australia.

Using the job demands–resources model, this study investigates how employee resources and organisation resources influence engagement, well-being and job satisfaction of health professionals in Australian hospitals. The authors collected survey data from a sample of healthcare professionals (n=217) working in three hospitals in New South Wales, Australia.

The results confirm the importance of the emotional health of employees on their well-being. The results concur with existing research that employees with higher levels of emotional health have more positive emotional and social interactions, and thus exhibit higher levels of well-being at work. The study also uncovers certain aspects of emotional health that can influence a range of employee outcomes.

The findings link human resource management practices to unique motivators of healthcare professionals which, in turn, are likely to improve engagement, well-being and job satisfaction.

The study highlights specific resources that support greater levels of well-being, engagement and job satisfaction in Australian hospitals.

Alcohol workplace policies (AWPs) can help organizations to manage and support employees with alcohol-related problems. Over the last two decades, there has been a slow but steady rise of research on AWPs with some indication that these can contribute to reducing employee excessive consumption. However, there does not appear to be any empirical literature reviews to consolidate and evaluate what this body of evidence says regarding the impact of these policies. The following review seeks to address this gap.

Five electronic databases were searched for papers published between January 1996 and January 2020. To capture additional relevant papers (including those from non-peer reviewed sources), the search was extended to Google Scholar, professional and human resource management websites, trade publications and the website of one United Kingdom (UK)-based alcohol charity. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were used to systematically screen the paper titles, abstracts and full-text records. 14 papers were deemed eligible and therefore included in the integrative review. After extracting data, all 14 papers were appraised for quality and then analysed using the narrative synthesis guide by Popay et al. (2006).

Five themes were identified, namely, Associations between Policy and Consumption Levels/Patterns, Deterrence, Policy and Programme Type, Knowledge and Understanding and Enforcement and Discipline. These themes encapsulated what the included papers concluded about the impact and associated benefits or challenges of AWPs.

This review identifies that despite the benefits of AWPs, up to 40% of workplaces do not have these policies in place. Future research needs to explicitly explore the reasons for this.

This review highlights that AWPs can benefit employees and workplaces. Therefore, organizations are encouraged to develop and implement AWPs to support health improvement and prevention of alcohol problems in the workplace.

This review provides a current synthesis of literature published over the last two decades regarding the impact of AWPs on employees and workplaces.

An increasingly dominant theme of recent M&A research has been the issue of cultural compatibility and the notion of “culture fit” and its contribution to post-combination performance and integration (Cartwright, 2005). Hence, various methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative, have been applied to the M&A context to analyze the cultures of combining employee groups and the extent to which they share the same reality.

In the last few decades, narratives and stories have attracted the interest of organizational researchers and practitioners both as analytic tools and as a subject for study. This chapter explores the value of stories as a means of understanding culture, communicating values and ideals, promoting adaptive change, and developing cooperation and identification with the new merged organization. It illustrates the application of narrative methodologies within the context of a recent merger within the banking industry.

The changing nature of work and the emergence of new forms of work organization present particular challenges to leadership and management. This special issue examines some of the challenges and issues in the relationship between technology, stress and satisfaction within call centre environments, the problems of remote leadership and the rise in contingent workforce.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are popular business strategies and have been on the increase in recent years. The present study investigated post‐merger stress in a sample of field sales employees from a recently merged organisation. A survey methodology was utilised to examine group differences, comparing those from the two pre‐merger companies and those new to the merged organisation. Results revealed that group differences in both sources and effects of stress existed. Those from the dominant pre‐merger company reported the highest stress levels and most negative work attitudes. Results were discussed in relation to previous research. It was concluded that group differences in response to large‐scale organisational change are prevalent and the group context of the situation should be recognised and explored by managers in change situations.

Considers the gendering of organizations and contends that gender, as a dimension of organizational culture, is a factor responsible for the limited participation of women in project management. Continues the argument presented in an earlier article published in this journal and proposes an agenda for future research in this area.

This paper serves two purposes: first, it is an apology for a failure to produce a planned special issue, along with the rationales as to why the authors decided to withdraw it; and second, a commentary on the apparent failure of the research community to address a neglected area of inquiry in emotional intelligence (EI) research.

The authors provide a commentary.

The authors draw attention to the possiblity that employing highly emotionally intelligent individuals may not always yield desirable outcomes for organisations, thus seeking to ignite a more balanced debate as to the merits of EI in management and leadership studies. The authors also detail briefly several avenues for future research.

The theme of the planned special issue was situated at the forefront EI research, so this commentary succinctly highlights the theorising that informed the background to it.