New ways of working and psychological well-being: work intensity as a target variable of job resources

• Date: 28 June 2024
• Pages: 353-366
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWHM-01-2024-0010
• Published date: 28 June 2024
• Subject Matter: Health & social care,Healthcare management,HR & organizational behaviour,Human resource policy,Employee welfare
• Author: Roman Soucek,Amanda S. Voss,Hans Drexler,Klaus Moser

New ways of working and

psychological well-being: work

intensity as a target variable

of job resources

Roman Soucek

School of Business, Economics, and Society,

Friedrich-Alexander-Universit€

at Erlangen-N€

urnberg, Nuremberg, Germany and

Department of Psychology, Medical School Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Amanda S. Voss and Hans Drexler

Institute and Outpatient Clinic of Occupational, Social, and Environmental Medicine,

Friedrich-Alexander-Universit€

at Erlangen-N€

urnberg, Erlangen, Germany, and

Klaus Moser

School of Business, Economics, and Society,

Friedrich-Alexander-Universit€

at Erlangen-N€

urnberg, Nuremberg, Germany

Abstract

Purpose –Digitalization and flexibility of workplaces as aspects of new ways of working are associated both

positively and negatively with employees’well-being. However, the mechanisms behind this relationship are

not clear yet. We present work intensity as a link between new ways of working and psychological well-being.

Furthermore, we address two job resources to alter this association: autonomy and boundary control.

Design/methodology/approach –Overall, 1,099 employees of a public administration organization

participated in the survey and answered a web-based questionnaire. The organization was in the transition to

new ways of working including the introduction of a digital filing system and remote work.

Findings –The results of regression analyses provided evidence that flexibility and dissolution of boundaries

were positively related to work intensity, which in turn was associated with emotional exhaustion and work

engagement. Thus, new ways of working were negatively associated with psychological well-being, mediated

by work intensity. Further analyses revealed that the job resources of autonomy and boundary control

moderated the relationship between flexibility respectively dissolution of boundaries with work intensity.

Thus, these job resources acted as buffering factors and mitigated the association of new ways of working with

work intensity.

Originality/value –The results indicated that work intensity could be perceived as a conceptual bridge

between new ways of working and psychological well-being providing a promising target variable for the

deployment of job resources to preserve employees’well-being.

Keywords New ways of working, Work intensity, Psychological well-being, Autonomy in the workplace,

Boundary control

Paper type Research paper

International

Journal of

Workplace Health

Management

353

© Roman Soucek, Amanda S. Voss, Hans Drexler and Klaus Moser. Published by Emerald Publishing

Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone

may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and

non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full

terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

The present work was performed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for obtaining the degree

“Dr. rer. biol. hum.”

Funding: This research was supported by grants from the Deutsche Gesetzliche Unfallversicherung

(Project No. FF-FP 0428).

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/1753-8351.htm

Received 15 January 2024

Revised 1 April 2024

19 May 2024

28 May 2024

31 May 2024

Accepted 1 June 2024

InternationalJournal of Workplace

Health Management

Vol. 17 No. 4, 2024

pp. 353-366

Emerald Publishing Limited

1753-8351

DOI 10.1108/IJWHM-01-2024-0010