Abstract Aim: This project deals with ‘employee involvement in the implementation process of waste management. The research focus on Volvo Cars Corporation since the company involves a set of departments in such process. The purpose is to identify the dominant factor(s) affecting employee involvement during waste management execution. These factors are ‘the creators of employee involvement’ and they are organizational culture; communication; training and education; teams; employee empowerment; and rewards. Thus, the research question that has been addressed is ‘how does employee involvement take place in organizations during the implementation of waste management strategies?’ Method: Case study design was applied since it serves as ground for understanding the phenomenon; and it is connected to qualitative research. The authors collected mixed data. Secondary data were gathered from the firm’s sustainability reports, while primary data is obtained from interviews with Volvo’s employees who were related to waste management implementation. Results were offered by applying coding, categorization and content analysis. Results and Conclusions: Volvo demonstrates a green corporate culture with informal and participative channels of communication. Employees work in cross-sectional and self-managed teams and they are not intensely trained in environmental oriented issues. Decentralization in decision-making is the common approach within the company. Moreover, a bonus reward system exists there. Limitations and Suggestions for further research: As the results from representative case studies design cannot be generalized, a comparative case study design regarding a number of automotive companies is recommended. The employee involvement factor has been explored in this study, however, additional research regarding firm’s performance and employee involvement outcomes is decidedly suggested. In addition, the authors recommend to conduct further studies related to other green strategies such as lean production, reduction of toxic emissions, reuse, recycle, etc. Contribution: training and education programs plus rewards packages are found irrelevant in the employee engagement with waste management. Conversely, the conducted study find out additional factors. They are the ‘social component’ and the ‘ecological mentality’ of the business which have to be considered for managers and society as important dimensions in the course of the employee involvement. Key words: HRM, employee involvement, waste management implementation process, creators of employee involvement.

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In recent years, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been widely studied. Scholars agree that employee involvement is crucial for successful implementation of CSR, however complexities exist as employee involvement in CSR is not always evident in organisations. While existing literature commonly address the importance of employee involvement, it seldomly devote attention to what factors affect this involvement and as such, does not focus of why certain factors are brought up. Moreover, as employees are key stakeholders in organisations, there is a need of including their voice to contribute with valuable insights to the field. The purpose of this study is first to examine what factors contribute to employee involvement in CSR activities, followed by the second aim of understanding why these factors are considered important with regard to employee involvement. As the nature of the study is qualitative, an interpretivist design is applied, with four companies acting as foundation for data. Primary data is collected through semi-structured interviews with the use of open-ended questions. A thematic approach is applied for analysing data. The empirical findings reveal five factors contributing to employee involvement in CSR and why those factors are important. These are (1) Coordination, as it helps provide clear guidelines anchored in deeper purposes, (2) Conditions, since varying tools enable those guidelines to be implemented, (3) Communication, because it allows employees to learn and be updated regarding CSR, (4) Concretisation of actions, by making CSR visible and easier to apply, and finally, (5) Community, since it fosters the mindset of shared responsibility and solidarity. These findings are visually presented in Figure 2 - The 5C-Model for Employee Involvement in CSR.

Advocates of self-managed teams, a common strategy for organizing work, suggest that teams may be a solution to gender inequality in the workplace. According to this argument, the nonteam-structured workplace is typically stratified by gender with women occupying the lower stratum of the hierarchy. Women's formal and informal interactions are therefore limited to mostly other women in similar low-status positions. This gendered pattern of interaction is said to negatively affect women's career opportunities and outcomes because women's positions prevent them from accessing and mobilizing good social capital - benefits from ties to influential persons within the organization. Self-managing teams that cross-cut workplace positions and subunits provide access to good social capital, thus enhancing women's work outcomes. I tested this argument with data from a case study of employees in the asset management subdivision of a multinational insurance and asset management company dubbed Finco Asset Management. In general, the results confirm the benefits of participation in self-managing teams. First, in Chapter 3 I found that workgroups, the nonteam structure at Finco, were more likely to be segregated by gender than self-managing project teams. In Chapter 4, I found that workplace position, workgroup and the perceived importance of another for one's career advancement determined the informal structure at Finco. Tie importance attenuated the effect of joint project team participation, which suggests that employees were strategic about forming ties with influential persons in project teams. In Chapter 5, I found that the informal structure, particularly indegree centrality and outdegree centrality, were key predictors of promotion and pay increase. Indegree centrality alone determined layoffs, however. Thus consistent with the social capital argument, self-managing project teams reduced gender segregation, provided access to important informal networks and the informal networks influenced employee work outcomes. However, gender mattered as well. Women were more likely to share workgroups and less likely to be in upper management. Women were also less likely to have same-sex informal networks within their subdivision after accounting for tie importance; however, they were more likely to have same-sex ties in other subdivisions. Women also reported lower job commitment and saw fewer opportunities for mobility at Finco in comparison to men. Hence, while participation in cross-cutting, self-managing teams does improve women's work outcomes, gender differences persist in positions and attitudes.

M.Phil. (Business Management) / This dissertation is a theoretical study of participatory management. According to research, companies tend to neglect the employees as one of their most valuable assets in favour of the more efficient use of raw materials and capital assets. The primary goal of the study was to show that by the effective implementation of a participatory management program, it will lead to certain advantages for both the management and the employees. The first section of the study focuses on the formulation of a definition for the term "participatory management". The -connection between motivation and leadership with participatory management are shown and identified. In the following section of the dissertation the different types of application of participatory management are discussed and practical examples are shown. A practical, yet simple model of participatory management are shown and discussed in detail. The third section of the study refers to the successful implementation of a participatory management program. The barriers in the way of successful implementation and the prerequisites that both the management and the employees have to comply to, to ensure a successful implementation of a participatory management program, are discussed in detail. The resulting advantages of a successful program for both the management and the employees are shown. In the final chapter certain conclusions based on the theoretical study of participatory management are made. One of the most important conclusions is that the success of a participatory management program depends on the support from management.

No / This paper aims to investigate the role of work locus of control (WLOC) as a moderator of the relationship between employee wellbeing and organizational commitment. Design/methodology/approach The paper reports on a quantitative study of middle level executives from motor‐cycle manufacturing organizations based in Northern India. The focus of the paper is to examine the predictive ability of wellbeing and the moderating effect of WLOC in predicting organizational commitment. Findings The results suggest that wellbeing is negatively related to conditional continuance commitment, whereby employees consider the advantages associated with continued participation and costs associated with leaving, and normative commitment, whereby employees feel they have moral obligations to remain with the organization. The presence of an external WLOC has a positive impact on the relationship. Wellbeing, as represented by a hassle‐free existence, predicts positive affective commitment with a particular organization, and internal WLOC as represented by effort influences the relationship negatively. Research limitations/implications Although a cross‐sectional study, its findings have implications for contemporary leadership and organizational psychology research and practice, particularly with regard to understanding of employee commitment in a progressively changing environment. Originality/value Studies examining the role of WLOC as a moderator of the relationship between wellbeing and organizational commitment are limited particularly in the context of post‐liberalization, as is the case with the manufacturing industry in India.

Research report presented to the Unisa School of Business Leadership / The purpose of the research is an investigation into how employee involvement can be used as a tool towards raising levels of engagement within actively disengaged employees at Ngwane Mills.

Research report presented to the Unisa School of Business Leadership / The purpose of the research is an investigation into how employee involvement can be used as a tool towards raising levels of engagement within actively disengaged employees at Ngwane Mills.

Organisational ambidexterity is considered a key to company survival and performance. Despite this, organisational ambidexterity is still a poorly understood phenomenon, especially in an SME context. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate how the compliance with ambidextrous elements is perceived at different levels in manufacturing SMEs, to increase the understanding of organisational ambidexterity in this context. The empirical data was collected through a combination of questionnaire and interview. The case companies in this report perceive that they comply stronger with contextual elements than with structural elements. The strong compliance with contextual elements is motivated by the lack of hierarchies, flexibility in the company, different management structure and low number of employees. This allows employees to perform the contextual elements such as initiative-taking, cooperating, brokering and multitasking. The structural elements including e.g. vision, values, strategies, senior team responsibility and alignment are perceived differently at different  hierarchal levels, indicating that there are subcultures within the hierarchal levels within a company. The biggest difference can be found between the middle managers and the top managers,. Workers perceive that they are not included in explorationb within the company, and that the exploration occur more sporadically than those for exploitation. The definitions of exploration and exploitation vary between the companies which results in a lack of consensus. This makes it difficult for the companies to perform the changes necessary in order to develop and achieve long-term sustainable growth i.e. economical sustainability. The managerial implication of this report concerns four actions: (1) create a common definition for exploration, (2) develop goals for exploration, (3) communicate for buy-in and (4) involve all employees.

The purpose of this study was to document and assess the consequences of implementing employee involvement in a manufacturing setting. Using a quasi-experimental design, the study utilized information from various sources of data including archives, interview, and questionnaire data for a three to four year period. Time series comparisons were used. The results indicated that production increased initially, but then dropped back to original level. Quality of products increased and continued to improve gradually. The highest rate of improvement was observed in safety. An attempt was made to measure current level of commitment at the plant but was unsuccessful due to a low return rate of questionnaires. Overall, data collected partially support the hypotheses. Implications for further research and practice are discussed.