The Impact of New Work on Leadership and Organizational Culture - An Analysis of Leadership and Employee Perception

Abstract

This thesis explored the impact of New Work on organizational culture, with a specific focus on leadership and employee perception. The thesis displayed how New Work concepts, such as autonomy, flexibility, and meaningful work affect employee engagement, behavior, and retention. Furthermore, the role of leaders in the adaption of modern work environments was explored.

To achieve these objectives a triangulation of research methods was used. The theoretical foundation was built by a comprehensive literature review on the topics of organizational culture and New Work. Moreover, the empirical part of this thesis was conducted via qualitative and quantitative research methods. The qualitative data were gathered in form of semi-structured interviews with leaders, the gain insights on which role leaders play in shaping organizational culture in a fast-changing environment. Quantitative data were gathered in form of an online survey to access insights on employees’ perceptions regarding New Work principles and the role of their leaders in shaping organizational culture.

The findings of this survey indicate that New Work fosters employee engagement, satisfaction, productivity, and well-being through the promotion of autonomy and flexibility. However, the implementation of New Work comes with challenges, communication barriers, the need for structured leadership, and maintaining team spirit in remote settings were also identified. The thesis concludes that for a successful integration of New Work trust-based leadership is needed to balance between flexibility and structure.