PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe the need for workplace innovation policies and practices in Europe and evaluate programs that already have been developed.Design/methodology/approachThe paper describes the concept of workplace innovation and trends in society explaining its emergence. The paper then presents and discusses the results of evaluation research as far as this is available.FindingsA growing number of countries is conducting or developing some kind of programme on workplace innovation. These programmes differ in size and governance. Evaluation research shows that simultaneous improvement of performance and quality of working life is possible under certain conditions such as the participation of employees in change projects.Research limitations/implicationsConcepts and designs of evaluation research projects differ considerably. This gives new challenges for companies, trade unions, governments and researchers. In EU2020, little attention is paid to workplace innovation but there is a ray of hope in the draft integrated guidelines for employment policies and in the Flagship Initiative Innovation Union.Originality/valueSocial innovation in the workplace, or workplace innovation, is a new concept, covering to some extent new practices that appear to be relevant for organisations and governments.

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Purpose -This study sets out to describe activities within The Netherlands Centre for Social Innovation, one of the earliest national bodies to promote and develop the concept of social innovation. Design/methodology/approach -The paper describes the concept of social innovation and then illustrates how the activities of The Netherlands Centre relate to this concept, within the context of Dutch social and political systems. Findings -It is found that individual and group performance is not directly the result of employee satisfaction or motivation, but of involvement and commitment through workers' representation and work organisation. These measures appear to be much more effective than courses in individual stress management, although there are circumstances in which such courses can help. Practical implications -The paper describes how one country is attempting to take forward the concept of social innovation. It should be useful to other national development agencies. Originality/value -The paper helps one to understand how national governments act in relation to emerging work-related welfare and development concepts.

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on participation in the workplace and examines the relative importance of different dimensions of job control in relation to subjective well-being and organizational commitment. These dimensions are job autonomy (within a given job), functional support (from supervisor and colleagues) and organizational level decision latitude (shop-floor consultancy on process improvements, division of labor, workmates, targets, etc.). Interaction with work intensity is looked at as well. Design/methodology/approach – Measurements and data were taken from the European Working Conditions Survey, 2010. The paper focusses on salaried employees only. The sample was further limited to employees in workplaces consisting of at least 50 workers. There are 2,048 employees in the final sample, from Denmark, Ireland, The Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and the UK. In this paper, the focus is not on differences between countries, and adding more countries would have introduced too many country characteristics as intermediate variables. Findings – In the regression analyses, functional support and organizational level decision latitude showed stronger relations with the outcome variables than job autonomy. There was no relation between work intensity and the outcome variables. Two-way interactions were found for job autonomy and organizational level decision latitude on subjective well-being and for functional support and organizational level decision latitude on organizational commitment. A three-way interaction, of all job control variables combined, was found on organizational commitment, with the presence of all types of job control showing the highest organizational commitment level. No such three-way interaction was found for subjective well-being. There was an indication for a two-way interaction of work intensity and functional support, as well as an indication for a two-way interaction of work intensity and organizational level decision latitude on subjective well-being: high work intensity and low functional support or low organizational level decision latitude seemed to associate with low well-being. No interaction was found for any dimension of job control being high and high work intensity. Research limitations/implications – Although this study has all the limitations of a cross-sectional survey, the results are more or less in accordance with existing theories. This indicates that organizational level decision latitude matters. Differentiation of job control dimensions in research models is recommended, and so is workplace innovation for healthy and productive jobs. Originality/value – Most theoretical models for empirical research are limited to control at task level (e.g. the Job Demand-Control-Support model of Karasek and Theorell. The paper aims at nuancing and extending current job control models by distinguishing three dimensions/levels of job control, referring to sociotechnical systems design theory (De Sitter) and action regulation theory (Hacker) and reciprocity (Akerlof). The policy relevance regards the consequences for work and organization design.