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Using the mutual gains model as a framework, the purpose of this paper is to explore the important issue of mutuality in employment relationships.

This study uses a sample of 215 New Zealand professionals to assess the relationships between commitment-oriented HRM practice, work intensification, work-life balance (WLB) and task and contextual performance.

The authors find commitment-oriented HRM practice does not intensify the work experiences of professionals, but nor does it contribute positively to the achievement of WLB. Both these well-being types do, however, contribute to explaining professionals’ task and contextual performance outcomes.

The findings suggest current narrow interpretations of well-being need to be revisited, with the meaning of well-being, its measurement and its role in delivering performance outcomes afforded greater attention within HRM studies.

A primary goal of managers is to deliver optimum performance outcomes. For professionals, the research suggests an important means to achieving this is by promoting positive well-being.

This study offers some important insights into the role mutuality plays in influencing performance outcomes. In addition, by exploring two contrasting facets of well-being, one health- and one happiness-related, the authors provide some empirical insights into how employees’ well-being affects performance outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model of harm indicators of negative externality (NE) of organizational practices, to help practitioners and researchers identify the harmful aspects associated with the unsustainable internal efficiency focused organizational practices to achieve a sustainable society.

Initially, the harm indicators of NE of organizational practices are theoretically explored. Subsequently, the direct costs associated with the harm indicators of NE of work intensification, one of the strategic organizational practices, on employees and the community are examined using published information.

There are clear indications of direct costs for handling the psychological and social aspects of harm of organizational practices on employees, and the employee work‐related health treatment costs to the community.

The published research used in estimating the direct costs of harm indicators on employees and the community in this paper are not originally designed to examine the NE of organizational practices. Therefore, future studies need to explore the costs of harm indicators of NE of organizational practices on society.

An understanding of the costs of harm indicators of NE of organizational practices on society can help organizations to be proactive to introduce sustainable human resource management strategies, so as to minimize the harmful aspects of NE before it starts curbing employees making positive contributions to their families and the community.

The model of harm indicators of NE provides a new insight – that over‐utilization of human resources for an organization's internal efficiency purpose – has unsustainable impact on society.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of accelerated job demands on employee outcomes during the COVID-19 crisis. An integrated model was developed to explore the relationships between different types of job demands (learning, decision-making, work intensification), employee turnover intention (TI) and burnout (BU).

Data were obtained from professionals whose work conditions were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. An online survey was distributed anonymously. A total of 566 questionnaires were included in the analysis. Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the data.

The findings revealed that employees' perception of job demands impacts the significance and direction of the relationships between different forms of job demands and employee outcomes. Furthermore, the findings confirm that mediating role of perceived organizational support alleviates the adverse effects of job demands on employee outcomes. Finally, the present study supported the moderation effect of positive affectivity between work intensification and employee BU.

This study provides employers with insights about supporting employees to cope with increased job demands in conditions where rapid changes are inevitable.

The unique context of research (COVID-19) enabled this study to account for the acceleration of job demands that employees experience in rapidly changing situations. This study employed an instrument that allowed for the assessment of acceleration in job demands. Furthermore, the granular approach of the measurement model extended the perspectives of job demands and work intensification.

The purpose of this article is to examine how the labour process of further education lecturers has changed as a result of legislative reforms introduced in the early 1990s.

The paper draws on labour process theory and emergent perspectives on “the new public management” to provide theoretical frameworks. Evidence is derived from research carried out at three FE colleges in the English West Midlands involving interviews with managers and lecturing staff, documentary material and a survey of lecturing staff employed in the colleges.

Market‐based reforms in this sector have resulted in the intensification and extensification of work effort for lecturers. This paper argues that these changes have been driven by the ideological underpinning of the reform process. Individual and collective acts of lecturer resistance have been insufficiently strong to prevent change from occurring and worker alienation has increased.

The case study method renders generalisability of findings difficult. Comparative studies in other localities and sectors are needed.

The research indicates that the “new managerialism” – which has developed in the public sector – has created an increasingly alienated workforce and that the processes of change in many institutions have had negative outcomes.

The research demonstrates and application of labour process theory, supported by empirical evidence, as a means for examining the changing experiences of a group of public sector workers and assessing the effect of the “new managerialism” on workers' experiences.

This chapter uses findings derived from interviews with 13 Ontario (Canada) secondary school principals to identify conditions that contribute to emotional labor, experienced in their work. Five workplace conditions that heighten participating principals' emotional labor emerged from the interviews, including advocating for students, work intensification, navigating their local policy context, managing workplace conflict and crises or tragedies in the school community. The findings suggest a need to clarify legislated expectations and responsibilities placed on principals to accurately reflect their work and counter the impact of work intensification. Principals could benefit from additional supports to deal with the impact(s) of work intensification, shepherding the school through crises or navigating shifting policy contexts and conflicts in the workplace. Rather than treating the symptoms that result from emotional labor, concrete efforts are needed to change the culture of the principalship in order to maximize the impact of leadership on student achievement.

The purpose of this paper is to explore issues associated with sector specific change in the Australian Public Service (APS). Evidence is presented on the impact of New Public Management (NPM) on work intensification and subsequent negative behaviors by giving voice to APS employees who were subject to the NPM changes.

Data were collected from APS employees, human resource managers and policy makers across 11 agencies on the nature of the changes, context of work, and workplace interactions. The study adopted a triangulated mixed method interpretivist approach using a survey instrument, stories, focus groups, and interviews.

The NPM changes were aimed at creating a more professional and accountable APS. This resulted in individual agencies pursuing different approaches to productivity and efficiency while being accountable to the public and the government within a tight regulatory framework. These changes created competing priorities, affected the nature of the work through intensification, and fueled workplace tensions, thus affecting progress toward the goals of NPM.

The findings of this study will be useful in alerting organizational leaders of possible unintended negative consequences of poorly implemented change programs.

This current study provides evidence that the negative behaviors which arise from the implementation of efficiency focussed change can be damaging to individuals, the nature of work, and therefore organizations and the outcomes sought. Many change management activities in the public sector can lead to negative behaviors if implemented in a way lacking in respect for staff.

This article explores Jamaican secondary school principals' use of mindfulness meditation as a spiritual well-being strategy to manage their work-related stress and anxiety.

The author used qualitative semi-structured interviews to collect the data from 12 Jamaican secondary school principals working in schools supporting rural, urban and inner-city school communities. Thematic coding of the analyzed data was used to understand how principals deal with their work-related stress and anxiety.

The findings indicate that Jamaican school principals are experiencing work-related stress and anxiety as a result of work intensification, and use mindfulness meditation/prayer as a spiritual coping strategy. The data indicate that principals' primary source of support is their spiritual belief – faith in God and mindfulness meditation/prayer – when dealing with issues related to well-being.

This article explores the use of mindfulness meditation as a non-secular coping strategy, and focuses on an understudied area of educational administration research: Jamaican school principals' well-being. The findings can help inform future education and health policy around occupational health and well-being for professionals, and lay the foundation for greater studies on principal well-being in Jamaican and the Caribbean more generally.

This article responds to the call for more research on mobile work by exploring how the aspirations of these workers relate to job satisfaction through adaptation to the job characteristics they experience.

Based on aspiration theory and the literature on mobile work, the paper examines how mobile workers form aspirations and how this is related to their perception of job satisfaction. The empirical analysis uses a two-tier stochastic frontier analysis and the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey dataset.

Mobile workers formulate higher aspirations than the working conditions they experience and report lower levels of job satisfaction than other types of workers. They revise their aspirations downwards when they experience autonomy, discretion, performance-related pay schemes, relation-oriented leadership while they increase their aspirations when they experience work intensification and discrimination.

This paper provides new insights into the work perceptions of mobile workers and enriches existing research by highlighting the importance of the study of individual aspirations to advance understanding of the complex dynamics of mobile work.

This article is concerned with exploring changes in the organisation of work in the graphical industry. The aim is to examine the link between employer attempts to restructure work and resilience of the prevailing machinery of collective regulation within the sector. It is structured around three main areas of work organisation change, notably the search for organisational flexibility, attempts to recast the nature of work and finally the intensification of work. It concludes by arguing that threats to union organisation emanating from the restructuring of work currently appear to be at the “edges”. The argument is that a “community of interest and identity” predicated upon strong levels of union organisation has created the necessary apparatus to redress or resist attempts to dilute unionism. However the article closes by highlighting the continuing gender segregation within the sector and argues that this community of interest must extend to cover all workers within the industry.