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High-involvement management, economic recession, well-being, and organizational performance

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posted on 2023-06-09, 14:48 authored by Stephen Wood, Chidiebere Ogbonnaya
High-involvement management was introduced as a means of overcoming economic crises, but it has been argued that the inevitability of cost-cutting measures when organizations face such crises would undermine its efficacy. This article first presents theories of why tensions may exist between high-involvement management and actions typically taken by management during recessions, such as wage and employment freezes. It then reports research aimed at testing whether the performance effects of high-involvement management were lower in organizations where management took such actions to combat the post-2008 recession, due to their adverse effects on employees’ job satisfaction and well-being—and even whether high-involvement management still had a performance premium after the recession. Using data from Britain’s Workplace Employment Relations Survey of 2011, the research shows that both dimensions of high-involvement management—role- and organizational-involvement management—continued to be positively associated with economic performance as the economy came out of recession. Recessionary actions were negatively related to both employee job satisfaction and well-being, while job satisfaction mediated the relationship between role-involvement management and economic performance, which is consistent with mutual-gains theory. However, recessionary action reduced the positive effect that role-involvement management had on job satisfaction and well-being and thus may have reduced its positive performance effects. In the case of organizational-involvement management, it reduced the level of job dissatisfaction and ill-being, suggesting that it may provide workers with more information and greater certainty about the future.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Journal of Management

ISSN

0149-2063

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Issue

8

Volume

44

Page range

3070-3095

Department affiliated with

  • Management Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Future of Work Hub Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2018-08-28

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2018-08-28

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2018-08-24

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