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Drawing on the conservation of resources theory and social exchange theory, this study aims to examine the underlying relationships linking work-to-family enrichment (WFE) and family-to-work enrichment (FWE) to perceived supervisor support and ultimately, job satisfaction among social workers.

Data were collected from members of a social work professional body (n = 439) through an internet-based questionnaire and analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.

Perceived supervisor support mediated the relationships between work–family enrichment (specifically, WFE-Development, WFE-Affect and FWE-Efficiency) and job satisfaction.

Social workers who worked in a positive work environment that uplifts their moods and attitudes (WFE-Affect), have access to intellectual and personal development (WFE-Development) and felt supported by their supervisors reported higher levels of job satisfaction. Those who possessed enrichment resources were found to be more efficient (FWE-Efficiency) also perceived their supervisors to be supportive and experienced higher job satisfaction. Future studies should consider other professional groups and incorporate a longitudinal design.

Promoting work–family enrichment among social workers can contribute to positive work outcomes such as perceived supervisor support and job satisfaction. HR practitioners, supervisors and organisations can promote work–family enrichment among social workers through introduction of family-friendly policies (e.g. flexitime, compressed workweek schedules) and providing a supportive work–family friendly environment for social workers.

Although several work–family studies have linked work–family enrichment to job satisfaction, the present study shows how each dimension of WFE and FWE affects social workers' job satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating roles of work and family demands and work-life balance on the relationship between self-efficacy (to regulate work and life) and work engagement. Specifically, it seeks to explain how self-efficacy influences employees’ thought patterns and emotional reactions, which in turn enable them to cope with work and family demands, and ultimately achieve work-life balance and work engagement.

Structural equation modelling (SEM) of survey data obtained from a heterogeneous sample of 1,010 Australian employees is used to test the hypothesised chain mediation model.

The SEM results support the hypothesised model. Self-efficacy was significantly and negatively related to work and family demands, which in turn were negatively associated with work-life balance. Work-life balance, in turn, enabled employees to be engaged in their work.

The findings support the key tenets of social cognitive theory and conservation of resources (COR) theory and demonstrate how self-efficacy can lead to work-life balance and engagement despite the presence of role demands. Study limitations (e.g. cross-sectional research design) and future research directions are discussed.

This study incorporates COR theory with social cognitive theory to improve understanding of how self-efficacy enhances work-life balance and work engagement through a self-fulfilling cycle in which employees achieve what they believe they can accomplish, and in the process, build other skills and personal resources to manage work and family challenges.

The purpose of this overview is to provide a brief introduction to the theme of the special issue, the expert commentary, and six papers included in the special issue. The authors conclude by articulating four avenues of future research that are likely to contribute significantly towards building work‐environments in which employees and organizations can flourish.

The International Journal of Manpower's usual double blind review process was used to select the six papers from various parts of the world including Estonia, USA, Australia, Brazil, and Israel that focus on important aspects of the changing work environment and its influence on employee wellbeing. The papers represent a wide variety of research designs, methodologies, and analytic strategies used to investigate the influence of changing work environment on employee wellbeing. An expert commentary provides an overview of current scholarship on changes occurring in the work environment and its impact on employee wellbeing.

The findings of the studies included in this special issue provide insights into six specific work‐environmental issues influencing employee wellbeing, including workplace bullying; inter‐organizational networks; professional contractor well‐being; inter‐generational differences; commitment and intention to leave; and work‐engagement.

Each article includes practical implications with regard to promotion of employee wellbeing.

Taken as a collective, the six papers in this special issue highlight frontier issues in the relationship between changing work environment and employee wellbeing. The expert commentary provides an easy to access summary of the current scholarship in the area and specifies fruitful areas for future research.

Research has largely shown that supervisors' negative emotions lead to subordinates' negative emotions and detrimental work outcomes, but recent studies are showing that supervisor negative emotions may yield both negative and positive subordinate behaviours. Drawing on the work–home resources model, this research sought to unpack the interpersonal, cross-domain effects of supervisor negative emotions on subordinate cognitive work engagement and family undermining through subordinate perceived leader effectiveness and self-efficacy to manage work and life.

To test the relationships, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were conducted on time-lagged dyadic data collected from 372 supervisor–subordinate pairs.

Results revealed that supervisor negative emotions led to higher levels of subordinate cognitive work engagement and family undermining.

Supervisor negative emotions had unintended consequences on subordinates' work and family outcomes – they enhanced subordinates' cognitive work engagement (positive work outcome) but also increased subordinates' family undermining (negative family outcome). Future studies could benefit from a diary study with a within-subject design since emotions are known to fluctuate in a day.

This research provides supervisors with insights about the consequences of their negative emotions on their subordinates, calls upon organisations to provide cognitive regulation training, and encourages subordinates to develop self-efficacy in managing their work and life.

This study is among the first to incorporate self-efficacy to manage work and life as a personal resource and subordinate family undermining as an outcome of supervisor negative emotions, which enhances understanding of the resource allocation and loss processes between supervisors and subordinates.

The purpose of this expert commentary is to provide an overview of current scholarship on changes occurring in the work environment and its impact on employee wellbeing. The commentary touches on frontier issues such as measurement of healthy work environment, positive and negative changes in work environment influencing employee wellbeing, link between employee productivity and wellbeing, challenges in converting theory into practice, sustainable organizational behavior, workplace wellness, and several other issues germane to the special issue.

The expert commentary explicates the current state of scholarship in relation to the theme of the special issue. The design of the expert commentary, a scholarly conversation between the Guest Editors and University Distinguished Professor Ellen Ernst Kossek, provides an easy to access summary of the current knowledge in the area. This format is intended to inform readers of IJM and to stimulate further scholarship in the area.

The expert commentary provides a gist of key findings in the extant area of research, serving to inform readers about what we know, do not know, and fruitful areas for further enquiry.

It provides an overview of current knowledge in the area.

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 purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between professional contractor (PC) wellbeing and organisational support as one of mutual benefit for both parties.

Four hypotheses were tested via hierarchical regression techniques using survey data gathered from a sample of 375 PCs working in a range of Australian organisations. Content analysis techniques were used to examine PC responses to a related open‐ended question.

The results demonstrate a positive relationship between self‐efficacy, organisational support, work engagement and knowledge sharing with wellbeing. Adding the PCs’ individualised perspectives provides further insight into the value that PCs bring to an organisation.

The study is limited to PCs within Australia and examines PCs rather than professionals generally. The authors limit the analysis approach to regression techniques rather than structural equation modelling.

First, demonstration of the importance of organisational support to PCs is an important finding for organisations in itself. Second, this finding allows us to suggest specific interventions and guidelines for organisations seeking to efficiently engender contractor engagement and knowledge sharing.

The role of contractor management has become important as organisations increasingly rely on outsourced and contracted work arrangements. The authors consider how organisations and PCs can benefit from organisational practices perceived as being supportive. It is important for both organisations and PCs to be able to identify and develop the key factors which shape the contractual exchange prior to, and throughout, contracted work assignments.

The purpose of this paper is to use generational cohort and professionalism theories as the framework to examine the interaction between supervisor‐subordinate relationships, work‐family conflict, discretionary power and affective commitment at the work‐life interface for Northeast Brazilian public sector professional nurses.

Quantitative data were collected from 550 public hospital nurses in North‐Eastern Brazil. Path and multivariate analysis were used to test the hypotheses.

The findings demonstrate that the impact of the independent variables on affective commitment was statistically significant but low. The impact of NPM factors such as contracting out and multiple job‐holding was a major influence on affective commitment and work‐life interface across generational cohorts. The analysis revealed significant differences between generational cohorts and suggested that affective commitment may well be enhanced by improving the quality of the work‐life interface and consequently, the wellbeing of nurses.

This study is confined to the Northeast of Brazil and confined to public sector hospitals. The self‐reporting techniques used in this study to gather information may be open to common method bias.

The contribution of this research includes the provision of new information about the working context of professional nurses in Brazil, which is a fast growing BRICS economy where the issues surrounding the practice of nursing and nurse management are not well studied to date (i.e. NPM impact on nurse environment). North‐eastern Brazilian managers need to be more aware of generational differences and their impact on levels of affective commitment and the quality of the work‐life interface and wellbeing.

Worker well‐being continues to be fundamental to the study of work and a primary consideration for how organizations can achieve competitive advantage and sustainable and ethical work practices (Cartwright and Holmes; Harter, Schmidt and Keyes; Wright and Cropanzano). The science and practice of employee engagement, a key indicator of employee well‐being, continues to evolve with ongoing incremental refinements to existing models and measures. This study aims to elaborate the Job Demands‐Resources model of work engagement (Bakker and Demerouti) by examining how organizational, team and job level factors interrelate to influence engagement and well‐being and downstream outcome variables such as affective commitment and extra‐role behaviour.

Structural equations modelling of survey data obtained from 3,437 employees of a large multi‐national mining company was used to test the important direct and indirect influence of organizational focused resources (a culture of fairness and support), team focused resources (team climate) and job level resources (career development, autonomy, supervisor support, and role clarity) on employee well‐being, engagement, extra‐role behaviour and organizational commitment.

The fit of the proposed measurement and structural models met criterion levels and the structural model accounted for sizable proportions of the variance in engagement/wellbeing (66 percent), extra‐role‐behaviour (52 percent) and commitment (69 percent).

Study limitations (e.g. cross‐sectional research design) and future opportunities are outlined.

The study demonstrates important extensions to the Job Demands‐Resources model and provides researchers and practitioners with a simple but powerful motivational framework, a suite of measures, and a map of their inter‐relationships which can be used to help understand, develop and manage employee well‐being and engagement and their outcomes.

The purpose of the paper is to identify management and human resource (HR) practices that lead to satisfaction with the performance of an organization's supply chain as well as employee wellbeing, and to develop recommendations for practicing managers.

Adopting an empirical approach, a Delphi expert panel study was first carried out to identify the possible impact of supply chain integration, particularly with regard to human resource management (HRM) policies and practices. Then, using a survey of 228 supply chain professionals, hypotheses linking satisfaction with supply chain performance to non‐traditional HR practices, training, and team organization were tested.

The Delphi study identified specific HR practices, such as flexible job descriptions and teamwork training that would need to accompany successful supply chain integration. Regression results indicate that flexible job descriptions, team organization, teamwork training, and the use of performance metrics to determine rewards, are significantly related to satisfaction with supply chain performance.

The Delphi results are subjective by nature and the cross‐sectional survey design limits inferences of causality.

This paper identifies management and HR practices that lead to satisfaction with supply chain performance, which is particularly relevant to modern industrial organizations where the trend is toward inter‐organizational networks in the form of integrated supply chains. Implications for employee wellbeing are also discussed.

This paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach and links HRM practice with supply chain management; two separate fields with their own research traditions.