Book Description

Not since the Industrial Revolution has the world experienced such a vast transformation in the nature of work as is now in progress. The winds of change are buffeting the terms and conditions of work, its content, and its context. The rapidity and discontinuity of these changes produce discomfort and anxiety among employees and unprecedented challenges to the leadership of organizations. What will the future hold as information technology, global competition, and the quest for efficiency and flexibility rapidly displace jobs and workers? and how can human resource scientists and professionals anticipate what lies ahead and generate better understanding of emerging work behavior?The Changing Nature of Work envisions the future nature of work, its effect on workers and organizations, and the expanded knowledge that will be needed to optimize its returns. The book examines critical post-industrial transformations in work, workers, and the experience of working and assesses the implications of those changes. It investigates what is driving change at work, what is constraining it, and where work is headed as governments, societies, and work organizations respond to its revolutionary thrust.Demonstrating that most knowledge of work life is rooted in jobs, organizations, and workers of the past, Ann Howard and her contributors call for rethinking the psychology of work. In fourteen original chapters, leading authorities within and outside industrial and organizational psychology--including job design, personnel selection, training, teamwork, organizational commitment, careers, leadership, performance appraisal, political and labor economics, sociology, and information technology--question, test, revise, and expand the current body of knowledge about work behavior.The authors explore the human side of the changing nature of work in both service and manufacturing settings and provide new directions for the work and workers of tomorrow. They probe the challenges