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Employee involvement (EI) is a major part of high-performance work systems (HPWS) that have successfully transformed a large number of organizations and have become standard practice in many new organizations. Despite the proven benefits of EI, however, it is still not as widely utilized as it could be even when accounting for industry and organization differences in its applicability. We suggest that EI implementation is limited in part by the change management challenges it presents. We review the recent research on EI and HPWS, and suggest ways in which change research and theory can inform our understanding of why EI practices have fallen short of their potential and how they can be effectively implemented.

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 paper is to examine the experience of call centre employees who have been involved in high-involvement innovation (HII) activities to understand what frontline and managerial employees think of these involvement activities.

A qualitative case study approach is utilised, drawing on evidence from seven UK call centres. Various sources of data are examined, i.e. interviews, observation, call listening and documentary.

From the analysis of the testimonies, it is found that job design, the mechanisms and practices as well as other people’s perceptions of involvement influence the experience of frontline and managerial employees. The findings highlight that HII has the potential to intensify jobs (both frontline and managerial employees) when the quantity of ideas submitted becomes a component of the employee performance appraisal system.

This research has shown that the heightened targets used in many of the cases have reduced the ability of employees to be involved in any innovation activities. What is not clear from the findings is that if performance measures can be used in a more participative way with employees so that they can have less time pressure allowing them to become more involved in innovation activities. Thus, an interesting direction for future research would be to consider the effects of performance measurement systems in the role they play in facilitating HII activities.

The findings show that HII has the potential to enrich frontline employees’ jobs, making them feel more valued and giving them some variety and challenge in their job. Therefore, practitioners should approach employee involvement in the innovation process as something potentially fruitful and not just wasted time away from the phones.

This research is important as it explores what effects these involvement initiatives have on the employees and managers involved in them. This is valuable since there is no real consensus across human resource management, labour process and critical management fields resulting in a limited conceptualisation of the relationship between management practices, employee experiences and the outcomes. This research makes a contribution through the elaboration of current theory to understand the complexities and subtleties that exist between the high involvement management practices and the experience of workers and their managers.

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.

In some form or another, the concept of employee involvement in management decision‐making has held an attraction for practitioners and academics alike for a very long time. The objectives which are set for it certainly vary from a desire for increased efficiency or prosperity on the one hand, through to more democratic relations within industry on the other. The favoured forms of involvement have also differed widely from better communication to worker directors, and to more recent “flavours of the month” such as quality circles. In principle, employee involvement as a broad concept has found many adherents.

Total quality management (TQM) calls for a change of culture that requires employee involvement at all levels and a spirit of teamwork among all the stakeholders in corporations. Employee involvement, participation, and empowerment form the cornerstones of TQM. Involvement implies interaction between individuals, groups, and teams. However, managers who are used to a paternalistic and dictatorial mode of management will have difficulty in making TQM work. Chinese management philosophy and systems are not in harmony with the modern concept that encourages employee involvement and participative management. This paper discusses various factors that may lead to the failure of TQM programmes in Chinese firms in Hong Kong based on the information collected by the author in a recent study.

This paper aims to explore the mediating role of effective employee involvement in the links between management commitment to service quality, employees' job satisfaction, and customer perceptions of service performance.

Based on a review of the literature on service management, the authors identified the role of effective employee involvement in the relationships between management commitment to service quality and employees' job satisfaction and between management commitment to service quality and customer perceptions of service performance. Using a random sampling method, the authors obtained 143 matched frontline employee‐customer dyads in the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China.

The results of the structural equations analysis show that effective employee involvement fully mediates the positive effects of management commitment to service quality on employees' job satisfaction and customer perceptions of service performance.

This study confirms that management commitment to service quality alone does not produce positive organizational outcomes, unless linked with effective employee involvement.

The paper contributes to the literature on service management by identifying the mediating role of effective employee involvement in the relationships between management commitment to service quality and organizational outcomes.

Addresses the standardization of the measurements and the labels for concepts commonly used in the study of work organizations. As a reference handbook and research tool, seeks to improve measurement in the study of work organizations and to facilitate the teaching of introductory courses in this subject. Focuses solely on work organizations, that is, social systems in which members work for money. Defines measurement and distinguishes four levels: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. Selects specific measures on the basis of quality, diversity, simplicity and availability and evaluates each measure for its validity and reliability. Employs a set of 38 concepts ‐ ranging from “absenteeism” to “turnover” as the handbook’s frame of reference. Concludes by reviewing organizational measurement over the past 30 years and recommending future measurement reseach.

Addresses employee involvement as a management approach, tracing the concepts, assumptions and roots in which it can be located. It reviews the plethora of typologies based upon which employee involvement programmes implemented in organisations today are founded. It advocates further research to enhance the conceptualisation and contextualisation of these programmes for practical implementation, as well as the development of a framework which could be generally accepted for their systematic evaluation.

This research aims to investigate the relationships among employee involvement, partnership management, and a firm's supply performance in the automotive industry in Thailand.

The measurement instruments for employee involvement, partnership management and a firm's supply performance were developed based on an extensive literature review, and validated by experts. They were pilot‐tested, and analyzed using various statistical techniques to ensure reliability and validity in structural equation modeling constructs. A hypothesized model was tested through path analysis.

The study found that the measurements of employee involvement, partnership management, and a firm's supply performance are reliable and valid for Thailand's automotive industry. Employee involvement has not only a significant direct positive impact on partnership management and firm's supply performance, but also a significant indirect positive impact on a firm's supply performance through partnership management.

The distribution of paper‐based questionnaires was a convenience sample. Although data from a sample of 211 companies was collected, only 19 percent of them provided more than one response. Future research should apply different random sampling methods, and investigate the reasons for and ways to improve the low multiple‐response rate.

The findings are beneficial to managers in the automotive industry in developing countries who want to improve partnership management and supply performance through employee involvement.

This study is one of the first to examine the linkage among internal employee involvement, external partnership management, and a firm's supply performance in the automotive industry in a newly industrialized country such as Thailand. It can be used in further research on the new concept of supply chain quality management.