Special Issue "Good Work: Eroding and New Standards in a Changing World" publishededited by Sven Hauff and Daniela Rastetter
27 September 2021

Photo: Kimberly Farmer @ unsplash
The changing context of work – for example, through globalization, intensifica-tion of competition, deregulation, growth in employment flexibility, technologicalchanges, digitalization, or the Covid-19 pandemic – increasingly triggers debatesabout the quality of working life. These debates are evoked by concerns about the well-being of employees whichseems to become more and more threatened through contemporary developmentsin work and society. Such observations sometimes elicit nostalgic memories of the apparently ‘good olddays’ where work was characterized by full-time employment, an adequate income,a permanent contract, and social insurance. However, these ‘old’ standards of ‘goodwork’ did not apply to all employees and even in the ‘good old days’, work was of-ten characterized by a strict hierarchy and low influence, where employees’ interestswere largely neglected. Here, modern forms of employment – often discussed underthe heading of ‘new work’ – could lead to improvements by providing, for example,more autonomy, involvement, flexible working hours, flexibility in the location ofwork, a better worklife balance, and inclusion.
The question of how to evaluate the changes in the world of work is not easyand there are manifold perspectives on how to define the standards of ‘good work’. This Special Issue brings together research that addresses the issue of eroding and new standards of ‘good work’ and were in part presented at the conference of the Arbeitskreis Empirische Personal- und Organisationsforschung in 2019. Sven Hauff and Daniela Rastetter - both members of the researcg consortium Labour Standards for Improving Well-Being - are the editors.