Flevy Lasrado

The determinants for sustainability of an employee suggestion system

Purpose – Although the corporations widely use the suggestion schemes to elicit the creative ideas of their employee, sustaining a suggestion scheme is still a challenge. Employee suggestion schemes have been studied from many perspectives to illustrate its objectives, nature, content, process, significance and the benefits. Arguments have also been made with respect to the success and failures of the suggestion schemes. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors to assess the sustainability of a suggestion system. Design/methodology/approach – This paper thus explores the critical success factors of suggestion scheme through a literature review and filters the critical determinants for sustainability of suggestion using factor analysis. The data collection was done using a survey technique. Findings – The results identity the five major factors as determinants to sustainability of a suggestion system as reported in the paper. Originality/value – This paper has made an attempt to explore the dete...

Effectiveness of employee suggestion schemes – from critical success factors to outcomes

Purpose Past studies have noted the important role of employee suggestion system (ESS) within the organizations. The use of ESS has been shown to help organizations address improvement- and cost-related problems. The advantages of ESSs are not limited to improving a work-related performance but can also lead to innovations through employees’ creativity. Creative ideas are very important for organizations to build its competitive advantage. Therefore, it is important to identify and understand the factors that contribute to the effectiveness of employee suggestion scheme and its success which has not been well-studied. This study aims to provide decision-makers within organizations with a deeper understanding of the factors that need to be considered in organizing and managing ESSs for its maximum effectiveness Design/methodology/approach An analysis of 273 surveys collected from several organizations with ESS experience in the United Arab Emirates was conducted. Survey scales were developed based on previous research and hypotheses are stated. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Correlation analysis were used to understand the interrelations among the five factors Findings Results suggest that the four critical success factors, namely, system capability, organizational encouragement, leadership support and employee participation, are positively related to the ESS outcome and its valuable predictors. Some managerial implications of the results of this study are important to note. It is critical for managers to establish rewards, evaluation, feedback and awareness of ESS. Originality/value On the basis of a possible future extended research scope in combination with a qualitative research methodology, one could deepen the understanding of influence of country of origin and of institutional mechanisms that might explain higher effectiveness of ESS outcome This appears to be the first published research study to link critical success factors for maximum effectiveness of ESSs.

Critical success factors for employee suggestion schemes: A Literature review

Purpose Employee suggestion scheme (ESS) have existed for many years and many articles have been published over the past decades. They have been studied from many perspectives to illustrate their objectives, nature, content, process, significance and the benefits. Arguments have also been made with respect to success and failures of the suggestion schemes. Although the corporations widely use the suggestion schemes to elicit the creative ideas of their employees, sustaining a suggestion scheme is still a challenge. The purpose of this paper is to extract the critical success factors and critical success criteria to the suggestion scheme and to discuss the importance of these factors on sustainability of suggestion system. This is a literature review paper. Design/methodology/approach This is a literature review paper. The research used the university library to search for the relevant material. The university has an access for 25,000 journals. As the university had the subscription to main databases such as EBASCO, SCIENCE DIRECT, EMERALD, Google Scholar and WILEY, a search was performed on these databases using the key terms. The keywords used in the searches included: Suggestion System, Suggestion Scheme, Employee Participation, Employee Involvement, Innovation, Employee Creativity and Ideas Management. The Google Scholar citation tab was also searched further to identify any related articles. The citations of resulting articles were scrutinized further for further clues. Findings This paper identifies 23 critical success factors and 9 critical success criteria for suggestion schemes. It also discusses the interconnection between the critical success factors and the critical success criteria. Further, the frequency of each of the factors is also presented. It recognizes the lack of work on the assessment framework for sustainability of a suggestion scheme. Practical implications This paper should be of value to practitioners of suggestion schemes and to academics who are interested in knowing how this program has evolved and where it is today and what future it holds. It offers practical help to an individual starting out on research on the sustainability of suggestion schemes. Originality/value The paper attempts to put together many factors discussed in the literature and proposed a definition to define the sustainability of the suggestion system and categorized them as critical success factors and critical success criteria.

Employee suggestion scheme sustainability excellence model and linking organizational learning: Cases in United Arab Emirates

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a sustainability assessment model and to discuss the implications for organizational learning. Paper presents a sustainability excellence model comprising of three stages and discuss the good practices for sustaining the employee suggestion scheme. Design/methodology/approach: The assessment framework was developed drawing on a thorough review of the literature and data collected and analyzed using various statistical tools. The developed assessment framework was validated through a case of an organization based in the United Arab Emirates. Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit relevant information during the case study. Findings: An assessment framework comprising five major factors for sustainability of suggestion scheme has been presented. The five factors include: leadership and work environment, system capability, system effectiveness, organizational encouragement and system barriers. Sustainability of a suggestion system can be understood as a three-stage model comprising the initial stage, the developmental stage and the advanced stage. The key practices associated for each of these stages are discussed in detail. Practical implications: The framework has taken into consideration the critical success factors and critical success factors emerged from the literature review conducted for this study. Therefore, the framework could be further refined by conducting more case studies and can propose maturity levels. Originality/value: The paper has developed a framework that can be used to assess the sustainability of the suggestion scheme in an organization. This model has been applied to assess the individual schemes and draw upon potential change strategies.Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a sustainability assessment model and to discuss the implications for organizational learning. Paper presents a sustainability excellence model comprising of three stages and discuss the good practices for sustaining the employee suggestion scheme. Design/methodology/approach – The assessment framework was developed drawing on a thorough review of the literature and data collected and analyzed using various statistical tools. The developed assessment framework was validated through a case of an organization based in the United Arab Emirates. Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit relevant information during the case study. Findings – An assessment framework comprising five major factors for sustainability of suggestion scheme of has been presented. The five factors include: leadership and work environment, system capability, system effectiveness, organizational encouragement and system barriers. Sustainability of a suggestion system can be understo...

Social identity and environmental citizenship in multinational corporations: an exploratory investigation and future research directions

ABSTRACT Adapting to a ‘green’ agenda requires active engagement of all relevant stakeholders such as societies, national, international and multinational corporations. Within organizations, leaders need to create a conducive organizational culture and identity to inculcate prosocial behaviours for becoming environmentally sensitive and responsible among employees through environmental citizenship. It can be argued that environmental citizenship among employees can enhance an organization’s environmental performance and impacts. Linking the notions and theories of social identity and environmental citizenship, this exploratory study examines the perceptions, attitudes and values of managers on engaging employees in green involvement. We also explore the organizational factors that were implemented across the workplace and its underpinning sustainable strategies for green engagement with an overarching research question: How can organizations promote green behaviour and identity among employees and engage them in meeting green targets for organizations? We employed a qualitative method by designing a focus group study. Our findings help us explore factors for promoting a social identity and environmental citizenship in business organizations and to understand specific methods that motivate green behaviours among employees, so that a culture and identity of being green becomes prominent and extends to the homes and wider society of employees.

Awards and Assessments

This chapter provides insights for preparing an application for Dubai Quality Award. Dubai Quality initiated in 1992 for business sector of UAE, it is global award today. UAE organizations particularly who are multinational organizations can also obtain a quality recognition for their entire operations. With 22 years of successful history, the business excellence department, the office which overseas this national award proudly acknowledges that their relationship with the organization is not just to award and recognize the organizations. Instead their aim is to work with the companies in their continuous improvement journey. Ms Seema specialist at award office, passionately says” When an interested party comes on the board, we gauge their intention and their commitment to the improvement approach and educate them. Indeed, engaging with us is not a one-time transaction”!

Towards Developing a Framework for Achieving Organizational Excellence: Theoretical Foundations

This chapter provides a summary of how an excellent organization should look like by asking several questions. What is the look of an excellent organization? How is an excellent organization managed? What are the main pillars of the organizational excellence? Are there specific aspects that a manager should pay attention to? Should a manager pay attention to people, technology, leadership, product customer or a combination of these aspects? Do these aspects have a relationship between them?

Cases of Business Excellence: Emphasis on Human Capital

This chapter introduces four cases of excellence where the emphasis is on the role and importance of human capital. These four organisations represent the retail, construction, and service sectors. The main aim of this chapter is to highlight the importance and relevance of human capital and people management in high-performing organisations. The chapter illustrates the various strategies that have helped these organisations in achieving high employee engagement. The best practices of these organisations mainly stem from excellence models and total quality management (TQM) foundations.

Legacy of Excellence: The Case of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

This chapter illustrates the United Arab Emirates legacy of excellence. It covers the initiatives such as development of Dubai Quality Award, Dubai government Excellence Program, Fourth Cycle of the Government Excellence System, Introduction of ISO certifications. It also discusses some prominent examples of the most commonly used improvement initiatives aimed at achieving organizational excellence in the UAE including recent fourth cycle of the government excellence model. In addition, this chapter, explores the various approaches that have been initiated to boost excellence in the UAE, as well as their motivations, benefits and recommendations that can be made for quality-conscious organizations. The common good practices concerning quality that have been adopted, especially among the Dubai Quality winners are also discussed alongside discussions on what the future holds for excellence in the region.

Organizations Achieve Excellence Through Quality Awards

The globally well-known quality awards are the American Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) and European Foundation for Quality Management’s Excellence Award. These were developed with the purpose of assisting organizations in developing and fostering competiveness. The use of these awards and impacts are evidenced globally. The studies that were conducted in last few years have shown that these awards have enormous benefits to winning organizations. While past research exists on various benefits gained globally, this chapter aims to provide some insights of recent winners as well to discuss the UAEs quality award. The purpose also is to showcase one strong theme of excellence of winning organizations. Finally, the chapter concludes by exhibiting a case of a winner of UAEs national quality award.