Helping to improve suggestion systems: predictors of making suggestions in companies

✍ Scribed by Michael Frese; Eric Teng; Cees J. D. Wijnen

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 166 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0894-3796
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1379(199912)20:7<1139::aid-job946>3.0.co;2-i

✦ Synopsis

Predictors of submitting suggestions and their quality were studied in a Dutch company with a well-developed suggestion system (n 207 blue collar workers). A model with person variables (initiative at work, higher order need strength, control aspirations, and interest in work innovation), work characteristics (control and complexity), motives (better work, reward), self-ecacy, and system factors (system inhibitors, system responsiveness, and supervisor support) was developed and tested. They are related to the three process variables, deemed to be important in making a suggestion: having ideas, submitting suggestions and quality of the suggestions. A path analysis revealed that the most important factors related to these process variables were initiative at work, higher order need strength, self-ecacy, expected improvements in work and suggestion inhibitors (negatively).