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Examines the literature to identify the essential components of kaizen or continuous improvement programmes. Relying on published sources on the North American experience with continuous improvement, also tries to identify organizational structures and practices likely to lead to successful implementation of such programmes. Distinguishes between kaizen and more radical, “strategic leap” improvement approaches, and describes the North American record of success with continuous improvement programmes. An emergent theme is that success with continuous improvement requires a wide array of systems, processes, and orientations to be congruent within the organization. Argues that the study of when, how, and why kaizen succeeds is by no means complete, and proposes a set of open research questions whose investigation is likely to be useful to both scholars and practitioners. Finally, discusses some of the ways in which the existing literature can be immediately useful for practice in organizations.

This paper presents the findings of a case study undertaken in a UK utility company, referred to as Energy Co. The main aim of the study was to assess how the agreement of a partnership arrangement in 1995 had affected the conduct of employment relations. The study found that partnership was born out of a poor industrial relations climate, and driven primarily by management. They hoped that it might improve industrial relations, raise employee commitment, inform and educate the workforce, and increase employee contribution. Partnership was not intended to encourage joint governance or power sharing. In practice, partnership combined direct employment involvement (EI) such as team briefing and problem solving groups, with representative participation through a formal partnership council system. Management suggested that, on balance, partnership had been successful, with benefits including improved industrial relations, quicker pay negotiations and increased legitimacy of decision making. It was also suggested that there was a positive link – albeit indirect and intangible – with organisational performance. Union representatives also proposed that partnership was a success, citing benefits including greater access to information, greater influence, inter‐union co‐operation, and more local decision making. Employee views were more mixed. There was also clear evidence of several tensions. Four were particularly noteworthy: employee apathy, management‐representative relations, employee‐representative relations, and the role of full‐time union officials (FTOs). Despite espoused partnership, management hostility to unions was evident, and a preference for non‐union employment relations clear. Consequently, the future of the partnership in its current form is uncertain.

The purpose of this paper is to adopt the convergence-divergence perspective to examine the extent of similarities and differences in human resource management practices between multinational enterprise subsidiaries and local firms in Ghana.

This paper draws from multiple case study evidence using in-depth face-to-face interviews and document analysis. The data were analyzed in four stages using both thematic analysis and cross-case analysis techniques.

The authors found both convergence and divergence, however, the evidence points to more convergence and direction toward convergence between MNEs and local firms’ HRM practices.

Even though there was evidence of cultural embeddedness within local firms in the adoption of certain HRM practices, the influence of national culture on HRM practice convergence between MNEs and local firms has been limited. Thus, the convergence-divergence debate through the lens of national culture may need to be re-examined.

The evidence of convergence and direction toward convergence tendencies within the context can be argued to be less underpinned by local isomorphism limited host-country influence. Practically, there is something to learn from indigenous Ghanaian organizations that can contribute to HRM advancement, the Ghanaian concept of annual durbars, annual or semi-annual gatherings to take stock of past activities and to award hard working staff, could provide the platform to strengthen the employer-employee relationship at the firm level.

This study fills an important contextual gap (a less developed country’s context) within the convergence-divergence debate and contributes to informing new knowledge of the convergence-divergence debate, which points to more convergence and direction toward convergence between MNEs and local firms’ HRM practices.

Investigates how organisations can progress from total quality (TQ) to business innovation and represents the first part of an EU sponsored research programme in total quality and innovation. First, definitions and underlying assumptions are analysed which enables a definition of TQ and innovation to be derived that can accommodate a natural organisational progression in terms of implementation. Second, TQ and Innovation are compared and contrasted by analysing models in each of the respective fields. The main findings were that, in general, innovation models were based more on organisational learning and appreciation of human capital than TQ models, which were based more on mechanistic process based continuous improvement. Finally, the results of a research study into innovation and total quality are presented and discussed. The study found that organisations which have a history of continuous improvement are more likely to go on and build a successful innovative culture.

Transferring organizational practices requires an understanding not only of what is being transferred but also of what is needed to ensure that the transfer is successful. In line with this thinking, the purpose of this study is to examine three factors that are crucial parts of this mechanism: use of teams, culture, and capacity.

The study uses a quantitative approach of a Fortune 500 company involved in energy supply. Data are gathered using survey methodology with items drawn from previous research. Hierarchical ordinary least squares are the methodology employed to analyze the data.

The study highlights how using teams, employing a collaborative culture, and possessing capacity after accounting for the control variables affected the knowledge transfer process and provides some insights into ways in which the process can be better managed.

Using this framework, it becomes problematic to separate individual and collective learning.

The paper reinforces the idea that building a collaborative environment in which sharing and seeing knowledge as an organizational asset are essential to success.

The study reinforces the notion that individuals are being asked to make a major change in their approach to the management of knowledge: rather than as an individual asset to be exploited, it should be seen as an organizational asset. This requires that employees change the way they do things. Furthermore, knowledge is not an asset that can be easily discarded and replaced. As a consequence, organizations need to recognize that knowledge management can only be successful if a collaborative environment is created and the organization builds on what it already knows.

This paper aimed to examine the status of implementation of green human resource management (GHRM) practices in Indian automobile Industry. Specifically, the level of implementation of five GHRM practices: green recruitment and selection, green training and development, green performance management, green compensation and rewards and green employee involvement was assessed. In addition, an attempt was made to understand how various GHRM practices influence the task-related and voluntary green performance behaviors of employees.

Data were collected from employees working in automobile industries in India. In all, 91 employees working at various hierarchical levels in the organizations responded to the survey. SPSS 24 was used for the purpose of data analysis.

The results indicate very low level of implementation of various GHRM practices in the sampled automobile organizations. Among the five GHRM practices, the average score for only green training and development and green employee involvement could reach 3. The lowest scores were found for green performance management and green compensation and rewards. Further, all five GHRM practices were found to significantly predict the task-related and voluntary employee green behaviors.

The findings by providing empirical evidence on the positive association of GHRM practices with employee green behaviors carry significant implications for practicing managers in automobile industry in terms of providing incentives for integrating HRM practices with the environment management systems in the organization.

This paper is one of the pioneer attempts to assess and report the extent of implementation of GHRM practices in Indian automobile industry. This paper also contributes to the limited theoretical literature available on GHRM by empirically investigating its linkage with green performance behaviors of employees.

The labor regulatory framework in India provides a conducive environment for social dialogue and collective participation in the organizational decision-making process (Venkata Ratnam, 2009). Using data from a survey of workplace union representatives in the federal state of Maharashtra, India, this paper examines union experiences of social dialogue and collective participation in public services, private manufacturing, and private services sector. Findings indicate that collective worker participation and voice is at best modest in the public services but weak in the private manufacturing and private services. There is evidence of growing employer hostility to unions and employer refusal to engage in a meaningful social dialogue with unions. These findings are discussed within the political economy framework of employment relations in India examining the role of the state and judiciary in employment relations and, the links between political parties and trade unions in India.

This study aims to build on previous research into lean practices and the associated barriers reported in various contexts to empirically address the question of what possible barriers exist to hinder the implementation of lean practices in the construction industry in China. Despite the potential that lean practices have to improve quality and productivity while reducing costs, successful stories of lean deployment are not frequently heard of.

A large-scale survey of Chinese building professionals is used to identify these barriers.

The results suggest that the most crucial barriers to implementation of lean practices, as perceived by Chinese building professionals, include “their lack of a long-term philosophy”, “the absence of a lean culture in their organizations”, “the use of multi-layer subcontracting” and others. This study also reports the findings using a factor analysis that shows the six underlying factors hindering the implementation of lean practices in the Chinese construction industry, namely, people and partner issues, managerial and organizational issues, lack of support issues, culture and philosophy issues, government issues and procurement issues.

This study offers a thorough overview of the barriers to implementing lean practices in various contexts, with a focus on construction. This study also contributes to the knowledge by recommending the measures that can be taken to appropriately overcome the barriers identified.

The purpose of this research is to focus on the solution of the resource sizing problem for production systems (PSs), defined as the specification of the number of each type of resources to be used in a production process for a given time period.

The resource sizing problem is tackled by a simulation‐expert‐system‐based approach, coupling an expert system (ES) with a simulation tool. Hence, a number of “simulation – ES optimization” cycles are realized until obtaining non‐improvable levels of performance. The main performance measures considered in this work are related to the manufacturing orders due dates (DD).

Through the approach proposed in this work, it is possible to size machines in order to optimize DD related performance measures for a PS belonging to a specific application domain. PSs of this domain are characterized by a functional layout and feature no labor constraints. In addition, machines belonging to a same department are considered to be identical.

The developed approach allows studying the machine sizing problem realistically, through the use of stochastic simulation. Also, by coupling an ES to the simulation tool, it avoids the try and error aspect characterizing most simulation‐based approaches. It hence features a well‐structured reasoning mechanism for the search of the best solution.