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Employee involvement and participation is part of Labor Relations and Human Resource Management. This study is to identify how and to what extent employee involvement and employee participation mechanisms are used in the Greek subsidiaries of multinational companies in the pharmaceutical industry. The issues examined in this study are the design of employee involvement and participation practices, the similarities and differences of employee participation practices in the group of companies internationally, corporate employee communication and consultation mechanisms, corporate policy towards trade unions and the EWC nature and agreements. The research method is qualitative with semi-structured interviews conducted with management executives, human resource management executives and the selected organizations participating in the study are active in the pharmaceutical industry and fall within the scope of Directive 2009/38/EC/16.5.2009 on the right of employees to information and consultation at Community-scale companies and groups of companies. The findings indicate that most of the participant companies when designing employee involvement and participation practices, consider a formal model of best practices that has been codified for all multinational companies. Regarding the global company's policy on consultation and employee involvement most of the participant companies state that they provide a little more than the institutional framework requires. Nevertheless, management receives information about the activity and meetings of the EWC systematically at the time of EWC meetings. Increasing employee participation requires both management attention and initiatives on the part of employees.

Employee participation is a broad notion that encompasses sets of practices that enable employees to participate in the decision-making process on issues affecting them leading to a committed workforce. According to the 2009/38/EC Directive, a European Workers’ Council (EWC) is established in all undertakings and all community-scale groups of undertakings for the purpose of informing and consulting employees. This study investigates the impact of employee participation on employees and organizations and more specifically the potential benefits and the added value of participation for employees and organizations, the potential costs and threats of employee participation and the added value of EWCs in multinational subsidiaries in the pharmaceutical industry in Greece. The data gathering was carried out through in-depth semi-structured interviews with management, HR executives, trade union representatives and EWC representatives using a semi-structured questionnaire based on the state-of-the-art literature review. Organizations participating in the study are subsidiaries of multinational companies with an active European Works Council in the pharmaceutical industry in Greece. Findings suggest that there are potential benefits of employee participation practices for the employees and added value for the pharmaceutical companies and provide a useful perspective for managers and researchers in the field of labor relations and human resource management.

The authors would like to make corrections to the published paper (Triantafillidou and Koutroukis 2022) [...]

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to integrate an extended by personal resource job demands-resources (JD-R) model in the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational performance. It is argued that the responsive, supportive and developmental leader's style will reduce employees' levels of burnout and increase their levels of work engagement and ultimately will increase organizational performance expressed by productivity, growth and creativity.Design/methodology/approachThe hypotheses were tested among a national sample of 1,011 employees in 107 Greek public and private organizations operating within an environment of economic and financial crises. The operational model was tested using a multilevel structural equation modelling.FindingsIt appeared that job demands and work burnout and job resources and work engagement, serially and fully mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational performance. Further, it is found that personal resources negatively and fully mediate the relationship between job resources and work burnout and positively and partially mediate the relationship between job resources and work engagement.Research limitations/implicationsData were collected using a cross-sectional design, not allowing dynamic causal inferences.Practical implicationsConsidering that the transformational leadership style reduces employees' levels of burnout and increases their levels of work engagement and accordingly improves organizational performance, organizations are well advised to encourage this leadership style.Social implicationsTransformational leadership by balancing job demands and job resources could have a positive impact on employee well-being.Originality/valueThe study, using multilevel testing, demonstrates that the extended JD-R model can be integrated into the transformational leadership– organizational performance relationship.

High serum homocysteine (HCY) and indirectly deficiency of folate and/or vitamin B₁₂ stimulate bone resorption and adversely affect collagen cross-linking. The aim of this study was the evaluation of serum levels of HCY, folate and vitamin B₁₂ in patients with Paget's disease of bone (PDB) and the effect of zoledronic acid (ZOL) on their serum levels. Nine consecutive patients with polyostotic PDB (median age 66 years) received a single 5-mg ZOL infusion. Blood samples for HCY, folate, vitamin B₁₂, 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OH-D), total serum alkaline phosphatase (TSAP), bone-specific serum alkaline phosphatase (BSAP) and C-terminal cross-linking telopeptide of type I collagen (CTX) were obtained at baseline and 3, 6 and 12 months after ZOL infusion. Twelve age-, gender- and BMI-matched healthy individuals were recruited for the control group at baseline assessment. Patients with PDB had significantly higher serum HCY (p = 0.028), folate (p < 0.001) and bone markers [TSAP (p < 0.001), BSAP (p < 0.001) and CTX (p < 0.001)] compared with the control group at baseline. In the pagetic group, serum HCY significantly decreased 3 months after ZOL infusion and remained essentially unchanged up to the end of the study (p = 0.005). Serum vitamin B₁₂ and folate remained unaffected throughout the study. Our data suggest that serum HCY levels are increased in patients with PDB. A single ZOL infusion results in a decrease in HCY levels that might represent another mechanism for the reduction of the activity of PDB achieved by ZOL.