Managing performance and productivity for organizational competitiveness

Citation

Singh, S.K., Burgess, T.F. and Heap, J. (2016), "Managing performance and productivity for organizational competitiveness", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 65 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-05-2016-0090

Managing performance and productivity for organizational competitiveness

Article Type: Guest editorial From: International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Volume 65, Issue 6.

The organizations across the geographical boundaries have been confronting with economically challenging and chaotic business environment. The organizational leaders are burning the midnight oil to enhance the ability of the firm to provide quality products or services to their customers at a competitive price in the marketplace – local, regional and global. The policy makers as well practitioners across the industry sectors fully believe in the management of performance and productivity as two key drivers which if leveraged properly will enhance overall organizational ability to be competitive in the global world economy. However, the management of performance and productivity in an organizational context is not an easy task as they depend upon motivated human resources who are managed through system-driven HR processes wherein the organization believes in "mind-share" than "market-share." Such a kind of HR policies and systems create an organizational climate wherein caring about employees’ concerns, fostering employee engagement, involvement and retention at workplace become a normal but extremely powerful rituals played by persons in the leadership roles. Furthermore, it is also a well-established fact that the management of performance and productivity not only helps increase organizational competitiveness but also add to the economic growth of the country.

It is under this backdrop that this special issue was conceptualized for the academicians, the practicing managers, the consultants and the researchers to contribute empirical as well as conceptual research papers aimed at solving pressing needs of managing performance and productivity at workplace to increase organizational competitiveness. It has eight research papers aimed at exploring and finding out relevant solutions to the issues and the challenges being faced by the practitioners in the organizations. These eight papers throw scientific lights on to designing and implementing sustainable practices necessary for motivating employees and also managing their performance and productivity across the value chain in the organization.

The special issue commences with a research paper on "The Role of Approach and Avoidance Motivation in Employee Voice: The Moderating effect of Ostracism and Contingent Self-Esteem." This paper discusses about the different types of employee motivation to exhibit different kinds of voice behaviors at workplace. It explains about the moderating influence of workplace ostracism and contingent self-esteem on the relationships between motivation and voice behavior of the employees.

The second paper entitled "Satisfaction of Learning, Performance, and Relatedness Needs at Work and Employees’ Organizational Identification" is grounded in the Indian context. The paper discusses about the opportunities of learning and performance vary as per the individual employee’s and as a result there is a challenge for the managers to find out congruence between diverse individual employee needs and opportunities available in the organization to satisfy those needs.

The third paper is entitled "Testing the direct and indirect relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance in the banking sector in the UAE: the mediating impact of Organizational Innovation." The paper has brought out the fact that if an organization enhances the effectiveness of the HRM practices, it will lead to increment in both organizational performance and innovation. In particular, the paper discusses about how the HRM practices namely recruitment and selection, training and development, compensation, and performance appraisal practices positively affects the innovation capability of an organization.

The subsequent paper is entitled "Conflict Resolution Styles and Personality: The Moderating Effect of Generation X and Y in a Non-Western Context." It was empirically found in this study that the Generation X and Y do not have moderating effect on to the relationship between the dominating conflict handling style and the five personality traits. Whereas, they study also noted that Generation X and Y moderated the linkage between the integrating conflict style and extraversion of the employees working in the electronic retail sector in a non-western culture.

The special issue moves to a research paper entitled "Authentic Leadership, Work Engagement and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors in Petroleum Company" in the United Arab Emirates. The paper mentions that the authentic leadership significantly increases the work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior on the employees. Furthermore, it says that the psychological empowerment has positive contribution to the strength of the relationship between authentic leadership with work engagement through the mediating role of the organizational citizenship behavior of the employees.

The succeeding paper is entitled "Competing through Employee Engagement: A Proposed Framework." The proposed framework of employee engagement succinctly describes the linkages between leader, team, perceived organizational support and organizational culture with employee engagement to be mediated by the level of employee motivation. The paper discusses about varied ways to retain human resource at workplace for overall organizational productivity.

The penultimate paper in this special issue is entitled "Determinants of Organizational Performance: A Proposed Framework" and is grounded in research-based literature. This paper is founded on a ground that leadership plays the most important role in the success stories of individual employee’s performance and also organizational performance. The authors of this paper have made a serious attempt to weave together literature to propose a framework wherein how do cognitive, social and emotional competencies influence the overarching leadership competencies and that in turn positively impacting employee and organizational performance.

The last paper of the special issue is entitled "Measuring the Effects of Role Efficacy Enhancement on Knowledge Workers: Evidence from Indian IT industry." This paper empirically supports the existing literature on to the linkages between the role efficacy and the role stress dimensions of the knowledge workers. It also suggests that the jobs and the roles with built-in characteristics of feedback and autonomy should be designed to reduce stress and tension in the employees at workplace.

Overall, this special issue with eight research papers will surely provide varied perspectives and insights into management of productivity and performance for organizational competitiveness. To be more specific, each of the eight research papers provide critical inputs, tactics and strategies necessary for the productivity of the organization as well as its individual employees. We hope that the readers will find this special issue challenging and thought provoking.

Sanjay Kumar Singh -College of Business Administration, Abu Dhabi University, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Thomas F. Burgess -Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

John Heap -National Productivity Centre, Leeds, UK