High-involvement work processes, work intensification and employee well-being

By Peter Boxall, K. Macky. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 2008

708 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Using a national population survey, this article examines how high-involvement work processes affect employee well-being. The analysis shows that greater experiences of autonomy and participation in decision-making have positive or neutral effects. Higher involvement is a key factor predicting higher job satisfaction and better work–life balance while it has no relationship to stress or fatigue. In contrast, higher levels of work intensity increase fatigue and stress and undermine work–life balance. If the quality of working life is a key objective in a reform based on greater employee involvement, close attention needs to be paid to the balance between processes that release human potential and those that increase the intensity of work.

Subfields: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b9e9447c6fc012bf7aed9579d042af129f3416ad

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Citations in the corpus

The paradox of employee psychological well-being practices: an integrative literature review and new directions for research (2019, neutral): “Our analysis of the literature revealed that authors conceptualised PWB broadly, including elements such as: job satisfaction, e.g. Boxall and Macky (2014); diversity management e.g. Guillaume, Dawson, Otaye-Ebede, Woods, and West (2017); happiness and job involvement e.g. Huang, Ahlstrom, Lee,…”
The Effect of Strategic Human Resource Management on Organizational Performance: The Mediating Role of High‐Performance Human Resource Practices (2013, methodology): “Perception-based measures of performance are widely used in the literature (e.g., Macky & Boxall, 2008; Shih, Chiang, & Hsu, 2006).”
Employee performance, well‐being, and differential effects of human resource management subdimensions: Mutual gains or conflicting outcomes? (2018, methodology): “are seen as the main mediating mechanism for explaining the stress-related effects of HRM systems (e.g., Kroon et al., 2009; Macky and Boxall, 2008).”
Positive organisation : the role of leader behaviour in work engagement and retention : original research (2011, background): “According to Macky and Boxall (2008), employees’ well-being plays a vital role in the organisation’s success.”
Between a rock and a hard place: Freedom, flexibility, precarity and vulnerability in the gig economy in Africa (2020, neutral): “Work intensity understood as pace of work and effort (Green, 2006); long and irregular working hours; emotional and time demands (Boxall and Macky, 2014) are key indicators of job quality.”
Exploring the relationships between high involvement work system practices, work demands and emotional exhaustion: a multi-level study. (2018, background): “Further, more functional flexibility might lead to changes in employees’ role, resulting in perceived overload of one’s work role (Macky & Boxall, 2008).”
Cross-level effects of high-performance work Systems (HPWS) and employee wellbeing: the mediating effect of organisational justice (2016, background): “Research on the potential effect of HPWS on employee well-being has been rare (Harley et a.,l 2007; Boxall and Macky, 2014).”
Flexible Working and Performance: A Systematic Review of the Evidence for a Business Case (2011, neutral): “Potential mediators, with the exceptions of job satisfaction or commitment, were rarely investigated as is the case in the wider HRM and performance literature (Harley et al. 2007; Macky and Boxall 2007, 2008; Mohr and Zoghi 2008; Takeuchi et al. 2009).”