Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/34889

Title

New technology, the global economy and organizational environments : effects on employee stress, health and well-being

Author(s)

Langan-Fox, Janice;  Antoniou, Alexander-Stamatios G.;  Cooper, Cary L.

Abstract

Several key issues arise from the current organizational environment in considering the work-health relationship. First, there is the influence of the global economy which has brought about dramatic changes in employment participation trends. Second, huge technological advances have accompanied organizational restructures (Langan-Fox, 2001) and have influenced how work is experienced. Third, change may have had a negative effect on autonomy and other aspects of control over work processes. Fourth, increased dependence on technology may have increased responsibility amongst workers but may also have contributed to deskilling, and poor employment prospects for those who cannot keep up with the pace of change. Finally, change in the nature and quality of work has affected health and there are flow-on effects to other areas of life such as the family. The present chapter examines these questions and attempts to illuminate research avenues which would provide an agenda for future research. In what follows we examine, first, the effects of downsizing and restructures; second, the requirement of workforce flexibility; third, the effect of unemployment and technology; and, finally, the broad issues involved in the work-health relationship and the attendant risks associated with employment, and whether interventions and health promotion and prevention programmes have worked, and will work, and how research can provide answers to the various issues presented above.

Publication type

Book chapter

Source

Research companion to organizational health psychology / Cary L. Cooper and Alexander-Stamatios G. Antoniou (eds.), p. 413-429

Publication year

2005

Keyword(s)

Global economy;  Globalisation;  Industrial psychology;  Occupational stress;  Organisational behaviour;  Organisational psychology;  Technology;  Well being

Publisher

Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN

9781843766247

Peer reviewed