Gig work has been increasing in past years and is usually portrayed as a precarious and vulnerable non-standard employment form characterized by high insecurity. To better understand insecurity experiences of gig workers, we explore whether and how insecurity perceptions in relation to gig, financial, career and business domains are combined in distinct insecurity profiles. To characterize found profiles, potential antecedents (demographics, gig work motives, gig employment characteristics and labor market factors) to insecurity perceptions are studied. This study focuses on employed gig workersin Sweden, who work client-based and find their own assignments, but also have an umbrella company as their legal employer. Based on 227 employed gig workers, four distinct insecurity profiles were identified. The ‘predictable secure’ (40%), the ‘career secure’ (20%), the ‘client and career insecure’ (24%) and the ‘highly insecure’ (17%). Results indicate that not all gig workers experience insecurity or work in a precarious employment form. Instead, at least for some, gig work can provide employment that is perceived as intrinsically motivating. Others needed gig work for their income and were using gig work not solely as sideline activity. Results also reveal that several aspects of job insecurity are important to consider when differentiating the heterogenous group of gig workers. This study concludes that policies may be needed for vulnerable groups to identify solutions that reduce insecurity in client-based work. Preferably, this can be done in dialogue between employers, unions, gig workers and their clients.

This study addresses the scarcity of research on health developments in the heterogeneous group of self-employed workers. It aims at understanding typical health progressions in this group and associations with demographic factors, work characteristics, and self-employment decisions. We investigate health profiles based on mental health problems, self-rated health, and work satisfaction, as well as transitions between them in relation to work effort, reward, overcommitment, demographic characteristics, and entrance and exit into self-employment. Using latent transition analysis, we analyzed data from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH), including data from 593 participants. We identified four distinct, stable health profiles, revealing associations with work effort, reward, overcommitment, and self-employment decisions. No meaningful relations existed for demographic characteristics. Overall, the findings offer a comprehensive perspective on the health dynamics of self-employed individuals, their associations with work characteristics and decisions to enter and exit self-employment.

The objective – Temporary agency work (TAW) means being hired out to client organizations on an assignment basis, thus recurrently switching to new assignments. For workers, this constitutes a context with specific conditions for workplace learning and career development. Formal learning opportunities are known to be restricted, but there is limited research focusing on individual agency and possibilities – or hinders – to learn and develop in order to create meaningful and sustainable careers in the context of TAW. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore how temporary agency workers can use individual agency to influence their development and person-environment fit in meaningful ways, thereby contributing to career sustainability.

Methods – We conducted semi-structured theme-focused interviews with 22 temporary agency workers. After verbatim transcriptions, all interviews were analyzed with narrative analysis. Five typical narratives were identified: (a) The flexible worker, (b) TAW as a side gig, (c) TAW as a stepping stone, (d) Return to work as TAW, and (e) TAW as a dead-end.

Results – The five narratives offer different perspectives on development and meaningfulness, as TAW is seen as an investment in future career sustainability, an investment into regaining sustainability, an indirect investment in a future sustainable career, or as a sustainable or unsustainable situation in itself. In each narrative, learning and career development are individualized (require agency), and individual agency is restricted by the nature of the TAW contract (e.g., work tasks defined in contract) and the TAW policy at the client organization (buffer vs. recruitment strategy). Career development and developmental learning is primarily shaped by changing assignments or being recruited by the client organization.

Conclusion – This study elicits cohesive narratives of how temporary agency workers independently become agentic and identify their needs for learning and development to move forward, thereby creating meaning around TAW and their careers. 

This special issue of Economic and Industrial Democracy is dedicated to the contributions that Professor Magnus Sverke has made (to date) to Swedish and international research on working life. The timing of the special issue coincides with Professor Sverke approaching ‘normative’ retirement age, even if we do not know when he will officially retire. As has been shown in a wealth of earlier studies, the timing of retirement can be expected to be subject to complex decision making that may change over time (Sousa-Ribeiro et al., 2021). With this uncertainty regarding the timing of Magnus’s actual retirement, we take the opportunity to highlight and celebrate his many achievements and contributions to research and practice in work and organizational psychology in 2025. This year also marks the 30th anniversary of Magnus’s receiving his PhD in psychology, in 1995 – another good reason to take stock. Since Magnus is still actively conducting and publishing research and is expected to extend his career for a number of years, this special issue is a celebration of Magnus’s career so far.

Organizations face challenges in leadership succession, partly due to reduced employee interest in progressing to leadership roles. This study examined participative decision-making (PDM) as a strategy to foster leadership aspiration and whether it is particularly beneficial for women, who often encounter barriers in the workplace. A cross-sectional study in Sweden surveyed non-leaders (N = 749) and leaders (N = 240) on their leadership aspirations and perceived inclusion in PDM. Results showed PDM was positively related to aspiration in both groups. Among non-leaders, the relationship was stronger for women; among leaders, unexpectedly, stronger for men. Results and practical implications are discussed.

Illegitimate tasks are responsibilities that fall outside the accepted scope of an employee’s role and have been shown to negatively impact employee well-being, especially in the public sector. Despite repeated calls for multilevel models to explore whether the negative effects of illegitimate tasks can be mitigated by leadership behaviour, research remains limited. This study examines how the two dimensions of illegitimate tasks, unnecessary and unreasonable tasks, are associated with work engagement, stress, and turnover intention employing multilevel analysis while exploring the moderating role of transformational leadership. Using questionnaires and register data from a Swedish municipality, the study included 1721 employees. The findings indicate that more unnecessary and unreasonable tasks decrease work engagement, increase stress levels, and make it more likely that employees intend to leave their jobs. Moreover, aggregated at the workgroup level, transformational leadership moderates the relationship between unreasonable tasks and turnover intention. Specifically, higher levels of transformational leadership reduce the negative effects of unreasonable tasks on turnover intention. A similar trend is observed for the relationship between unnecessary tasks and stress, where transformational leadership marginally buffers this association. The findings in the study suggest that organisations should prioritise enhancing task alignment to minimise the prevalence of illegitimate tasks. However, as eliminating such tasks entirely may be challenging, fostering transformational leadership behaviours could help mitigate their negative impact, particularly on turnover intention.

Despite extensive research on organisational justice, it remains unknown how organisational justice aspects interrelate and co-occur in individuals. Using a person-centred approach, and latent profile analysis specifically, we examine profiles of procedural, distributive (as measured by effort-reward imbalance), interpersonal, informational, and overall justice. Profiles are validated with covariates as well as work and health outcomes cross-sectionally and prospectively over time. Data from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH) from 2018 (n = 9,756) and 2020 (n = 7,542) were used. Based on data from 2018, we found four different profiles: an ‘Average justice’ profile, a ‘High justice’ profile, a ‘Low justice’ profile and a ‘Low process-focused justice’ profile. The ‘Low justice’ profile, especially, was comprised of a high proportion of women, lower educated, public-sector employees and shift workers. The ‘Low justice’ profile showed high levels of intentions to leave, suboptimal general health and low job satisfaction in 2018 and 2020. Results highlight the importance of organisational justice to maintain a healthy and motivated workforce and indicate that low levels of procedural justice might partly be mitigated by high levels of interactional justice. The study responds to the appeal by justice researchers to consider the experiential nature of justice perceptions and underscores the merit of moving beyond variable-oriented methods.

Aims: To investigate how team psychological safety and organisational psychosocial safety climate associate with self-management and hindrance- and violation-related stress of conscience among nurses and other healthcare workers.

Design: A longitudinal survey study with two data points.

Methods: Healthcare personnel (n = 241, 40% nurses) rated perceived safety in 2021, possibilities to self-manage their work in 2023, and stress of conscience in 2021 and 2023.

Results: Team psychological safety and organisational psychosocial safety climate positively predicted self-management of executing work, whereas only the organisational part predicted self-management of leading work. Unexpectedly, self-management of leading one's work was positively associated with hindrance-related stress of conscience.

Conclusion: When employees feel safe to take interpersonal risks in their team and have possibilities to prioritise their work goals and influence the ways work performance is measured, it can increase, rather than reduce, feelings of not being able to act according to what the employee sees as morally right.

Implications for the Profession and/or Patient Care: Providing adequate resources to meet the insights arising from a psychologically safe work team seem to be especially important for nurses.

Impact: Healthcare employees need possibilities to actualize and follow through the insights that can emerge from having high psychological safety and high opportunities for self-management.

Reporting Method: The STROBE checklist.

Patient or Public Contribution: No patient or public contribution.

Objective: Employability – the perceived chance of obtaining another job – is an important psychological resource to navigate ever changing labor markets. This holds particularly true for workers in non-standard careers who cannot fall back on long-term organizational support. The movement capital model (MCM) has been used to predict perceived employability in employees, graduates and the unemployed. However, its application to non-standard work is less common. Here, we investigate in what way the MCM fits to explain perceived employability in the solo self-employed working in their registered businesses or via umbrella companies in Sweden. These two emerging groups need to manage their own careers agentically by means of their own resources, something the MCM is well-suited to understand.

Method: Survey data was collected for N=683 workers. Measures covered the four dimensions of MCM: human capital (age, education workplace learning), social capital (support from one’s network), personal adaptability (learning goal orientation, self-efficacy, optimism), and career identity (contract motivation). Perceived employability was measured by a single-item ”I have a good chance of getting another job somewhere else, if I looked for one actively.” The item was tested amongst a sample of solo self-employed in think-aloud protocols which revealed that the item was understood as intended, i.e. asking for another job alternative, for example in organizational employment.

Results: Correlation analyses confirm the expected relationships between the four dimensions of MCM and employability. Multiple linear regression analyses are conducted to test the predictive power of the MCM for perceived employability of the solo self-employed.

Investigating the antecedents of employability can provide valuable insights into how to best support non-standard workers in strengthening their competitiveness on an increasingly dynamic labor market. The study thus provides valuable insights for WOP scholars, policy-makers and practitioners.

The rise of non-standard work arrangements has increased the need for research on career sustainability within these contexts, yet insights remain limited. In this study, we explore how gig workers employed by so-called umbrella companies understand and navigate their seemingly contradictory work arrangement. Building on the framework of sustainable careers, we conducted a reflexive thematic analysis with gig workers employed by Swedish umbrella companies. Results challenge the common portrayal of gig work as inherently precarious, as workers found ways to create a meaningful and sustainable career sequence. Participants perceived umbrella companies as enabling hyper-flexibility and hyper-individualization, thereby enhancing their person-career fit. However, they also acknowledged the limitations and potential societal challenges of this work model. We discuss how the sustainable career framework can capture the complexity of how employed gig workers made sense of their careers.