Graduation Year
2015
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree
Ph.D.
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Degree Granting Department
Economics
Major Professor
Gabriel Picone, Ph.D.
Co-Major Professor
Walter Nord, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Andrei Barbos, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Paul Spector, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Josh Wilde, Ph.D.
Keywords
continual improvement, employee voice, malaria, manager humility, mosquito bed nets, Nigeria
Abstract
In highly competitive industries where firms aren’t protected by barriers to entry and consumers’ preferences are constantly changing, the willingness and ability to adapt and continually improve operations may be critical for continued success. However, the internal exchanges between employees and managers that may be an integral part of the development and implementation of new ideas are often not modeled or included in our standard economic theories. In this research I investigate whether a higher level of employee voice (or employee input) predicts higher levels of continual improvement, and whether this continual improvement predicts higher levels of firm performance. Additionally, I will study whether humble managers keep this process going by fostering an environment where employees feel free to provide input. If this chain of events can help us better understand differences in firm performance then perhaps we can enhance our models by measuring and including these internal firm characteristics instead of simply leaving them inside the error term and calling them “unobservable.” Results across three separate studies show that humble managers are more likely to be perceived as making continual improvements and higher levels of perceived continual improvement leads to both greater levels of employee voice and fewer perceived job obstacles. A pilot study involving two separate quick-food restaurant chains also lends support for the above ideas, but uses sales in dollars as the measure for performance. Additionally, holding the employee constant in a fixed-effects analysis shows that the same employee is more likely to voice ideas to a manager he or she reports as continually improving the way things are done.
Scholar Commons Citation
Gelsheimer, Stacey Alexis, "Two Essays Examining Organizational Performance" (2015). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/5688
