The effects of employee participation and involvement schemes in organizations——A case study of small size enterprises in China

 

Introduction

Significant and complexity of employee participation and involvement schemes

英國dissertation網With the development of managerial techniques and less emphasis on cost advantage, it can be noted that there is increasing attention paid to the employee participation and involvement in the work organizations by management. In particular, the success of introduction direct participation in Japanese motor and electronics industries which improve quality and reduce costs led to the interest of management on employee participation and involvement (Sisson and Storey, 2000). They suggest that participation and involvement schemes are increasingly provided by management as a ‘new conventional wisdom’ to improve commitment and seek competitive advantage. It is widely acknowledged that employee participation and involvement can be a ‘win-win’ practice by providng employees with rights on the one hand and improving performance and commitment for management on the other hand (Sisson and Storey, 2000). And the significance of employee participation and involvement is not only admitted by western researcher in the field of human resource management, Chinese researchers begin to realize the importance of employee participation and involvement in the recent years although the relevant literature is really rare. Xie and He (2008) state that the adoption of employee participation and involvement meet the needs of management innovtion and organizational efficiency development within the Chinese organizations. 

Although employee participation and involvement is significant and effect is positive for organizations.However, some researchers also point out that, in practice, the particular employee participation and involvement schemes adopted by organizations is different, and the their effects are uneven (Sisson and Storey, 2000; Marchington, 2005). Sisson and Storey suggest that sometimes some employee participation schemes are not always durable, instead, sometime they are abandoned and rejected by management as the effects of employee participation and involvement is not obvious or even negative for organizations (Sisson and Storey, 2000). It means that employee participation and involvement is far more complex than we imagined. The evidences of variation of effects of employee participation and involvement schemes indicate that when examining the effects in organizations, they should be treated individually and we have to take many factors into consideration. For example, wave concept indicates that the effects of employee participation and involvement are various and usually depedent on their various forms of employee participation and involvement (Ackers et al.,1992; Marchington et al. 1992; Marchington et al. 1993).  Thus, in order to better understanding of effects of employee participation and involvement, what we need is examine the definition of employee participation and involvemen in literature and various forms and classification of employee participation and involvement schemes in practice firstly.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

The definition of employee participation and involvement

The first complex issue for individuals and groups interested in employee participation and involvement is its definition. Many researchers interested in employee participation and involvement schemes experience the difficulties in defining employee participation and involvement. For example, as early as 1980s, Harvie Ramsay states that the meaning of employee participation and involvement is vast and the results of attempting to define employee participation and involvement are disappointing (Ramsay, 1980 cited in Harley, Hyman and Thompson, 2005). Similarly, Marchington and Wilkinson (2005), note that the definition of employee participation and involvement is ambiguous. In fact, many critical differences exist in regard to the practices of employee participation and involvement, they are related to ‘the exercise of power, locus of control, the nature of employee effect and the driving force behind each methods in practice (Lewis et al. 2003 cited in Butler and Glover, 2007). 

The various of classification of participation and involvement and application of employee participation and involvement in small and medium-sized private enterprises in China

Because the definition of employee participation and involvement can not be easily defined, moreover the effect of employee participation and involvement schemes is depedent on which forms the organizations adopt (Marchington, 2005). Thus in order to analyze it appropriately, it is necessary to identify and classify the forms of employee participation and involvement. Forty years ago, Pateman (1970 cited in Harley, Hyman and Thompson, 2005) identified three different dimensions of employee participation and involvement. They are full, pseudo and partial participation. In terms of as the high degree of participation, Patemen (1970 cited in Harley, Hyman and Thompson, 2005) suggests that full participation provides same rights with all members in an organization. Pseudo participation means although management has the initiative of communication and persuasion in participation schemes, management only provides little influence on employees. However, employees merely have limited influence and power on work organization in partial participation. Marchington also makes his contributions on this work (2005). He identifies four categories of employee participation and involvement and these four categories are acknowledged by many researchers on field of employee participation and involvement (Marchington et al., 1992 cited in Butler and Glover, 2007). They are Downwards communications, Upwards problem solving and team working, financial participation and representative participation. Additionally, he classified the different practices of employee participation and involvement into matrix of degree, scope and level and form ((Marchington et al., 1992 cited in Butler and Glover, 2007;  Marchington, 2005). The degree of schemes of involvement refers to the extent that workers can influence decisions of the high level management. According to the different degree of employee participation and involvement, the different types of participation and involvement can range from two-way communication, consultation, co-determination and control (Marchington, 2005). He argues that although many managers may prefer to retain the right of co-determination and control, which means two-way communication and consultation are usually used, he suggests that managers should treat the rights of employee carefully because employees have independent will. Secondly, the scope of participation and involvement is also an important dimension that needs to be discussed. He suggests that the scope of participation and involvement schemes relates to the type of subject needed to deal with during the employee participation and involvement schemes. This can be ranged from routine to strategic decision. The third method to classify the employee participation and involvement is measuring the level of participation (Marchington, 2005). He points out that according to the level of participation, the participation and involvement schemes can be classified from low level which is workplace or departmental to high level which is headquarters. Finally, employee participation and involvement contains different forms, for example, face to face communication or collective bargaining. After Marchington first publish his outcome of classification of employee participation and involvement in 1992, Sisson and Storey (2000) improve the classification of employee participation and involvement. After observation and research on the employee participation and involvement in work organization in practice, they describe the types of participation and involvement schemes in more detail. Generally, employee participation and involvement can be put into four broad categories. The first one is communication schemes. The second one is direct participation, which contains consultative participation and delegative participation. The third category is indirect or representative participation. It includes joint consultation, co-determination, collective bargaining and work directors. The Final one is financial participation, namely profit sharing and share ownership. Moreover, they develop their communication category and direct participation in detail. They conclude that the channels for communication with employees. In general, they are face to face methods, written methods and other methods. Except the conclusion of channels of communication with employees, Sisson and Storey (2000) suggest the main forms of direct participation, such as individual consultation, group consultation and individual delegation. Furthermore, they describe each form in detail, which makes a contribution to better understanding as regards the classification of direct participation.#p#分頁標題#e#

As it is described above, the forms and their classification of employee participation and involvement is various. And all of them can be observed in many organization in many developed countries. When examining the application of employee partiipation and involvement in China, the forms of employee participation and involvement used by organization is slightly less than forms used in developed coutries. As we know, on the one hand, there is great number of state-owned enterprises in Chinese economy and they deeply influence the Chinese market; On the other hand, many large state-owned enterprises have undergone a serise of reform which lead to great managerial autonomy (Scott, Bishop and Chen, 2003) and the number of small and medium-sized private enterprises is increasing in recent years (Liu et al., 2004). Hence, the employee democracy can be witnessed and some forms of employee participation and involvement schemes which is successful in organizations in developed countries is introduced by management in organization in China. Xie and He (2008) conclude that recently there are mainly several forms of employee participation and involvement in Chinese organization: the first one is employee representative participation and union representative participation. Untill 2006, the number of union on the basic level is 1.324 million around China, the member of union are 0.17 billion. Among these, the number of member of rural migrant workers in cities is 40.978 million. There is 80% state-owned enterprises of the total  introduce employee representative participation or union representative participation and in private enterprises, there is 40% of the total private enterprise introduce employee representative participation or union representative participation; the second form is individual consultation within organization. In large state-owned enterprises, the individual consultataion is held by high management meeting in organizations and the participants are usually top managrs and appraisal involved in individual consultation is usually not realiable (Xie and He, 2008). In small and medium-sized private enterprises, many managers introduce ‘360 degree appraisal’ which is more democratic for employees; in the third place, downwards communications is nomally adopted by Chinese organizations to ensure employees have a better understanding on organizational values and http://www.400190.com/Thesis_Writing/HRM/objectives. The above three forms of employee particiapation and invovlement are the main forms in Chinese organization. It should be noted that the employee democracy and employee participation and invovlement have long way to go as problems of the enterprises ownership in China and small and medium size enterprise still need to improve their managerial techniques.

 

Effect of employee participation and involvement in organization and ‘waves concept’

Although many resechers report that employee participation and invovlement have positive effect on organization performance and employee commitment and turnover (Harley, Hyman and Thompson, 2005; Marchington, 2005) which will be discussed in the literature review. However, when analysing the effects of employee participation and involvement schemes, it shoule be noted that the diversification of forms employee participation and involvement is not the only factor of variation of effect of employee participation and involvement. ‘Waves concept’ indicate that the factors inside and outside workplace are also very important for the degree of effects (Marchington, 2005). It means that the effects of employee participation and involvement can be different in different organization and in different situations and context. Although the effects usually are positive in previous literatures, the extent of effects can be different. And the effects do not always appear to be positive, even, in some circumstances, the effects can be negative. Hence, Rather than relying the previous literatures we should analyse the individual organizations focusly. The reliable outcome can be achieved only by this way. #p#分頁標題#e#

 

Research purpose

In this thesis, it aims to examine the effects of employee participation and involvement in organization. It should be admitted that although there is ample literatures and dataset concerning the effects of employee participation and involvement schemes in organizations, however, most of information in both previous literatures and dataset mainly concern to the organization in Europe or American. However, the number of studies on employee participation and involvement in China is limited. Thus, instead of choosing European manufacturing company as the object, like many researchers did, this thesis, we choose Chinese small and medium-sized private enterprises as the subject. In deed, the studies of effects of employee participation and involvement schemes for organizations in China is rare but siganificant, and it is expecially ture for the study of smal and medium organization in China, which of the number is incerasing only in the recent years. Liu et al. suggest that from 1992 to 2001, the number of Chinese small and medium-sized private enterprises increased from 0.14 million to 2.03 million. They found that in Zhen Jiang province, in 1998 the percentage of worker worked in Chinese small and medium-sized private enterprises is 80.37% of the total workforce in the province (Liu et al., 2004).

In this thesis, it aims to explore the relation between application of employee participation and involvement schemes and the effect on small organization performance. By reviewing a large number of literatures, positive effects on many aspects of organizations is founded, such as organizational performance, employee commitment, job satisfaction, employee turnover and employee attitude. Among the various outcomes concerning organizational performance, the links between employee participation and involvement and employee commitment and turnover is highly focused by many literatures. In this case study, we will examine the effect of employee participation and involvement on employee commitment and turnover, to explore that if there is positive effect in Chinese organizations just like that in many developed countries even though the Chinese culture and context is totally different from culture and context in western countries.

 

Research site and participants

The study was conducted in a small size high-technology company in Zhen Jiang province in China, called Hao Yu Micro-electronics Co.,Ltd. The product of the company is IC which is produced in Guang Dong province. The main business of Hao Yu Micro-electronics Co.,Ltd is oversea business, that is, the company’s customer services contact foreigner buyers to make the orders, then produce the IC in manufacturing site in Guang Dong provice, then the IC products are checked and developed buy engineers then deliveryman. As a small private enterprise, the organizational structure is simple, it includes high management, Department Head, delivery boys, engineers, customer services, temporary workers. In toal, the company employed approximately 52 employees. It contains 3 top managers, 3 Department Head, 10 delivery boys, 15 engineers, 10 customer services, 9 temporary workers. To reduce the high employee turnover in 2004 and to enhance employee commitment, high management introduce employee participation and involvement schemes in the end of 2004. The main schemes contains face-to-face group meeting, profit-sharing (group incentive), teamwork, group and individual consultation, and indivudual delegation and direct participaion in decision-making. Although, all of the schemes are almost adopted at the same time and they are independent in nature, they are held in different levels of structure within organization and mixed and embedded in the company daily operations.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

Detail of employee participation and involvment schemes adpoted by the company

Every week, there is at least one group meeting held within the department. During the meeting, department heads direct the meeting, the two-way communication is allowed. On the one side, temporary worker, customer services and engineering have the right to report and discuss the problems. On the other side, department heads have the power and resposibility to carry the work within department. High management meeting is held in every month, the participants are top managemers and department heads. During the high management meeting, all of the participants have the right to participate in strategic decision making process. Apart from the face-to-face meeting, the performance of every employees and managers is assessed, Hao Yu Micro-electronics Co.,Ltd adopted ‘360 degree appraisal’ which guarantee the realibility of the results of assessment. Furthermore, 10 Customer services are divided into two groups and engineers are divded into three groups. Every six months, each team performance is assessed. The group incentives are granted dependent on the performance of the team. Temporary worker do not neither take part in individual assessment nor group assessment however, there is meeting held by head of contemporary workers, they have the opportunity to have downward face-to-face communication.

After embracing these schemes, Hao Yu Micro-electronics Co.,Ltd experienced decrease on employee turnover from 2005. However, the positive link between employee participation and involvement is unknown. By examining the outcomes of employee turnover and commitment, the thesis aims to explore the evidence of the positive impact of employee participation and involvement schemes on employee commitment and  turnover in Hao Yu Micro-electronics Co.,Ltd. 

 

In the following content of thesis, firstly, in the literature review section, we will outline the recent literatures concerning effects of employee participation and factors whichi influence effect of employee participation and involvement, and also the limitation and gap between previous literatures and recent study in this thesis. Secondly, in the methodology section, on the one hand, we will introduce the details of the employee participation and involement schemes and their application in Hao Yu Micro-electronics Co.,Ltd, on the other side, we detail data collection and the research design. After analyzing the link between employee participation and involvement in methodology section, finally, we will suggest the findings and assess employee participation and involvement critically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Literature review 

There is ample literatures concerning the effect of employee participation and involvement on organization performance and productivity. However, when analyzing employee participation and invovlement, the degree of effect on organization is diffrerent and even some literature report employee participation and involvement schemes have negative effect on organzation performance.#p#分頁標題#e#

In deed, as the development of deregulation of market and high competition, we should admit that employee participation and involvement scheme can contribute to improvement of performent and productivity of organizations. But the extent of influence is unclear and diverse since the complexity of employee participation and involvement schemes and inside and outside factor of organization. 

 

Many resercheres find that there is positive link between employee participation and involvement and organization performance. As early as 1960s, employee participation and involvement is regarded as wholly unproblematic practices which can produce positive-sum outcomes for both management and employees. It can be the basic motive of applying employee participation and involvement. This unitarist assumption was acknowledged by many researchers at that time and can be found in a great number of literatures. For example, Argyris (1964 cited in Butler and Glover, 2007) argued that employee participation and involvement schemes are capable of integrating the individual and organizational needs. In the 1960s, the similar view can be found in many literatures, e.g. The Human Side of Enterprise (McGregor, 1960); New Patterns of Management (Likert, 1961); Integrating the Individual and Organization (Argyris, 1964) in which employee participation and involvement is a great managerial technique can tackle various corporate difficulties and generate positive outcome for organizational performance (Butler and Glover, 2007). Also Sisson and storey suggest that the possitive influences of employee participation and involvement is that in order to pull employees in the same direction which is beneficial to the organization, the employee should know more about the organization, such as the key objectives, the opportunities and the threats and so on. It is the base of motivation of employee participation and involvement (2000). In the UK, Sisson and Storey (2000) point that the EPOC survey which conduct in ten EU countries concerning direct participation in organization change covering 67 munufactoring plants. In this EPOC survey, it can be found that all forms of diect participation can be contribute to improvement of performance in organizations; there is a close link between the number of form of employee participation which is used and involvement and the effects which is produced; the greater scale of tcipathe employee participation and involement. In the meanwhile, the EPOC survey also finds that the effectiveness and efficiency of is highly associated with employee education and training, which will raise the cost on the recruitment of highly educated- employee and the training schemes. Although Sisson and Storey suggest that in many countries, especially for developed countries, cost is not competitive advantage any more recently and additionally employee participation and involvement schemes are critical to build the employee’s long-time demand for higher education and skills to make continuous improvement, he admit that when the practices of employee participation and involvement is relatively new, it will take time to learn the new practices which will also raise cost (2000). Concerning the relationship between cost increase and employee participation and involvement, Jones and Taoto (2005) studied the case which is located in central New York, that is theire case, hereafter PAPTS, is a privately owned, non-unionized subsidiary of a multinational firm. In order to get raliable data, they conduct the intetview, questionnair and worker shadowing exercise. The key findings in their research are as following: when introducing employee involvement, such as offline team, is initially accompanied by significant cost as the introduction of employee involvement will raise the rates of downtime, however, the cost will be disspated over time if the team function well. Moreover, the cost of team membership (increased downtime) will be smaller and diminished more quickly as members involved in learning by doing (Jones and Taoto, 2005). In their view, the introduction of employee involvement are best regarded as investments which do not continuously raise costs and will promote performance of organizations. It indicate  that although the cost will be increased and the improvement of performance is not significant in the short time, the benefit can be gained by sustaining the employee participation and involvement schemes in the long time. Cotton et al. comfirmed this statement. Cotton et al. (1988) researched the different clusters in organizations, from the data collected, the conclusion was that  the long-term and sustainable employee participation, particularly employee direct participation and voice can be an effective method to increase employee satisfaction and performance. To get a comprehensive understanding of effects of employee participation and involvement, Summers and Hyman (2005) examine the three rationale concerning employee participation and involvement. They are economic rationale, social rational and governmental rationale. Economic rationale indicate that the employee participation and involvement schemes is beneficial for both employees and employers. Based on some evidences, Summers and Hyman (2005) suggest that employee participation and involvement schemes changes employee attitudes to work and to management, enhancing employee association with management and organization value and objectives and consequently raise and improve employee motivation to work to achieve the goals. Also, by applying the practices of employee participation and involvement, management attitude can be positively influenced and they will understand the attitude and skill of employee better. The one specific effect of employee participation and involvement is that employee participation and involement are able to improve organization performance (Summer and Hyman, 2005). The assumption is that workers will work harder amd more efficiently because of greater organizational commitment, the organizational commitment can be attributed from employee participation and involvement, thus it will produce workers flexibility and quality output. For employers, they have opportunities to enhace the workers’ knowledge and experience. Consequently, workers are able to know the most efficient and effective way of arranging their work (Cooke, 1994 cited in Summers and Hyman, 2005). The other effect of employee participation and involvement concerning economic rationale is that participation reduces the organizational costs. Wilson and Peel (1990 cited in Summers and Hyman, 2005) found that employee are more unlikely to quit if employee participation and involvement are vailable to them. Then a decline of employee turnover will reduce the costs of training and recruitment for the organization. Except to decline of turnover, employee participation and involvement can reduce absenteeism rates. Park, Appelbuam and Kruse (2010) comfirm this statement, they admit that voluntary cost relates to enormous cost for organization. They explain that when employees leave the organizaions, the management has to recruit and select new one, and also has to them them to adapt the new work environment, in the meanwhile, the organizations have to bear the cost of low productivity until the new employee totally adapt the new workplace. It should be noted that the cost will be significant when the employees with special skill leave the organizations (Park, Appelbuam and Kruse, 2010). They point out the cost will be reduce if the management adopt the practices of employee involvement and group incentives because the technicis of employee involvement and group incentives are able to improve employee commitment and will provide employee with motitivation to remian the organizations. Finally, the harmonious labor relationship is also able to reduce the cost to the industrial disagreement of organization. The second rationales Summer and Hyman (2005) introdeced is Social rationale. Social rational suggest that employee participarion and involvement improve equality, such as democratic and equal opportunities (Osterman, 1994 cited in Summers and Hyman, 2005). The final one is Governmental rationale. The rationale of introdcing employee participation and involvement policies is that employee participation and involvement are capable of improve national economic efficiency (Summers and Hyman, 2005). It can be noted that employee participation and involvement schemes are win-win practices. Kim, MacDuffie and Pil (2010) claimed that if employees have greater rights of control over their work and encouraging their input in cooperation and decision-making is claimed to be beneficial for both http://www.400190.com/Thesis_Writing/HRM/employee and employers. #p#分頁標題#e#

 

Indeed, as many researchers acknowledged, employee participation and involvement schemes are able to produce positive effect for organizations. However, it does not mean that each employee participation and involvement can produce the effects with the same degree, and also it does not mean that the extent of the effects of the same employee participation and involvement in one organization is as same as in other organizations, and even within the organization, the same employee participation and involvement can produce different extent of effects between different job-typed employees, such as engineers and workers. It is partly because of the complexity of employee participation and involvement schemes, and partly because of the complexity of context inside and outsaide workforce. This statement has been claimed and proved by many researchers, its evidences can be found in a great number of literatures. The basis of the variation of effects of employee participation and involvement is ‘waves concept, which is introduced by UMIST team (Marchington, 2005). By researching a in-depth study in 25 separate organizations (Marchington, 2005), the reasons of variation of effects of employee participation and involvement schemes were found in ‘waves comcept’. Instead of explaining the ebbs and flows of employee participation and involvement merely in terms of change of relations between power and labor, the ‘waves concept’ suggest that internal managerial relations was also important force for the organizations (Marchington, et al., 1993 cited in Marchington, 2005). As Marchington notes (2005), rather than as a whole, it is possible to chart the dynamics of employee participation and involvement related to the increase and decrease of different schemes. It means that the waves of employee participation and involvement schemes were driven by a countless factors (Marchington et al., 1993). It indicate that the effects of employee participation and involvement are influenced by different factor. For example, organizational structure, Marchington (2005)notes that the effects of employee participation and involvement schemes are more obvious in large centralised service facor than in decentralised manufacturing firms. As Marchington (2005) said, there is much work needs to be done examing the relations between different factors and effects. Not only Marchington, other researchers also make contributions to the studies of effects of employee participation and involvement in organizations. Cotton et al. (1988) find that even in the same environmental and structural conditions, the effects of different form of employee are different. By reseaching effects of various forms of employee participation and involvement, it includes effects of participation in decision-making, consultative participation, short-term participation, informal participation employee ownership and representative partcipation on performance and satisfaction (Cotton et al., 1988). They find that participation in decision making seems to have modest positive relationship with organizational performance and job satisfaction. The contradictory outcome is gained in other literatures. For example, Harley, Hyman and Thompson (2005) suggest that management prefer to embrace direct participation because the positive effects can be more significant for management. The explanation is that on the one hand, the improvement of communication and direct participation are capable of enhancing performance of organization, on the other hand, they normally do not raise management difficulties (Sisson and Storey, 2000). In the Cotton’s study (1988)，furthermore, they also discuss the relations between effects of employee participation and involvement and various factors. In the first palce, when examing the effects of employee participation and involvement schemes, the possible contextual or contigency variables should be considered (Cotton et al., 2005). Some resercher indicate that the effectiveness of employee participation practices might depend on situation, such as the nature of objectives (Locke, Schweiger, & Latham, 1986; Sashkin, 1976; Stumpf, Zand, & Freeman, 1979; Vroom & Yetton, 1973 cited in Cotton 1988). Secondly, the interaction among of forms of employee participation and involvement within an organization should be examined (Cotton, 1988). The combination of forms of employee participation and involvement may produce special outcome, for example, informal participation may be more effective when it is involved in participation in decision making (Cotton, 1988). After cotton’s (1988) finding that employee participation in decision making have modest effects on organization performance and job satisfaction, in other literatures, for example, Light 2004) also analysed the relation between employee involvement and job satisfaction, he tested a Fortune 100 manufacturing companies witj total population of 50,000 employees and more significantly, he classified them into four separate job-types, they are hourly employees, salary non-management employees, engineering and management employees. By studying employee ivolvement and job satisfaction, the attitudes between job types is examined and compared. The study found that managers are more satisfied than other three job-types when introducing employee involvement schemes and engineers and hourly employees are least satisfied. In overall, all the job-types can be satisfied when applying employee involvement schemes (Light, 2004).  Moreover, Ascigil (2003) also explored the relation between employee involvement and job satisfaction. Additionally, Kim, Macduffie and Pil (2010) examine the effects of team and representative voice on manufactoring performance, they collect data through the International Automotive Assembly Plant Study (Macduffie and Pil, 1995) which was collected via surveys by authors in 1994 and 2000 from automotive factories around the world. They find that team voice improve productivity when the interaction effect with representative voice is availble. And the combination of low team and low representative voice relates to f outcome. Hence, it can be noted that although in recent market, the positive effects may be gained by implementing employee participation and involvement. The effects can be different, and the differences of effects are related to many inside and outside factors, namely, contextual, managrial, and structural factors. By treating the effects of employee and involvement schems individually and putting them into special and particicular context, many researcher make their contributions in this area. Richardson, Danford, Stewart and Pulignano (2010) analysed the four cases across the Europe to examine relations between the extent of employee participation and involvement and the extent of influences the employee they felt they have over participation tasks and organizational strategies. By conducting questionnair survey of a randome sample of employees in four companies between 2005 and 2006. Danford, Stewart and Pulignano (2010) find that there are some difference between countries and industries, for example, direct influence in two plants in Italy was smaller than in the UK companies. The nature of organization is the key factor affecting the extent of effect of employee participation and involvement. Park, Appelbuam and Kruse examined (2010) the effect of employee involvement and group incentives on organization commitment and turnover in labor-intensive organizations and capital-intensive organizations. The data is collected from a survey which research over 4,000 employees in 29 manufacturing companies. According needs theory, they note that when the compensation and work condition for employee is sufficient the job satisfaction will increase. After the bacis needs of employee is achieved they will pursue the higer needs, such as achievement and self-actualisation (Winterton, 2004; Kinicki and Kreitner, 2008 cited in Park, Appelbuam and Kruse, 2010). On the one hand, in the capital-intensive organizations, employees normally have high skills and employees are more likey to receive basic needs, such as work environment and salary. Hence, the capital-intensive companies may benefit from employee input for product innovation and problem-solving, which usually prompted by employee involvement practice, on the other hand, in labor-intensive organizations, employees have low-skill and the basic needs are usually emphasized by employees. The labor-intensive can receive positive outcome when adopt group incensive, which can give employees finanicial incentives (Park, Appelbuam and Kruse, 2010). Hence, based on needs theory and the data they collected from survey in 29 manufacturing companies, Park, Appelbuam and Kruse (2010) claim that in the capital-intensive companies, employee involvement can produce more obvious effects than in laor-intensive companies since employee can meet higher order needs, however, in capital-intensive companies, the group incntives have more ability to enhace employee commitment as the group incentives can help employee to meet lower order needs. Additionally, Sesil (1999) makes his contribution to the effects of employee involvement and group incentives which is considered as control right and return rights. He examined the impact of employee involvement and group incentives on performance in UK high technology establishment. By investigating data from the Corporate Performance Project Data-base which includes comprehensive base data on employee involvement and group incentive schemes,the influences of employee involvement and group incentive schemes are evaluated. The dataset is collected from the survey to 118 high technology manufacturing establishment, Sesil (1999) found that there is positive effect on organization performation linked to introduction of employee involvement and group incentives respectively, furthermore, the effect may be more obvious when these two practices are used in combination. Based on previous literatures, Summers and Hyman (2005) find great number of contradictory evidence of effects of employee participation and involvement. For example, the effects of employee participation and involvement on productivity are different bwtween industrial sectors. Although, overall, there is positive link between effects of employee participation and involvement, the effect is not so obvious for the footwear industry, and there is only slight increase for cloth setor (Estrin et al., 1987 cited in Summers and Hyman, 2005). Doucouliagos (1995 cited in Summers and Hyman, 2005) also note that there are different effects for different forms of participation, that is, there is a small rise in productivity for labor-managed firms, whereas, participation have no obvious infuence on productivity in ‘participatory capitalist firms’. It can be noted that the success of employee participation and involvement schemes can be attributed from high degree of employee influneces and participation schemes. Moreover, in Jone’s (1987 cited in Summers and Hyman, 2005) finding, the enforcement of employee co-determination seems to have a negative effect on productivity. Although, in most literatures, researchers report there are possitive effects of employee participation and involvement on productivity, in Jone’s finding, it means that there is another possible result for the study of effects of employee participation and involvement schemes, not all participation practices are effective. When examing the dataset over a long time period, the resluts apear to be contradictory. Addison and Belfiled’s (2001 cited in Summer and Hyman, 2005) examined and compared the data collected by WER90 and WER98, they found that the increase of employee involvement is linked to positive effect on productivity in 1990 dataset. However, the effect in 1998 survey result is not as significant as in 1990 survey result. On the other hand, Fernie and Metcalf (1995, cited in Addison and Belfiled’s, 2001 cited in Summers and Hyman, 2005) observed that there is negative impact of representative participation, such as unionism, whereas, the 1998 dataset indicate that union variable is both positive and significant for improvement of productivity. Furthermore, the result of 1998 dataset do not in align with the finding of 1990 dataset that downward communication do not associate with development of financial performance of organizations (McNabb and Whitfield, 1998 cited in Addison and Belfield, 2001 cited in Summers and Hyman, 2005). Summers and Hyman (2005) note these differences from the previous literature and dataset and explain that the effect of employee participation and involvement is related to external #p#分頁標題#e#英國dissertation網environment of organization. In some forms of employee participation, especially in financial participation, government is the prime actor through state legislation, for example, tax incentive legislation (Harley, Hyman and Thompson, 2005). Consequently, they suggest, when management introduce financial participation within the organization management itself has to take contemporary tax incentive legislation into consideration. Another actor group involved in employee participation and involvement, they suggest, are shareholders. They admit that one of the reasons for difference of scope and scale of employee participation and involvement schemes between different organizations and different times is the ‘unstable condition of corporate government arrangement driven by shareholder value’. It means that favorable condition of corporate government arrangement can be affected by shareholders value and it may be the motivation the for decision to introduce of employee participation and involvement within organizations. 

 

In a great number previous literature in Europe and American, It can be seen that there are positive impact between introduction of employee participation and involvement schemes and performance of organization. For example, many researchers claim that there is line between employee participation and involvement and employee commitment (Macduffie and Pil, 1995; Sisson and Storey, 2000; Harley, Hyman and Thompson, 2005). Moreover, the emoloyee turnover can be postively related to employee participation and involvement. However, According to waves concept, It can not be expected the result of present study is similar as the result in Europe and American as Chinese context is different from Western context. For instance, on the one hand, Scott, Bishop and Chen (2003) point out that tradition Chinese culture may hinders the improvement and success of employee participation and involvement schemes. However, they also suggest that on the other hand the collectivist orientation might promote decision-making among teamwork, task achievment among the group and group prientation on some ascpects in organizations (Scott, Bishop and Chen, 2003). On the other hand, they point out according to some features of Chinese cultures, namely, partnerlism and social control, top down hierarachical structure is the main strucure in Chinese organizations. It means that effect of employee participation and involvment schemes in Chinese organizations are possibly not as same as the effect in organizations in Europe and American. It is because that on the one side, group orientation will improve the cooperation of employee involvement, however, on the other side, employee are used to do what are are told to do. Due to this conflict, the study of effect of employee participation and involvement become significant and mysterious. It particilaurly is the case for the Chinese small and medium-sized private enterprises, which of the number and influences is increasing in Chinese economy.#p#分頁標題#e#

hypothese

The case which is studied in this thesis is Hao Yu Micro-electronics Co.,Ltd, as we discussed in the introduction, the forms of employee participation and invovlement can be conclude employee group participation schemes because the employees are divided into group and main invovlement and participation activities are held within groups. To analyse the effect of employee paticipation and involvement on employee commitment and turnover, it is necessary to regard perceived group support, work autonomy and team membership as the exogenous variable which are brought by employee participation and involvement schemes and examining their correlations with employee commitment and turnover.

Based on the previous literature, we also propose the below hypothese and test them by employee quantitative analysis

 

Hypothesis 1: work autonomy positively affect employee commitment and turnover

 

Hypothesis 2:participation in decision making positively affect  employee commitment and turnover.

 

 

Perceived group support and employee commitment and turnover

As the part of perceived organization support, perceived group support is the perception of employees concerning the extent to which their work group value their contributions and care about their well-being (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison and Sowa, 1986; Bishop, Scott and Burroughs, 2000). Perceived group support can be mainly influenced by frequent and comprehensive praise and approval, and other rewards such as pay, job enrichment and control over decision-making with in employees’ work group also affect perceived group support. They suggest that an employee expectancy which organiztion would reward great effort will be increased by perceived support (effort-outcome expectancy). By increasing effort-outcome expectancy, perceived group support have positive effect on employee attendance Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison and Sowa, 1986). By using Organizational Commitment Questionnair, Buchanan (1974 cited in Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison and Sowa, 1986) found perceived support have positive effect on employee commitment. And Hrebiniak (1974) found that if perceived envirnment is benign, perceived support strengthens employee effort-outcome expectancy and employee attachment, which lead to great effort put into work by employees and low absenteeism and employee turnover.

Hypothesis 3: perceived group support positively affect employee commitment and turnover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Methodology

The data for this study were obtained from five employee from each level in the company. The data were administrated by researcher and received for the employee surveys. The permission of use of data is approved by top managers of company. To ensure employees in the company have good understanding on the study. A quite short introduction meeting was held by researcher after work time. All level of employees including top managers took part in the introduction meeting. During the introduction meeting, researcher descriped study objective, process and task. The whole process of survey for the ananlysis last for almost 1 month, that is from Augst 02, 2010 to September 01, 2010. Employees in Hao Yu Micro-electronics Co.,Ltd mainly participated in two methods. In the first week of study process, voluntary employees are interviewed by telephone. The basic information is obetained by this approach, such as age, gender, education and job. In order to prevent telephone interviews from influencing the result of questionnairs. The questionnair is distributed by researcher two weeks later. There are 20 employee participated in questionnair, it includes 3 temporary workers, 5 engineers, 3 delivery workers, 5customer services and 2 department heads and 2 top managers.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

To measure the variables exactly, three 5-point Likert scales was used in questionair. In all of the scales in the questionnairs, the response options range from ‘strongly agree to strongly disagree’. 

By reviewing previous literatures and studies, some intruments are developed. Because almost all of the present scales in the questionnaires which were adopted had been developed and published by English, the resercher should guarantee the translation of the items in all of the scales are correct. Moreover, it should be realized that the Chinese culture is different from Western culture, thus when translating items from English to Chinese, researcher has to ensure the translated items should remain their original meaning and also can be well understanded by employees in Hao Yu Micro-electronics Co.,Ltd. And the different culture do not just mainfest on the linguist but also on the psychology. Resercher should take this into cinsideration when selecting and translating the items of scales in questionnairs. The questions which are used in questionnairs should not have any conflict with Chinese beliefs and custom. Moreover, the questions in questionnaires should not be too long and too complex, to access the participants and get and result more easily and more quikly, the question needed to be simplified. Before conducting the questionnair survey, the nature and objective of this study will be emphasized again in case of misunderstanding. There are 20 questionnair needed to be distributed. Before distributing to employees in engineering and survey administrator, that is researcher,should gain the permission from department heads. The appoionments should be made before distributing the questionnairs to top managers. However, the limitation of distribution of questionnairs to temporaray worker is less than other employees. Researcher usually distributed questionnaires to temporary workers after work time. After finishing the questionnaire, all of the participants are invited to make comments on the design of the questionnaires.

In the beginning of survey, some basic information will be collected firstly by telephone interview, such as gender, age, type of job, work hour and so on. To protect employees’ privacy, the name of participants will not be published. In the scale of perceived group support in questionnaire survey, seven items can be used to measure the perceived support. The items are selected from the Survey of 留學生人力資源管理dissertationPerceived Organizational Support (SPOS) ((Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison and Sowa, 1986) which had been used in many previous studies. In the scale of work autonomy, questions are developed by resercher and questions in participation in decision making is from the previous study of Ruh, White and Wood (1975 cited in Scott, Bishop and Chen, 2003). In the scale of employee commitment, the questions used in this study are selected and developed from Orgniazational commitment Questionnaire (QCQ) which is published by Porter and Smith in 1970, there are 7 items totally. And to measuring the employee turnover in the questionnairs, the questions of intention to quit are developed by researcher, there are 3 questions in totoal.#p#分頁標題#e#