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Offering workplace flexibility to attract new talent has become a strategic issue for many organizations. Workplace flexibility provides employees with the autonomy to choose when and where to perform their work. Even though there is some evidence of its positive influence on organizational attraction, research that differentiates the influence of temporal and spatial flexibility is lacking, leaving their separate and joint effects largely unclear. Furthermore, whether the principle of distribution influences this relationship is also unclear. Drawing on signaling theory, we perform an experimental study that helps to clarify how workplace flexibility influences organizational attraction. We conduct a randomized vignette-based experiment (N=334) that manipulates temporal flexibility, spatial flexibility and equity-based distribution. The results indicate significant main effects for both dimensions of flexibility, with temporal flexibility having a stronger influence. For the combination of temporal and spatial flexibility, we found an additive effect rather than a significant interaction. The experiment did not detect any evidence for a moderating role of equity-based distribution. The paper provides contributions to research and practice. Finally, we discuss our findings with regard to limitations and make suggestions for future research.

BackgroundHealth care employees in Germany and worldwide are exposed to a variety of stressors. However, most of the hospitals in Germany lack a systematic workplace health management. Thus, this study aims at the evaluation of the effects of a behavioural as well as organisational (´complex´) intervention on the mental health and well-being of hospital staff.MethodsMental health in the hospital workplace (SEElische GEsundheit am Arbeitsplatz KrankeNhaus – SEEGEN) is an unblinded, multi-centred cluster-randomised open trial with two groups (intervention group (IG) and waitlist control group (CG)). Study participants in the intervention clusters will receive the complex intervention; study participants in the waitlist control clusters will receive the complex intervention after the last follow-up measurement. The intervention consists of five behavioural and organisational intervention modules that are specifically tailored to hospital employees at different hierarchical and functional levels. Hospital staff may select one specific module according to their position and specific needs or interests. Towards the end of the intervention roundtable discussions with representatives from all professional groups will be held to facilitate organisational change. Primary outcome is the change in emotional and cognitive strain in the working environment, from baseline (T0) to 6 month-follow up (T1), between IG and CG. In addition, employees who do not participate in the modules are included in the trial by answering shorter questionnaires (cluster participants). Furthermore, using mixed methods, a process evaluation will identify uptake of the intervention, and mediators and moderators of the effect.DiscussionThere seems to be growing psychological strain on people working in the health care sector worldwide. This study will examine whether investing directly in the hospital staff and their interpersonal relationship may lead to measurable benefits in subjective well-being at the workplace and improved economic performance indicators of the hospital. In case of a positive outcome, health promotion strategies looking at behavioural as well as organisational components within the hospital may gain additional importance, especially in regard of the growing financial pressure within the health sector.Trial registration DRKSThe SEEGEN study is registered at the German Clinical Trial Register (DRKS) under the DRKS-ID DRKS00017249. Registered 08 October 2019, URL.https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00017249.

Research on e-participation has grown significantly in the last years. This review focuses on public administrations, which are central actors in the solicitation and organization of e-participation and in the process of diffusion of more democratic decision-making in government contexts. However, research indicates that public administrations often struggle with technological and organizational changes, which suggests that e-participation initiatives may fail due to barriers within public administrations. Although researchers have paid considerable attention to the diffusion of e-participation in public administrations, research so far is multi-disciplinary and fragmented. The aim of this literature review is to structure and systematize the literature regarding phases of e-participation diffusion (adoption, implementation and institutionalization) and levels of analysis (micro, meso, and macro) to map the extant field of e-participation diffusion research and to provide a starting point for future research. The analysis shows that research has concentrated on the phases of adoption and implementation, and on the external context of public administrations (macro) and the organizational (meso) level. Overall, the review identifies major research gaps and offers avenues for future research.