Organizational change and health at work

The focus of this article is the link between organizational change and individual working conditions. In some organizational development projects health aspects may be left to chance, in others they may be to some extent respected, and in still others they are the main theme of the process and direction of change. Along this line, the author presents and discusses a number of Swedish cases. The analysis aims at emphasizing a necessary characteristic of occupational health experts, namely, to be sensitive to the differences between the goals of various projects in organizational development. Preventive work must be based on a careful identification of the sort of health aspects that are overlooked in every effort at organizational change.