Who benefits from new work? Employee perceptions and justice evaluations in family businesses

Purpose The transformation toward new work creates opportunities and challenges, as workplace flexibility benefits blue- and white-collar employees unevenly. This study examines how blue- and white-collar employees experience and perceive new work practices in family businesses, focusing on organizational justice. By comparing family businesses and a non-family business, the study investigates how occupational roles and organizational contexts shape employee responses to new work measures. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a qualitative multiple-case study design based on 27 semi-structured interviews across three German family firms and one non-family firm in traditional industries. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Findings The findings reveal a paradox: although blue-collar workers face limited access to flexibility measures, they do not perceive distributive injustice, attributing limitations to occupational constraints. However, interpersonal justice concerns arise through reduced accessibility of decision-makers in hybrid work. While organizations differ in their implementation approaches, justice mechanisms remain consistent across contexts. Originality/value This study offers one of the first qualitative comparisons of blue- and white-collar employees' new work experiences in family and non-family firms. It challenges a core assumption of organizational justice theory by showing that fairness judgments hinge on occupational legitimacy rather than outcome equality and surfaces an overlooked interpersonal justice cost of hybrid work. For family business theory, it clarifies the boundary conditions of family ownership: family-specific values shape the form of new work implementation, whereas occupational constraints more strongly shape employee justice perceptions.