Browsing by Author "Smit, Izanne"
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- ItemMini business activities, team performance, job satisfaction and team innovation in manufacturing: a South African perspective(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-04) Smit, Izanne; Bam, Louzanne; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Industrial Engineering.ENGLISH SUMMARY: The Quality Circle (QC) originated in Japan and is described as a small group of manufacturing employees who are in the same work area, and who meet regularly and voluntarily to identify, study and solve problems pertaining to quality. Many organisations implement different variations of QC programmes in a variety of industries to solve a wider range of problems, and these programmes often go by various different names. A number of South African organisations are implementing a variation of QCs called a Mini Business Activity (MBA). Providing for the fact that each country has a unique culture, language(s), and quality of education, it cannot be assumed that the effects of QCs in other countries are applicable to South Africa. Similarly, it cannot be assumed that findings on the outcomes of QCs in their original form will be identical for variations of QCs, such as MBAs. The aim of this empirical study is to determine whether MBAs in South African manufacturing organisations have the same effect that QCs have in Japanese and North American organisations. This study is classified as non-experimental, hypothesis-testing research and the effect of MBAs on three outcome variables, namely team effectiveness, team innovation and job satisfaction, is investigated while employee engagement is modelled as a mediator between MBAs and job satisfaction. A questionnaire is used to collect data from a total of 390 respondents from five South African manufacturing organisations that are implementing MBAs. A linear regression analysis is used to analyse team effectiveness and team innovation, while job satisfaction is analysed as a multilevel mediation model using the multilevel structural equation modelling (MSEM) framework. The results indicate that in South African manufacturing organisations, MBAs have a significant positive effect on team effectiveness and team innovation that is similar to the effect of QCs in both American and Japanese manufacturing organisations, but that MBAs have no direct or indirect effect through employee engagement on job satisfaction—which differs from past findings for QCs. This research helps to fill a gap that exists in literature regarding the impact of MBAs in South African manufacturing organisations. In addition to the theoretical contribution, the research also has practical value, enabling local organisations to make more informed decisions on whether to devote resources to the implementation of MBAs or not. A few key conclusions are that, if organisations wish to improve team effectiveness and team innovation, MBAs could be a useful tool to achieve this. However, MBAs were found not to have an impact on job satisfaction and therefore are not recommended as an effective mechanism for improving this outcome.