Special Issue of EAWOP in Practice focusing on Work Place Innovation

2017 –  This special issue of the e-journal of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP) focuses on Work Place Innovation (WPI). It is the first of two volumes, the second one will follow in the autumn of 2017.

Aim
The aim of this special issue is twofold: a) to provide a platform for researchers and practitioners to showcase research and organizational practices on WPI; and b) to discuss and debate the role of Work and Organizational Psychologists in promoting the application of WPI.

Content
The editorial is written by Diana Rus who – together with two colleagues – edited this journal.
In short she argues that although WPI has been studied and practiced through the lens of multiple disciplines ‘surprisingly, work and organizational psychologists have largely stayed away from discussions surrounding WPI, although they could contribute enormously to an understanding of the factors surrounding the effects of WPI on organizational performance and quality of working life’.

The first of six articles is by Arianna Costantini, Riccardo Sartori and Andrea Ceschi, who present an overview of recent studies on WPI from a work and organizational psychology perspective and discuss the advantages of taking such a perspective on WPI.

Second is an opinion piece by Maria Karanika-Murray and Peter Oeij. They argue that the expertise of Work and Organizational Psychologists is greatly underused in WPI practice. By taking an integrative, critical approach, they discuss the potential role that they could play to strengthen the practice of WPI.
Then follows a paper by Pierre Van Amelsvoort and Geert Van Hootegem who present a coherent set of approaches aimed at creating a framework for stakeholders interested in redesigning organizations for WPI:  a sociotechnical design perspective, Lean Thinking, Total Productive Maintenance and Human Resource Management theories.

The last three contributions stem from a larger team of researchers commissioned by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) to conduct research on why and how companies apply WPI across Europe in order to offer recommendations to European policy makers on how to stimulate WPI.
Peter Oeij, Steven Dhondt, Rita Žiauberyte-Jakštiene, Antonio Corral and Paul Preenen present empirical evidence on why, how and with what effects, companies implement WPI based on the Eurofound study.
Fietje Vaas, Rita Žiauberyte-Jakštiene and Peter Oeij argue that practitioners interested in implementing WPI can benefit from being exposed to case examples of WPI best practices (as described in the Eurofound study) as a supplement to more abstract definitions of WPI.
Peter Totterdill and Rosemary Exton, present three case studies from the UK showcasing the role of enterprise leadership for successful WPI implementation.

Reference
EWOP in Practice; e-journal of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychologists (EAWOP); special issue on Workplace innovation, Volume 1, 2017. Editors: Dr. Diana Rus, Dr. Angela Carter,Dr. Colin Roth, Co-editor. The complete journal and the pdf’s of the six articles can be downloaded via: https://www.eawop.org/latest-issue .