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The investigator of this study examined organizational involvement of employees in Saudi construction companies and a random sample was drawn from the participating companies in Riyadh and Dammam. Employees' levels of involvement in the construction companies, were compared on the basis of their personal characteristics. The sample was divided into two groups on the basis of employees' personal characteristics such as education, organizational tenure, pay, rank, and age. The results showed that there was a difference in the level of organizational involvement between employees on the basis of their five personal characteristics included in this study. Further, the findings of this study showed that the levels of employees' involvement in the construction companies differed as their personal characteristics differed. Employees with a low level of education showed a higher level of organizational involvement than did employees with a high level of education. Employees with long organizational tenure reported a higher level of involvement than did employees with short organizational tenure. Also, employees with a high salary showed a higher level of involvement than did employees with a low salary. Old employees showed a higher level of organizational involvement than young employees. High ranking employees showed a higher level of organizational involvement than did employees with a low rank.

This study aims to consider how the degree of participation at various hierarchical levels impacts action plan implementation success and firm financial performance. Specifically, the study seeks to assess the relationship among organizational structure, involvement by top management, middle management, lower management and frontline employees and its effect on firm performance; and, when controlling for firm size and industry segment membership, the effect of the relationship among direct involvement effects and interacting involvement effects on performance.

The study used survey methodology and a random sample of members in a US state restaurant association. The analysis included comparisons between groups using independent sample t tests and hierarchical regression to assess direct and interacting effects.

The findings indicate that, regardless of firm size or industry segment, the direct effects of greater top management involvement and the interaction effects of one three‐way interaction (middle management, lower management, and frontline staff) and the four‐way interaction led to higher levels of action plan success. For the longer‐term impact on financial performance, higher participative approaches used by top management and frontline staff were significantly associated with higher overall profits and financial success.

The sample was drawn from a specific region in the USA and may not be generalizable. The study attempts to minimize the potential for non‐response bias and to ensure inter‐rater reliability but these potential threats to validity cannot be totally ruled out.

In general, higher top management participatory approaches are important to enhance financial and strategy implementation success, regardless of firm size. The interaction of participation by all levels of the firm is a useful approach to increase the likelihood of strategy implementation success. Top management and frontline employee participation are critical organizational levels for enhancing participative management approaches and ultimately increasing financial performance for all foodservice firms.

The value of this study is the consideration of the impact of participation by degree across four hierarchical levels on firm performance and plan execution success.

High-involvement work processes (HIWPs) are associated with high levels of employee influence over the work process, such as high levels of control over how to handle individual job tasks or a high level of involvement at team or workplace level in designing work procedures. When implementations of HIWPs are accompanied by companion investments in human capital – for example, in better information and training, higher pay and stronger employee voice – it is appropriate to talk not only of HIWPs but of “high-involvement work systems” (HIWSs). This chapter reviews the theory and practice of HIWPs and HIWSs. Across a range of academic perspectives and societies, it has regularly been argued that steps to enhance employee involvement in decision-making create better opportunities to perform, better utilization of skill and human potential, and better employee motivation, leading, in turn, to various improvements in organizational and employee outcomes.

However, there are also costs to increased employee involvement and the authors review the important economic and sociopolitical contingencies that help to explain the incidence or distribution of HIWPs and HIWSs. The authors also review the research on the outcomes of higher employee involvement for firms and workers, discuss the quality of the research methods used, and consider the tensions with which the model is associated. This chapter concludes with an outline of the research agenda, envisaging an ongoing role for both quantitative and qualitative studies. Without ignoring the difficulties involved, the authors argue, from the societal perspective, that the high-involvement pathway should be considered one of the most important vectors available to improve the quality of work and employee well-being.

The purpose of this study is to segment Turkish wine customers based on their level of involvement. This study profiles them based on their wine drinking motivations, wine attributes, information sources, wine purchasing and consumption behaviour and socio-demographic characteristics.

For this study, a structured online questionnaire was used to collect data from the listed email addresses of institutes, universities and commercial websites. The sample size was 708 people. After splitting consumers into three groups based on their involvement levels in wine (high, moderate and low), the study profiles them by implementing ANOVA, principal component and chi-square analyses.

The study identifies the differences between groups with different involvement levels in wine regarding drinking motivations, wine attributes, information sources, consumption and purchasing behaviour as well as socio-demographic characteristics.

Although there are a few studies in the literature evaluating wine consumers from various nations, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study investigating wine consumers based on involvement levels in Turkey, where alcoholic beverages are excessively taxed, and advertising is banned and promoting them is limited.

This paper aims to address the role of product involvement in the brand preference formation of men and women. Product involvement can be defined as a consumer’s motivation for product purchase that affects their information processing strategies when forming a brand preference (e.g. more automatic at low levels vs more deliberative at high levels). Given that gender differences are found to be context-dependent, it was expected that, when forming a single brand preference, men would emphasize instrumental aspects (functional and socially conspicuous utilities) and women the experiential utility of the brand only with high-involvement-level products.

A descriptive survey (n = 459) using structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was used following an online experiment where involvement level was manipulated (n = 255) to validate the results.

Stereotypical gender differences appeared at high, but not low-involvement levels. Theoretically, these findings question the evolutionary basis of gender differences, as differences were not consistent at both levels.

The findings raise questions about the efficacy of segmenting by gender when aiming to increase brand preference of low-involvement products, whereas stereotypical targeting seem to be effective for increasing preference for high-involvement ones.

For the first time, the role of product involvement and gender was examined in brand preference formation. This can theoretically clarify whether gender differences are consistent or dependent on the level of involvement. This information can help in designing efficient marketing strategies for products with different involvement levels.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the connection between the degree of religiosity and the product involvement level in determining the various constructs of consumer behavior.

On the basis of a small survey, clothes were selected as a high involvement product, and snacks were selected as a low involvement product. A modified version of Sproles and Kendal's Customer Style Inventory scale was used to profile the behaviour of consumers, using confirmatory factor analysis approach. Worthington et al.'s Religious Commitment Inventory scale was used to measure the religiosity levels. Data were collected from students of five universities located in different regions of Pakistan.

Consumer behaviour varies with the level of involvement and the degree of religiosity. In the case of high involvement product category, the highly religious group was found to be less recreational, fashion conscious and impulsive in their shopping orientations. It was also determined that the higher religious group was more socially influenced in making purchase decisions, more conscious about their lifestyle and less confused by information over choice, as compared to the less religious group. In the case of the low involvement product category, it was determined that religiosity negatively influenced the brand consciousness of consumers. The results indicated that higher religious consumers were less impulsive and did not give much consideration to advertisements in making purchase decisions; but it was opposite for the less religious consumers. Highly religious consumers in the low involvement product category were also found to be more socially influenced and not as confused by excessive information in making their purchase decisions. Overall, it was established that in order to better understand the intricacies of the behaviour of consumers, their purchasing habits should be studied in the context of varying levels of religiosity and product involvement.

This study focused on youth only, so results derived might not be generalized to the other segments of the population.

The current study aims to understand how religiosity and involvement level complement each other in determining the behaviour of consumers and whether the level of religiosity equally determines the behaviour of consumers in the low involvement product category and high involvement product category or not. No previous study has been conducted to explore this dimension of consumer behaviour, and this paper categorically strives to fill this gap.

This paper aims to examine the quadratic relationship between customer involvement capability and performance, and innovation of small- and medium-scale service firms. The study answers the critical question of how SMEs make the most benefit from their involvement capability.

Data from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) operating in the service sector of an emerging economy in sub-Saharan Africa were used. A two-stage data analysis with a quadratic estimation was used to assess the hypothesized relationships.

The study found that the influence of involvement capability over SME performance differs in terms of financial and non-financial. And that, while increasing customer involvement will improve non-financial performance such as customer satisfaction and service quality, it is only at the intermediate level that financial performance is optimized.

The relationships (involvement, and performance and innovation) are not linear, and that at some levels, the relationship with financial or non-financial performance is more positive than other levels. The findings also suggest that involvement capability influences both process and product innovations most at intermediate levels than at low and high levels.

Examines the involvement of all levels of employees in Hong Kong and China companies for ISO 9000 registration and maintenance. For convenience, the employee levels are divided into management, supervision, staff and operator level categories. The extent and the nature of involvement among these four levels of employees are studied and an appropriate employee strategy for ISO 9000 registration and maintenance is formulated. Based on the literature review, and the analysis of case studies and personal interviews that are conducted for selected Hong Kong and China ISO 9001/2 certified companies, we have formulated an employee involvement strategy to establish, implement and maintain the ISO 9000 based quality system. Then a questionnaire survey is conducted and the survey data are analyzed to validate and revise the strategy formulated earlier.

This paper aims to create a theoretical model of student involvement in the institutional quality assurance process at their universities.

The model suggested in this paper was created and developed from a critical examination of relevant literature on stakeholder involvement in decision making and quality assurance processes, regarding different disciplines.

This paper presents a theoretical model of student involvement in the institutional quality assurance with its diminutions, categories and 20 rungs of student activities. It suggests a definition of student involvement term, regarding participating in the quality assurance process at higher education institutions. The importance of involving students in quality assurance procedures has been discussed. The paper provides some international experiences about student involvement in institutional QAP depending on the categories of student involvement activities that were suggested in the theoretical model.

The paper reveals a comprehensive model of student involvement that allows a full understanding of the extent and nature of the activities which higher education students undertake when they involve themselves in the quality assurance process at their institution.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of trust on financial risk-taking in a pension investment setting. Further: to delineate the effects of varying levels of individuals’ financial knowledge and involvement on risk-taking, and on the trust-risk-taking relation.

Questionnaire to a subsample of Swedish bank customers, thereafter statistical analysis using multiple moderated regression.

Support the notion of trust being an influential variable in explaining risk-taking, and show that highly knowledgeable and highly involved individuals take on more risk. That individuals defined by knowledge and involvement have a different trust-risk-taking relation, however, not verified.

Adds to the body of research emphasising the importance of “soft”, emotionally tilted input to consumers’ decision making, even concerning financial tasks such as risk-taking. Narrowly defined pension system environment may hamper generalisations since many constructs tested are situation specific.

From a practical perspective, individual investment behaviour is of increasing importance for the individual as retirement saver and for the financial industry in its attempt to tailor-make financial products to its customers. From a legislators’ perspective, the dimensions of knowledge and involvement describe the type of consumer supposedly most vulnerable: the uninterested individual with low levels of financial knowledge.

Tests the importance of trust on choice of risk level in a pension setting and is able to expand previous results into the area of consumer behaviour regarding pensions. The paper further manages to assess the specificities as regards the relation between trust and risk-taking for individuals with varying levels of knowledge and involvement.