Thriving While Work Is Rewritten: Innovation and Sustainable Work in the Adjacent Possible

Work is being rewritten on several fronts at once, by technological developments such as digitalisation and generative AI, by organisational changes such as algorithmic management and hybrid work, and by broader societal pressures including sustainability demands and demographic change. These changes do not merely introduce new tools or procedures; they reshape expectations, relationships, employment lifecycles, opportunities, and constraints within organisations. This Research Topic adopts the lens of the adjacent possible to explore how innovation in work design, organisational processes, and structures unfolds from what already exists, opening new pathways for action, adaptation, and development while also generating new tensions, risks, and inequalities. At the centre of the Topic is the question of thriving, whether and under what conditions people and organisations can flourish rather than merely cope as work is reconfigured.The metaphor of the adjacent possible suggests that innovation does not emerge as an abstract leap into the future, but through the opening of new possibilities from the current state of work, technology, and social relations. This perspective is especially relevant today, as organisations confront multiple transitions at once. Rather than treating transformation as either a revolutionary promise or a threat, the Topic looks at change emerging from what is already there, examining the conditions under which it becomes humanly sustainable, socially legitimate, and organisationally effective.Particular attention is given to how psychological contracts are renegotiated in changing work environments and how algorithmic management and the broader algorithmisation of work influence autonomy, fairness, accountability, trust, and well-being. This includes how algorithmic human resource management (HRM), the use of data-driven and AI-enabled systems to mediate decisions across the employment lifecycle, reshapes employment relationships, worker agency, and the governance of work. These dynamics are especially salient in platform and gig work, where institutional mediation is limited, traditional contract frameworks are being challenged, and the psychological contract can look very different from employment within a single, often physically situated, organisation. At the same time, digital transformation and AI integration reshape not only tasks and workflows but also how organisations sustain skills, learning, and responsibility over time. This raises questions that reach beyond performance, into skill sustainability and lifelong learning, the prevention of deskilling, and the conditions under which organisations maintain meaningful human control, sustain critical competencies, and govern accountability and safety in complex work systems.Within these transitions, work and organisational psychology can offer a crucial contribution by examining how change is experienced, interpreted, negotiated, and governed. We welcome contributions that examine how individuals, teams, organisations, and professions can thrive as work is reconfigured, and how innovation can be guided to support performance, inclusion, health, voice, meaning, and responsibility. The Research Topic seeks theoretically grounded and methodologically rigorous contributions that move beyond simplified narratives and capture the complexity, ambivalence, and uneven consequences of contemporary work transformation. Our focus is on how work is reorganised, in responsibilities, structures, and processes, and on how employees experience, co-design, and respond to those changes.This is particularly important where technological innovation intersects with relational, institutional, cognitive, and normative processes. Psychological contracts are being redefined, while algorithmic and AI-enabled systems increasingly mediate decisions about tasks, performance, visibility, opportunity, and control. These developments raise fundamental questions about fairness, agency, voice, identity, inclusion, sustainable performance, and the governance and assessment of worker-facing AI risks at the organisational and employment-system level.This Research Topic aims to understand how work can become or remain innovative, sustainable, and human-centred while its structures, practices, and boundaries are being profoundly rewritten. Contemporary organisations are facing accelerating transformations driven by AI, automation of decisions, hybrid work arrangements, sustainability demands, intergenerational change, and evolving expectations regarding flexibility, inclusion, participation, and well-being. Yet not all forms of change enlarge human possibility. Some create learning, creativity, and thriving; others produce overload, insecurity, fragmentation, stress, exclusion, or new forms of dependency and reduced critical judgment.The Research Topic therefore focuses on the conditions that enable sustainable work in the adjacent possible, work that supports adaptation, innovation, and transformation without eroding dignity, health, meaning, fairness, inclusion, or long-term organisational viability. Particular attention is given to the broad reconfiguration of work driven by digital transformation, AI integration, hybrid and flexible work arrangements, platform-based and gig work, new organisational infrastructures, and evolving expectations about performance, autonomy, participation, and support.Within this wider landscape, contributions may examine a range of interrelated processes, including work design, leadership, the governance of human-AI collaboration, algorithmic HRM and employment relations, employee voice, human factors, diversity and inclusion, stress and recovery, and the renegotiation of social and relational dynamics at work. The Topic is equally interested in how AI-enabled systems shape learning, decision processes, and accountability, and in how organisations can prevent deskilling, over-reliance, opaque control, and weak oversight. Psychological contract and algorithmic management are central themes within this broader agenda, alongside other perspectives that help explain how organisations can foster thriving, trust, adaptive performance, worker safety, and responsible innovation in rapidly changing contexts.We invite contributions that explore how changing work systems generate both new opportunities and new vulnerabilities for people and organisations. This Research Topic examines these themes at the organisational, work-system, and employment-relationship level; contributions focused primarily on individual cognitive experiences of AI tools or micro-level team dynamics in human-AI collaboration should be submitted to a companion Research Topic on Industry 5.0 and human-AI collaboration. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:• Thriving at work;• Sustainable and human-centred work-system design;• Psychological contract formation, breach, repair, and renegotiation;• Algorithmic management and digital control• Algorithmic HRM and employment relations: fairness, accountability, and worker agency across the employment lifecycle;• Platform work, gig work, and new employment arrangements under algorithmic management;• Governance of human-AI collaboration at the organisational and work-system level;• Hybrid and flexible work;• Adaptive and creative performance;• Meaningful work and professional identity;• Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in changing work environments;• Employee voice, participation, and organisational innovation;• Leadership for responsible innovation and sustainable transformation;• Work-related stress, recovery, and resilience;• Human factors, ergonomics, and worker safety in AI-integrated work systems;• Skill sustainability, human oversight, and the prevention of deskilling in AI-integrated work systems;• AI risk assessment, accountability, and governance in organisational settings.We welcome Original Research, Review, Systematic Review, Perspective, Methods, and Technology and Code articles. Contributions may use qualitative, quantitative, mixed-method, multilevel, longitudinal, cross-sectional, comparative, intervention-based, and interdisciplinary designs, provided they offer a clear theoretical contribution and practical relevance for understanding sustainable innovation and human flourishing in changing work contexts.This Research Topic is developed in association with the XXII Congresso Nazionale della Sezione di Psicologia per le Organizzazioni (National Congress of the Section of Psychology for Organizations) of the Associazione Italiana di Psicologia (AIP), held from 3 to 5 September 2026 at Università di Bologna. Submissions are welcome from congress attendees and speakers, as well as from any researcher invited by the topic editors or with a paper that fits the scope of this topic. For any questions, please contact us at organizationalpsychology@frontiersin.org. Topic editors: Marco De Angelis, Alina Tausch, Francesco Pace Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81964/thriving-while-work-is-rewritten-innovation-and-sustainable-work-in-the-adjacent-possible