Employee involvement for continuous improvement and production repetitiveness: a contingency perspective for achieving organisational outcomes

A debated issue in the literature regards whether the effect of employee involvement for continuous improvement on organisational outcomes differs in contexts with different degrees of production repetitiveness. Divergent positions can be found both in the OM and HRM field. This paper aims at investigating the direct and indirect effect (through Just In Time (JIT) and Total Quality Management (TQM)) of employee involvement for continuous improvement on organisational outcomes (quality, cost, responsiveness and employee relations), and the moderation of production repetitiveness on both these effects. Survey data analyses support that employee involvement for continuous improvement has a significant indirect effect on organisational outcomes through JIT and TQM which is not moderated by production repetitiveness. Instead, lowering production repetitiveness, the direct impact of employee involvement decreases and could become even non-significant. These results contribute to OM and HRM literatures, by emphasising the need to distinguish between direct and indirect effect when studying the role of production repetitiveness as a contingency. Overall, this research contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms through which employee involvement for continuous improvement affect organisational outcomes.