Rethinking Work in the Digital Era to Protect the Environment and Promote Health

Dear Colleagues,

New technologies, digitization, and automation are changing workplace and education environments worldwide. The 4^thindustrial revolution is now affecting the ways of doing work, the training of employees, life long learning, the entire organizational structure, and the managers’ and employees’ roles.

The newest work and organizational psychology (WOP) approaches outline both the transition currently taking place in the labor market and its implications for people’s wellbeing and continuous education. As job polarization arises, consisting of services decomposed into low-tech and low-paying vs. high-tech and high-paying jobs, WOP needs to address several concerns. First, how to help those less-qualified workers to better adapt to the changes in the digital era for achieving decent flexible work. Second, how to train people that apply to jobs in growing fields like health, education, and other services, and how to maintain their soft skills needed for in-person services. Third, how to support managers who cope with technology undermining their status, power, and control, for creating value in future work. Moreover, how to promote people to be healthier workers, with greater autonomy and control of their time, combining traditional and independent work with flexible employment, clear boundaries between work and private life, and higher wellbeing (both hedonic and eudemonic). Therefore, the present Special Issue is intended to address the psychosocial processes that underlie these complex and unsettled questions.

Innovative contributions and results of empirical studies that increase our understanding of how the workplace and/or educational settings are changing and how people can embrace emerging forms of work and learning are the focus of this Special issue. Hence, it is open to articles, reviews, case reports, and position papers on these themes.

Prof. Gabriela Topa
Dr. Xuesong Zhai
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.