The 2011 Organizational Research Methods Feature Topic on latent class procedures has helped to establish person-centered analyses as a method of choice in the organizational sciences. This establishment has contributed to the generation of substantive-methodological synergies leading to a better understanding of a variety of organizational phenomena and to an improvement in research methodologies. The present Feature Topic aims to provide a user-friendly introduction to these new methodological developments for applied organizational researchers. Organized around a presentation of the typological, prototypical, and methodologically exploratory nature of personcentered analyses, this introductory article introduces seven contributions aiming to: (a) clarify the meaning, advantages, and applications of person-centered analyses; (b) illustrate emerging prototypical and longitudinal cluster analytic approaches; (c) introduce researchers to multilevel personcentered analyses as well as to auxiliary approaches that will drastically increase the scope of application of these methods; and (d) describe the application of these methods for confirmatory purposes.

Theories of psychosocial working conditions assume an interaction of different work environment characteristics. Most studies detail various aspects of such interactions, while fewer investigate the comprehensive patterns of interrelated variables. This exploratory study distinguishes patterns of psychosocial working conditions, describes their characteristics, and investigates their change over 6 years. The working conditions of 1,744 high-skilled workers in Sweden, of a representative sample of the working population, were empirically classified into 4 distinct patterns: (a) the Supporting pattern with a very low workload, very low time pressure, medium learning opportunities, high creativity requirements, and very high autonomy; (b) the Constraining pattern with a very low workload, very low time pressure, low learning opportunities, medium creativity requirements, and very low autonomy; (c) the Demanding pattern with a high workload, high time pressure, medium learning opportunities, high creativity requirements, and very low autonomy; and (d) the Challenging pattern with a high workload, high time pressure, very high learning opportunities, very high creativity requirements, and very high autonomy. Importantly, these patterns were associated with significant differences in worker well-being. From an individual perspective, working conditions most often changed from patterns with a high workload and time pressure to patterns with lower levels of these demands. Over time, the prevalence of the Constraining pattern increased while that of the Challenging pattern decreased. To conclude, a person-centered approach broadens the understanding of the complex interplay between psychosocial working conditions and their longitudinal change, which can improve the tailoring of occupational health interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record

This study uses a person-centered approach to distinguish between subpopulations of selfemployed individuals using multidimensional well-being indicators. Data were obtained from European Social Survey including a sample of 3461 self-employed individuals from 29 European countries. The analysis has empirically identified six distinct profiles named 'unhappy', 'languishing', 'happy', 'satisfied', 'passionate', and 'flourishing'. The profiles were associated with significant differences in well-being, health and work-related variables. The results highlight the heterogeneity of the self-employed population, and describe the complex-both hedonic and eudaimonic-character of the well-being concept in this population. Keywords Well-being • Self-employment • Person-centered • Latent profile analysis Thus far, little attention has been given to the heterogeneity among the self-employed in terms of their well-being. In general, the self-employed report high levels of well-being (Baron et al. 2016; Stephan and Roesler 2010; Uy et al. 2013). However, the positive relationship between self-employment and well-being may be limited to the rich (Alesina et al. 2001), to the younger and highly educated (Rietveld et al. 2015), to those who became self-employed out of opportunity rather than necessity (van der Zwan et al. 2016), to selfemployed with employees and to immigrant self-employed (Johansson Sevä et al. 2016).

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