University of Twente Student Theses
The role of HRM in participation of work-floor employees in employee-driven innovation through an online suggestion system
Velthof, L.B. (2021) The role of HRM in participation of work-floor employees in employee-driven innovation through an online suggestion system.
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| Abstract: | Since EDI is an understudied concept and it is valuable to involve work-floor employees in the innovation process through EDI, it is interesting to further study the process of EDI. Limited research has been done into the participation of work-floor employees in EDI through an online suggestion system and the role of HRM in it. This is of importance because a common issue of online suggestion systems is employee participation and HRM is concerned with managing employees. Thus, the purpose of this research is to explore how HRM affects the participation of work-floor employees in the EDI process through an online suggestion system. This study is based on a multiple case study with four cases. Data was collected on the basis of desk research and 28 semi-structured interviews. Remarkably, the HR-department was missing in the EDI process. Work-floor employees did experience HRM activities that generally came from managers. The collected data has resulted in several clusters with the most influential antecedents being ‘assessment, annual team target, and monetary reward’, ‘dependencies’, ‘supportive supervision’, ‘getting no feedback’, ‘intrinsic motivation’, ‘feeling nothing is done’, ‘functionalities: high difficulty’, and ‘having no time’. The degree of participation in EDI through an online suggestion system seems to depend on the employees’ experience of the antecedents and mechanisms. This experience has five underlying mechanisms that have both positive and negative sides. These are the following: ability/inability, motivation/demotivation, opportunity/ impossibilities, willingness/unwillingness, expectation/no expectation. We were not able to obtain much information from the HR-departments because in most cases they were not familiar with the online suggestion system and EDI process. Although we have heard that work-floor employees experience HRM activities from others within the organization, such as managers, it is interesting for future research to study how the HR-department can be involved. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 85 business administration, organizational science |
| Programme: | Business Administration MSc (60644) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/88140 |
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