Workplace practices and firm performance in manufacturing

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of innovative workplace practices in a sample of manufacturing establishments. Design/methodology/approach -The sample comprises manufacturing establishments located in Italy and a comparable sample extracted from the British Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS). The paper controls for sector, size, skill quality and industrial relations. Findings -Job rotation and technical training are positively associated with current performance in both samples. On average, British establishments are more productive: the different endowment in terms of workplace practices, skills and industrial relations accounts for 40 per cent of the gap, while the different efficacy of the endowment on performance accounts for the remainder. Originality/value -In both samples the introduction of team working implies a relatively important advance along the reorganisation process, which was undertaken in the early stages of reorganisation in British establishments but much later in Italian firms. Linking the progression of the reorganisation to non-convexities in supermodular production functions may be an interesting line of future research.

Off‐the‐job training and the shifting role of part‐time and temporary employment across institutional models. Comparing Italian and British firms

“…Another limitation is that the Italian dataset neither provides any information on the share of non‐standard workers employed in each firm nor it contains information on the presence of non‐standard workers in non‐training firms. Regarding firms' size, the pervasive presence of small firms in the Italian sample makes the distribution more similar to the UK one if all British establishments are included in the comparison, as also noticed Cristini and Pozzoli (2010).…”

Conceptual Framework of Lean Ergonomics for Assembly Process: PDCA Approach

“…Job design have been used by organisation to eliminate waste based from preventing on repetitive jobs and objective of production for reduce time and production costs in assembly process [47]- [49]. Cristini and Pozzoli, [50] pointed job design can be motivate the organisation because job design were part of a lean production system and total quality, focused on the employees requirements with more autonomy during working time in production system. In addition, job design are also commonly recommended to moderate continuous exposure to ergonomics risk factors for MSDs [51][52][53].…”

Job rotation designed to prevent musculoskeletal disorders and control risk in manufacturing industries: A systematic review

“…Job-rotation programs emerged in the 1980s and 1990s as organizational strategies aimed at increasing the performance and the flexibility of workers (Cristini and Pozzoli, 2010; Kernan and Sheahan, 2012). These programs have often been adopted by engineers and managers to reduce time and production costs (Azizi and Liang, 2013; Corominas et al, 2006; Moreira and Costa, 2013).…”

“…These programs have often been adopted by engineers and managers to reduce time and production costs (Azizi and Liang, 2013; Corominas et al, 2006; Moreira and Costa, 2013). The initial motivations for implementing job-rotation programs were part of a lean production system and total quality, focused on the need for more workers with more autonomy (Corominas et al, 2006; Cristini and Pozzoli, 2010). Job-rotation programs are also frequently recommended to mitigate continuous exposure to risk factors for musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) (Comper and Padula, 2014; Leider et al, 2015a; Mathiassen, 2006).…”