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The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether insights into high reliability organizations (HROs) are useful for innovation management teams. HRO teams can keep failure to a minimum level due to high alertness and resilience. Project teams working on innovation management could benefit from HRO principles and thus reduce their chances of failure.

A survey among in total 260 team members and team leaders of project teams in innovation management was conducted to study the relation between, on the one hand, organizational features of HROs (“mindful infrastructure”) and HRO principles (adjusted as “innovation resilience behaviour”, IRB), and on the other hand, between mindful infrastructure and IRB and project outcomes.

From the results it could be concluded that mindful infrastructure associates with IRB, and that IRB has a mediating role in the relation between mindful infrastructure and project outcomes. Innovation management project teams can thus learn from the practice of HRO teams.

To the authors’ knowledge, HRO-thinking has not been applied to team behaviour in innovation management. A fruitful transfer of insights from the domain of safety and crisis management seems applicable to the domain of innovation.

This paper aims to investigate the principles of high reliability organisations (HROs), present in safety and crisis teams, as applied to innovation teams. Safety and crisis teams cannot fail, as failure leads to disaster and casualties. Innovation teams cannot fail either, as this harms the organisations’ competitiveness and effectiveness. Do HRO principles, rooted in mindful infrastructure, enable innovation resilience behaviour (IRB)?

A study of 18 innovation projects performed by project teams was carried out. A survey by team members/leaders of these teams was completed; team members/leaders of other projects were added to achieve a larger sample. Mindful infrastructure consists of team psychological safety, team learning, complexity leadership and team voice. The analyses assessed the teams’ mindful infrastructures as a causal condition enabling IRB.

Applying qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), the findings indicate that mindful infrastructure enables team IRB, which is a set of team behaviours indicating their resilience when encountering critical incidents. Teams apply different “paths” to IRB.

The exploratory study’s generalizability is limited. The findings nonetheless indicate the usefulness of non-linear techniques for understanding different roads to successful innovation processes.

HRO principles are applicable by non-HROs. These require investments in organisational learning.

HRO studies fail to account for the antecedents of HRO principles. This study groups these antecedents of team behaviour into a mindful infrastructure. QCA has not been applied within the domain of HROs before and only scarcely within the domain of innovation teams.

This paper intends to explore the measure for aligning the goals of researchers toward achieving organizational R&D targets. The paper also explores the significance and ordering of R&D outputs and the factors that influence generation of R&D outputs, from the perspective of researchers working in the Indian public sector organizations.

Data were collected in five Indian R&D laboratories, and weighted average method Spearman correlation coefficient and rank regression were utilized for the analysis.

The findings indicated that various groups of researchers prefer to target different R&D outputs and not all the factors are considered as equally significant in influencing the generation of R&D outputs. Further, the R&D organization should include preferred real factors while policy making for achieving collaborative efforts toward fulfilling organizational objectives. The set of selected R&D outputs and influencing factors were also ordered according to the average rankings given by the researchers.

The findings can help R&D managers to identify the expectations of the researchers and include their preferences in R&D Planning. The study could be extended to a larger dataset of researchers working in other government as well as private R&D organizations.

Hardly any studies were found that explored the preferences of researchers with respect to R&D outputs and influencing factors with respect to the Indian public sector R&D laboratories.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of commitments of local employees to a parent company and a local operation in comparison to the nature of commitment of Western expatriates to the two foci.

Data were collected by questionnaire from 532 local employees and 471 Western expatriates currently working for the subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNCs) in Vietnam. Hypotheses were tested using exploratory factor analyses, confirmatory factor analyses, correlation analyses, t-test, generalized linear models and hierarchical regression.

The results confirmed two distinct commitment foci and revealed that the commitment to the local operation was stronger than the commitment to the parent company for local employees. Remarkably, retention and absenteeism are more driven by local operation commitment than by parent company commitment for the local employees. In contrast, these outcomes are more driven by parent company commitment for the Western expatriates. Working conditions (job autonomy, job variety, transformational leadership and remuneration) positively predicted affective commitment to the local operation for both groups; particularly job variety and leadership were better predictors for local employees than for Western expatriates.

The comparison shows effective and specific ways to sustain and reinforce the commitments of each employee group with regard to two foci. This information may help to reduce the rate of turnover intention and absenteeism in MNCs.

By using a multifaceted approach, this study provided a comparison of dual organizational commitment for different categories of employees working in MNCs. Second, this study shows that the stronger commitment focus has a stronger influence on related outcomes (i.e. retention and absenteeism). If so, MNCs can focus on reinforcing the selected commitment focus in order to reduce the costs of management. Third, the study has initially pointed out that some work factors exert a specific influence on different commitment foci in the two groups. Controlling these work conditions is recommended to sustain and develop commitment levels of the two groups.

The paper aims to present an approach to improve the organisation's productivity which is applicable in every industrial sector. The nucleus of the approach is to develop an optimal productivity strategy in an organization by the application of a uniform static model of productivity (Q4‐model), covering quantity and quality aspects and applicable to various sectors of industry, and a dynamic control cycle.

The study discusses the steps of the approach and presents three case studies from different industrial sectors where the approach has been applied.

The approach has proven to be uniformly applicable in all three cases from these different sectors, namely consultancy, health care and manufacturing. Across these applications highly different productivity‐related challenges, productivity strategies, and specific interventions are described in the perspective of the Q4‐model.

The approach is not made for measuring the quantity and quality input and output factors of productivity.

The approach succeeds in developing a productivity strategy which combines quantity and quality input and output factors and supports the transformation of a strategy analysis into a practical intervention.

The approach is unique in its uniform applicability to every industrial sector and is helpful to entrepreneurs, managers and innovators.

This paper aims to explore the ways innovation becomes enabled through knowledge management and sharing which has important implications for establishing and sustaining the culture of innovative thinking in project-based construction firms. This study adopts a reflective practitioner perspective to explore this relationship.

In total, 30 semi-structured interviews were conducted with the construction sector professionals whose roles are most relevant in the connection between innovation and knowledge management. Thematic analysis and cognitive mapping techniques were used to analyse the interview data.

The research findings indicate that due to the complexity of project-based construction firms, a more holistic approach to knowledge management and organisational learning at the firm level is required. This would enable a culture of continuous and coordinated knowledge flow that facilitates innovation and continuous improvement in project-based firms.

This paper has important implications for practising managers in project-based construction firms. By better understanding the ways organisational knowledge can be managed to become an enabler of innovation would allow to build and enhance firms’ innovative capabilities, individual and team competencies. There is a real need for innovation knowledge managers as formal job positions in the construction sector.

This study contributes to construction innovation and project management research and practice by providing insights into establishing and sustaining the culture of learning and innovative thinking.

The authors investigate the relationship between the structure and the functioning of scientific and technical (S&T) personnel and the quality research and development (R&D) performance output of laboratories functioning under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India. The purpose of this paper is to examine how rapid economic and social changes and the demand for better accountability are addressed by public R&D institutions in a specific developing economy.

The authors use the functions performed by the S&T personnel as indicators of their tacit knowledge. The authors use data from 27 different CSIR laboratories to analyze the specific functions carried out by knowledge workers (S&T personnel) in order to gauge the internal strengths and weaknesses of individual laboratories in different functional areas. The authors use the following measures to tap the quality R&D performance of these laboratories – number of Indian patents filed and granted, number of foreign patents filed and granted, and the number of published papers figuring among the top 50 CSIR publications in specific research areas over an extended period of 11 years (2003-2004 to 2013-2014).

The findings show that there is no readymade formula for identifying improvements in quality performance by a research laboratory, given a particular set of S&T worker profile in terms of the six functions defined in the study. The top-performing laboratories have excellent patent as well as publication record reinforcing the point that innovation encompasses both basic and applied research with success depending upon strategically emphasizing the different components of the innovation process.

The scope of the present research work is limited by the choice of the quality R&D performance measures adopted in the study that could be further expanded to better tap the social accountability of these public-funded institutions. In addition, inclusion of all CSIR laboratories in the study framework would add value to the study findings. The research highlights the importance of tacit knowledge management and organizational learning as central features of strategic organization development for technology practices incorporating R&D work, the support of pilot plants, experimental field stations, and engineering and design units.

The paper has particular implications for the leadership and management of public R&D organizations and public policy formulation for innovation in an emerging developing economy context.

This study extends the extant literature by drawing upon the role of tacit knowledge and organizational learning to inform the empirical research on managing public R&D and the innovations that result from it, in a particular emerging economy context, that is, India.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the cleanliness of a work environment has influence on the productivity of employees working in office environments of non-profit organizations in The Netherlands.

In the study, an online survey (including questions about the perceived cleanliness) and two objective cleanliness assessment methods (particle counts and surface cleanliness) are used. The data are collected using an online questionnaire to determine the workers’ perception (of productivity and cleanliness) and to measure the cleanliness (visual assessment of the surface cleanliness and measured [dust] particle counts in the ambient air) at five different non-profit organizations in The Netherlands.

It is found that a higher objective cleanliness correlates significantly with a higher perceived productivity of employees working in office environments of non-profit organizations in The Netherlands. A higher measured cleanliness also correlates significantly with a higher work satisfaction level of employees working in office environments. Finally, a significant correlation is found between the satisfaction of employees with their work as a whole and the perceived productivity of the employees; a higher satisfaction leads to a higher perceived productivity.

The cleanliness is measured in five non-profit organizations, so it is not possible to draw any strong generalization. Future studies are needed to confirm or contradict the findings in this research.

The results highlight the aspects of the cleanliness in the office environment that influence the perceived productivity. This concerns the measured cleanliness. Employees evaluate their own productivity lower at a higher level of particle counts in the ambient air in the office environment and when more dirt and stain are found on the surface (lower surface cleanliness). In response to these findings, it is recommended to carry out regular cleaning activities in the office environment where the employees perform their work. Overall, to maintain or achieve maximum personal productivity, a clean office environment is important.

This research is the first to identify the relationship between perceived productivity and measured cleanliness of the office environment.

The effect of global integration of businesses and interchange of ideas and technology through internet has many facets. Increase in economic recessions and decrease in research funding has forced both private and public sector research organizations to introduce measures of self-sustainability. Enhancing research and development (R&D) productivity of researchers can be one of those measures. The purpose of this paper is to attempt toward identifying and analyzing those factors of productivity that may be related to the manpower in R&D.

Based upon the theoretical background and the nature of data available, this empirical study has been carried out as a case study for a public sector research laboratory. The extent of involvement in research projects have been analyzed with respect to the R&D outputs generated by the researchers, which if found to be positively related, may be focussed upon, for increasing productivity of manpower in R&D. Several other determinants of R&D productivity were identified from the literature review and were analyzed in association with the “involvement.” “Robust Regression” technique was used for the statistical analysis.

It was found that the R&D productivity of researchers has a positive correlation with their extent of involvement in the R&D projects.

The result may help in creation of the policies for enhancing organizational self-sustainability.

Several prior studies have been conducted with different determinants of R&D productivity but hardly any studies were found considering “extent of manpower involvement in research projects.” This study can be useful for public sector research organizations to relate the findings with their endeavors of enhancing R&D productivity.

This research highlights the ongoing concern about organizational productivity and the lack of focus on designing an optimal model. The authors aim to create a comprehensive model for managing organizational productivity, considering its impact on profitability, customer satisfaction, and employee morale. They use qualitative research methods, including Systematic Literature Review and Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM).

In this research using the qualitative research method of Systematic Literature Review, 57 variables affecting productivity were identified. These variables were placed in 16 layers by using the ISM method, which were classified analytically in four sections: INPUTS, OUTPUTS, OUTCOMES and IMPACTS. By determining the relationship between the sections, the research model was designed.

The potential model for organizational productivity management provides a comprehensive framework addressing critical factors like technology adoption, employee empowerment, organizational culture, and more. It identifies Linkage, Dependent, and independent variables. The lower layers consist of INPUTS such as Technological Tools, Organizational Values, and more. In the highest layer, impactful variables like Enhanced competitiveness, Improved decision-making, and Improved organizational culture are labeled as IMPACTS. Middle layer variables are categorized as OUTPUTS and OUTCOMES.

In this study, the concept of productivity management was redefined for the first time, and a multi-layered model for productivity management was creatively explicated using the structural equation modeling method.