Editorial

Abstract

In this issue of Economic and Industrial Democracy, articles concerning job insecurity in various countries, the role of unions in the innovation process and in decision-making, as well as employer associations and climate change are included. The first article in this issue, ‘Organizational change and psychosomatic symptoms: Exploring pathways through working conditions and assessing the moderating role of social support among European workers’, by Marine Coupaud, ESSCA School of Management, France, discusses how organizational change can have an impact on workers’ health. Using the European Working Conditions Survey, the author finds that social support moderates the health effects of job demands. The article also includes emotional labour in order to better understand the mechanisms in this respect. The next article, ‘Self-initiated expatriates in menial jobs: Destructive psychological contracts in the hospitality sector’, by Johannes M Kraak, KEDGE Business School, Bordeaux, France, Yannick Griep, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Sweden, and Yochanan Altman, University of Haifa, Israel, and Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Austria, explores psychological contracts in the French hospitality sector. The authors find that although the employer disrupted the contract, which normally would end such a relationship by the employee, instead, the workers exhibited dysfunctional behaviour. Mindy Shoss, University of Central Florida, USA, and Australian Catholic University, Australia, Anahí Van Hootegem, KU Leuven, Belgium, Eva Selenko, Loughborough University, UK, and Hans De Witte, KU Leuven, Belgium, and North-West University, South Africa, discuss job insecurity in the article ‘The job insecurity of others: On the role of perceived national job insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic’. The authors found that perceived national job insecurity mirrored a person’s view that job insecurity, i.e. another person’s job insecurity, was high at a national level, and thus relevant from the COVID reaction perspective. The article ‘Do participation structures affect workers’ voice?’, by Kristin Alsos, Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research, Norway, and Sissel C Trygstad, Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research, Norway, uses a power resource perspective, in relation to the Nordic labour market model, to analyse how local representative union participation, formal or informal, can influence important decisions on the company level. The authors conclude there is a risk of undermining the union’s strength by using more informal ways. 1165895 EID0010.1177/0143831X231165895Economic and Industrial DemocracyEditorial editorial2023