Employee involvement climate and organizational effectiveness

✍ Scribed by Christine M. Riordan; Robert J. Vandenberg; Hettie A. Richardson

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 142 KB
• Volume: 44
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0090-4848
• DOI: 10.1002/hrm.20085

✦ Synopsis

R

esearchers have argued that today's organizations operate in hypercompetitive markets characterized by continuous technological change, shortened product life-cycles, and competitors who compete in aggressive ways (D'Aveni, 1998;Volberda, 1996). Although the exact processes that generate profitability in such environments remain unclear, there is some agreement that successful organizations are flexible and responsive and react quickly to and anticipate changes in the competitive landscape (Miles, Snow, Matthews, & Coleman, 1997;Volberda, 1996). Taking this argument a step further, some authors (e.g., Huselid, 1995;Lawler, 1996) specifically argue that employee involvement (EI) is one way in which organizations can achieve the responsiveness needed in a hypercompetitve world.

Lawler and his colleagues, for example, suggest that EI taps into employees' capabilities in a way that traditional, top-down management cannot (Lawler, 1996;Lawler, Mohrman, & Ledford, 1995). By helping organizations to actively develop and utilize their human resources, EI should enable organizations to produce high-quality products/services, increase the speed of work operations and innovation, and improve employee performance, motivation, and attitudes. Empirical research indicates that successful employee involvement efforts can substantially impact organizational financial productivity (e.g., Huselid, 1995;Ostroff, 1995).