Organizing Social Safety: An Integration of Theoretical Approaches

Abstract

In this paper, we integrate different theoretical perspectives and research strands addressing threats to social safety in the workplace. As a result of our integrative analysis, we elucidate how the team level interconnects organizational and individual level mechanisms, and how these can be engaged to connect organizational policies to well-being and productivity of individual workers. We argue for the added value of a multi-level approach, in which organizational, team, and individual level interventions and social safety provisions are aligned. We conclude that these different perspectives and their focal concepts complement each other and are relevant for different types of professionals. Examples of mismatches between efforts and mechanisms of different organizational actors clarify that organizing social safety successfully requires the combination of insights from theoretical approaches to align initiatives and outcomes at managerial, team, and employee levels. Integration of top-down (policy design) and bottom-up (effect monitoring) efforts with team-level mechanisms will benefit social and psychological safety in the workplace.