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Scholars and practitioners have raised concerns that mandatory remote work can lead to feelings of isolation and alienation in employees. Therefore, this study aims to investigate this issue by examining the impact of work communication satisfaction in remote environments on employee alienation and job satisfaction.

Sensemaking and social information processing (SIP) theory are used for formulating the hypotheses. To test the hypotheses, primary data were collected from 418 employees working in various Indian organizations and analyzed using AMOS and Hayes' PROCESS macro for SPSS.

The findings reveal that work communication satisfaction is negatively associated with alienation and positively associated with job satisfaction. Alienation mediated the relationship between work communication satisfaction and job satisfaction. Additionally, employees belonging to organizations with stronger CSR associations reported feeling less alienated than employees of organizations with weaker CSR associations.

Organizations can improve work communication satisfaction by devising remote communication plans that clarify employee expectations regarding the frequency, purpose and channel of communication. Additionally, organizations should communicate their CSR efforts to employees, particularly during times of crisis, as this can help improve employee impressions of the organization.

The study extends the work on alienation by approaching it from the perspective of sensemaking. The research demonstrates how work and non-work-related social information cues (work communication and CSR associations) can influence employee attitudes through their sensemaking. The context of the study adds to its uniqueness.

This sudden disruption of work in the world due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to unravelling situations hitherto unknown to researchers and therefore requires careful and thorough investigation. The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between work from home (WFH) isolation, WFH loss of task identity and job insecurity amid COVID-19 pandemic WFH arrangements by focusing on information technology/information technology-enabled services (IT/ITES) sector employees in India. The study also investigated the mediating role of work alienation.

Data were collected from IT/ITES sector employees who were working from home. The sample size was 312, with 71.8% males and 28.2% females. The study used a descriptive research design. Analysis of the data was carried out using partial least square structural equation modeling. All constructs–independent and dependent–were reflectively measured. The evaluated quality parameters (discriminant validity, reliability, collinearity, common method bias) for all the constructs were found to be within acceptable limits.

Findings from the study indicate that WFH-related isolation and loss of task identity have a significant direct impact on job insecurity. These, along with the mediating construct of work alienation, predicted a 35.8% variance in job insecurity. The study found that work alienation provided complementary mediation between the independent constructs evaluated.

This study attempts to scrape the surface and gain insight into the problems that may arise in the new world of work. This paper presents an attempt to explain some of the psychological pitfalls associated with WFH during the COVID-19 pandemic and to understand their impact on job insecurity.

The purpose of this paper is to define the outcomes of bullying at work. In that sense, the study tries to define the effect of bullying at work on work alienation and the roles of political behavior perception and organizational alienation in this effect.

The study collects data from lecturers from a university in Turkey by using questionnaires. Structural equation model is used to test hypotheses.

The findings of the study show that political behavior perception has a mediating role over the effect of bullying at work on work alienation, and also that organizational alienation has a mediating role over the effect of political behavior perception on work alienation.

The study confirms that perception of bullying at work is determinant on the level of work alienation; thus, it is important to minimize bullying perception. This study shows both researchers and organizations that further potential vital problems to arise as a result of bullying will diminish once bullying at work is decreased.

The research tries to define the consecutives of bullying within a multi-level point of view. Additionally, as per the authors’ knowledge, there are no other studies in the literature that handle the related variables altogether.

Although alienation as a concept has a rich history, it has suffered relative neglect in organizational studies and one possible reason for the same is its conceptual ambiguity vis‐à‐vis popular and long‐standing concepts of commitment/identification, satisfaction and engagement, that represent the positive experience of work and which have sometimes been equated as the opposite of work alienation. Similarly, the negative experience of work has traditionally been captured by concepts such as burnout/cynicism and counterproductive work behaviours/deviance. The purpose of this paper is to argue for refocusing attention on the concept of work alienation in management studies as distinct from other related concepts.

The methodology integrated research from both quantitative and qualitative approaches.

Through the analysis of the concept of alienation, along with other related concepts, the conceptual space for the study of alienation in organizational studies is pointed out. By examining the definition, and the antecedents and consequences of commitment, satisfaction, engagement, burnout and workplace deviance, the overlaps and points of differences are highlighted.

The paper offers a conceptual level analysis and builds the argument for refocusing attention on the study of work alienation. The juxtaposition of the related concepts clarifies that alienation has a unique contribution to make towards understanding the link between experience at work and employee‐related outcomes.

The concept of alienation boasts a long history in the academic literature. However, their empirical relations are not clear. The purpose of this paper is to test a model of predictors and outcomes of alienation. Since occupational status plays a key role in alienation processes, such model was tested with high- and low-status workers.

Participants were 340 workers holding high-status (n=98) and low-status (n=242) positions. Data were collected through a self-report questionnaire. The authors verified the hypothesized relationships by means of a structural equation modelling, simultaneously tested on high- and low-status workers.

Results showed that individual determinants of alienation, i.e. locus of control, appear to play a more relevant role for high-status professionals, whereas organizational dimensions, i.e. perception of decision making, have an impact only for low-status workers. Relational variables, i.e. work-family conflict, fostered alienation, regardless the status. Concerning outcomes, alienation decreased both job satisfaction and job involvement.

The specificities of the cultural context have to be considered. Generalizing the results to other cultural contexts requires caution.

Work alienation has a negative influence on work attitudes that can be better managed by the knowledge of alienation’s correlates and peculiarities.

The study confirms the relevance of alienation for workers’ satisfaction and involvement highlighting the difference between high- and low-status workers.

The current study is aimed at analyzing whether and how organizational constraints (i.e. lack of autonomy) and individual characteristics (i.e. psychological capital) are related to work alienation in subordinates and supervisors, and whether the often hypothesized relationship between autonomy and work alienation is moderated in a three-way interaction (autonomy × psychological capital × hierarchical level). The hypotheses are developed by drawing on the tenets of the job demands-resources model.

The study is based on two-wave survey data from 294 Dutch employees (subordinates and supervisors).

The paper finds that autonomy is more negatively related to work alienation for subordinates with low psychological capital than for subordinates with high psychological capital. Autonomy is negatively related to work alienation for leaders, independent of their level of psychological capital.

Antecedents of work alienation have received substantial attention from researchers. The authors aim to better understand these antecedents by highlighting differences between supervisors and subordinates.

There is limited research on the work alienation of knowledge workers in management studies. This paper seeks to address this gap by exploring the extent and reasons for the alienation of knowledge workers.

In the absence of a comprehensive framework for understanding the work alienation of knowledge workers, various factors such as structural elements of centralization and formalization, work characteristics of autonomy, variety, creativity, meaningfulness and self‐expressiveness, quality of work relationships and justice perceptions were examined as predictors of work alienation. Survey data were collected from six different organizations in the information technology sector (n=1,142) in India.

Around 20 percent of the sample was found to be alienated from work. The strongest predictors of work alienation for knowledge workers were found to be lack of meaningful work, inability of work to allow for self‐expression, and poor quality work relationships.

Organizations employing knowledge workers cannot risk alienating them. The study indicates that one in every five knowledge workers is likely to be alienated. For organizations and practitioners this is a wake up call, pointing to the urgent need to try and understand the factors that are likely to cause alienation among knowledge workers and take adequate preventive steps to ensure an enthused workforce.

Research on alienation in present times has been somewhat limited. This is the first research of its kind across knowledge workers in the information technology industry that attempts to capture their work alienation and factors predicting it.

The objective of this study was to examine the significant factors leading to employee alienation in post-merger integration (PMI).

Data were collected from 482 middle- and low-level employees in two organizations in the real estate and banking sectors in the United Arab Emirates. The analysis was carried out using structural equation modeling (SEM).

Organizational justice, employee commitment, organizational trust, perceived effectiveness of human resource (HR) initiatives and employee communication strategy played an important role in developing or mitigating a feeling of alienation among employees during PMI. Employee tenure in the organization affected individual work performance.

The study was limited to middle- and low-level employees and did not consider other organizational variables important in mergers. This study will help merger strategists to deliver appropriate HR practices during PMI, facilitating mitigation of uncertainties among employees and maximizing their trust and commitment.

The study results will help organizations understand employee trust, commitment and determinants in an emerging economy.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of loneliness and alienation in the workplace on the intention of leaving employment and whether emotional exhaustion has a mediating role in this effect.

The hypotheses generated within the framework of the study model were evaluated by using the data set obtained from 402 survey participants working at nine shopping malls in the Central and Eastern Black Sea regions of Turkey and statistical analysis programs. In this context, the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to determine the validity of the scale and the structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the research hypotheses.

The study reveals that loneliness and alienation in the workplace have an effect on the intention of leaving employment and that this effect is fully mediated by emotional exhaustion. Whether this full mediating role determined by the SEM is meaningful or not was evaluated by Bootstrap analysis and the results revealed that the effect is meaningful.

Developing effective communication channels that will prevent the employee from feeling isolated at work and eliminating the pressure and inadequate physical working conditions created by unrealistic sales targets are recommended. In addition, it is thought that if employees are included in decision-making processes and have sufficient autonomy related to the job, work alienation can be prevented.

This research is important in terms of evaluating shopping centers, which are accepted as the symbol of consumption today, not only with their economic aspects but also with their employees. In this context, the research has revealed that shopping mall employees want to leave their jobs due to emotional exhaustion caused by loneliness and alienation at work.

The mechanisms through which superiors’ leadership styles and subordinates’ internal cognitions affect subordinates’ actual behaviour and attitudes are relatively unexplored in most contexts. This paper aims to bridge the gap by exploring the mediating effect of teachers’ cognitions (psychological empowerment) in the relationship between principals’ leadership style (empowering leadership) and teachers’ behaviour (job crafting) and attitudes (work alienation and organizational commitment).

Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used on data obtained from 624 teachers of primary classes in Indian private schools.

Psychological empowerment partially mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and job crafting and job crafting partially mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and work alienation and affective commitment. Work alienation partially mediates the relationship between job crafting and affective commitment. Empowering leadership has a direct effect on job crafting.

Due to the lack of longitudinal data, causality cannot be established. Also, there are concerns about the factor structure of scales.

Principals demonstrating empowering leadership can help teachers become more proactive and feel more empowered, less alienated and more committed. More proactive teachers and less alienated teachers are more likely to engage in self-initiated professional development and collaboration, thereby improving the teaching-learning process. Though this study was done in the school context, it is believed that the findings can plausibly apply to managers/leaders who work with complex, ambiguous work and knowledge workers.

First, the study extends the research on job crafting by studying the relationship between leadership style (empowering leadership) and job crafting. Second, the identification of the mechanisms through which leaders (principals) can help subordinates (teachers) find meaning in work (reduction in alienation) and develop commitment is an original contribution.