Strengthening employee participation and commitment to continuous improvement through middle manager trustworthy behaviors

摘要

If implemented properly, continuous improvement (CI) can lead an organization to performance excellence. This can be achieved only by involvement of everyone in the organization so that new ideas are generated and constant improvement and innovations can take place. Many cases are reported where CI has failed to achieve the desired result, mainly to due to lack of support from employees. Organizations should design and implement CI system that promotes employee participation in innovation-related activities and should understand the best managerial practices that promote both individual and collective participation. Middle managers play a very important role as they deal with employees on a regular basis. The trust employees have with their supervisors is a key factor in the success of CI. The goal of this article is to identify middle management behaviors that establish real trust between employees and their direct supervisors to foster participation of employees in CI activities. In order to find out the views of employees, a group of experienced employees' views were gathered using the concept mapping technique. Concept mapping helps conceptualize various views expressed in a perceptual map. The map shows how different views converge into similar ideas in dealing with the problem being studied. The results provide empirical evidence about potential effects of management practices that promote employee participation in CI tasks.