This study examines the mediating role of employee outcomes in terms of the relationship between High Performance Work Practices (HPWP) and organizational performance. The study presents a 2-1-2 multilevel meditation model in which HPWP and organizational performance (staff absenteeism and patient satisfaction) are measured at the organizational level (Level-2), and employee outcomes at the individual level (Level-1). Using secondary data from the British National Health Service, evidence was found for a direct positive relationship between HPWP and employee outcomes (job satisfaction and employee engagement). Both job satisfaction and employee engagement mediated a negative relationship between HPWP and staff absenteeism, but the positive relationship between HPWP and patient satisfaction was mediated by job satisfaction only. We outline the research methodology and discuss practical implications for our findings.

Recent years have witnessed increased research on the role of workplace partnership in promoting positive employment relations. However, there has been little quantitative analysis of the partnership experiences of employees. This paper examines how the kinds of attributions employees make regarding indirect (union-based) and direct (non-union-based) employee participation in workplace partnership might influence the process of mutual gains. It uses employee outcomes to reflect partnership gains for all stakeholders involved (i.e., employees, employers and trade unions). The paper contributes to existing knowledge on workplace partnership by examining the potential role of the employment relations climate as an enabling mechanism for the process of mutual gains. The findings suggest mutual gains for all stakeholders are varied and mediated through the employment relations climate

The article presents emerging evidence on the development of the platform economy, paying particular attention to the motivations for entering platform work, the conditions of platform work and the extent of social protections afforded platform workers. Debate thus far has tended to be highly speculative and lacking in grounded empirical analysis, with policy-makers in particular actively looking to regulate platform work on the basis of its novelty as a form of employment within the wider context of the decline of the 'standard employment relationship'. The article explores such concerns through an analysis of European Union labor market data and a unique data-set of circa 1,200 online 'click workers' across four established platforms. A novel contribution of the analysis is to differentiate between those that only work on platforms (work-dependent platform workers) and those that do such work in addition to another job. The analysis suggests that work-dependent platform workers are more likely to be differentiated by their motivations for doing such work than their experiences of job quality or access to social protections. However, the relationship between platform working and levels of social protection is complex, notably in terms of combined level of social protection and the contractual arrangement of additional job holders. This leave us to conclude that policy initiatives designed to address gaps in social protections for platform workers would be more appropriately targeted towards problems of insecure work more broadly. Finally, a number of areas for future research are outlined.

The present study explores the impacts of participative decision-making and information sharing activities, two relevant constituents of the High Performance Work Practices (HPWP) framework, on employee attitudes and well-being. The study was undertaken using data from the 2009 National Centre for Partnership and Performance (NCPP) survey on employees’ attitudes and expectations of the workplace. Structural equation modelling was used to test the direct effects of participative decision-making and information sharing on job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job strain, and simultaneously examine the mediating role of work intensification in these relationships. Participative decision-making activities produced overall favourable effects on employee attitudes and well-being; these effects may be explained by decreases in work intensification. The impacts of information sharing on employee attitudes and well-being were generally unfavourable, and fully mediated by increases in work intensification. This study informs two theoretical perspectives on employee-level impacts of HPWP: the mutual gains and the critical perspectives of HPWP; and extends knowledge on the employee-level influences of participatory workplace practices during a period of severe economic recession in the Republic of Ireland

This article draws on an original comparative survey of employers in the UK and Denmark to analyse the role of active labour market programmes (ALMPs) in employers' recruitment of disadvantaged groups. Using the framework of Bonet et al. to conceptualise agencies delivering ALMPs as labour market intermediaries (LMIs), the effect of ALMPs on employers' recruitment was tested against organisational factors involving firm size and selection criteria. Although ALMPs marginally increased employers' probability of recruiting the longterm unemployed in both countries and lone parents in Denmark, their effect was negligible compared with firm size and employers' selection criteria. While ALMP agencies have the potential to increase employers' recruitment of disadvantaged groups, this is constrained when they act as basic 'information provider' LMIs. ALMP agencies' inability to act effectively as 'matchmaker' LMIs leads to a failure to overcome rigid intraorganisational barriers to such recruitment.