Determinants of Employee Involvement Practices in Manufacturing Enterprises

Faced with today's dynamic and competitive environment, manufacturing enterprise successes rely significantly on using the workforce's entire capacity to generate new ways of working and to make relevant and timely decisions. This paper identifies the determinants of employee involvement (EI), and discusses the employment of EI practices and its influences on the organizational performance of manufacturing enterprises with particular reference to both electronics and plastics industry sectors in Hong Kong. Incorporating the empirical findings of a recent study, an analytical digest of managerial views on critical factors, sub-factors and benefits of EI adoption is presented. A generic decision framework for EI adoption is elaborated using the analytical hierarchy process technique. The study found that management commitment, rewards and motivation were the most critical factors; clear corporate mission, continuous improvement and both extrinsic rewards and intrinsic rewards were the dominating sub-factors of EI adoption. Effective involvement practices could bring along attainable employee satisfaction, quality improvement and productivity enhancement in manufacturing enterprises.